Gender and Globalization
Dr. Carl DavilaThe College at Brockport
Gender, Power and Globalization
S.U.N.Y. Global Workforce Project
Gender Violence Worldwide
Some numbers:One in every three women in the world has experienced sexual, physical, emotional or other abuse in her lifetime.
Source: Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF)
Around the world, 10-69% of women stated that they had been physically assaulted by an intimate partner at some point in their lives.
Source: World Health Organization (WHO)
UNICEF reports that between a quarter and one half of women around the world have suffered violence at the hands of an intimate partner.
Source: The Intolerable Status Quo: Violence Against Women and Girls, The Progress of Nations, UNICEF, 1997
Gender Violence Worldwide
Some numbers:
22% of all women in the U.S. have experienced some form of assault by an intimate partner.
Each year, 4.5 million physical assaults are committed against women by intimate partners.
Source: Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, U.S. Department of Justice 2000.
Research on domestic violence in Europe indicates that every day, one woman in five is a victim of domestic abuse.
Q: How has this affected someone in your family or someone you know?
Gender, Power and Globalization
Benería (Chapter 3): Markets are gendered …
The marketplace is a social construct.
… and therefore gendered, like culture itself
… and thus patriarchal
… a kind of gender system
Two aspects: global and local
A Global Gender System
Connell: the “world gender order”:The mechanisms of economic globalization are all masculine
They are largely created, defined and dominated by men
And they operate in a stereotypically masculine fashion:
A Global Gender System
Connell: the “world gender order”:
Aggression and competition for individual gain
A “zero-sum” mentality
Accumulation of wealth, regardless of the human or environmental cost
Violence as a legitimate means of achieving goals
Characteristic of colonialism, capitalism and the neo-liberal approach to globalization
A Global Gender System
The (global) take-away:
Globalization is every bit as patriarchal as the individual societies that have created it.
It operates in a stereotypically masculine fashion that emphasizes economic and political gain…at the expense of other, possibly less exploitative
values.
Gender, Power and Globalization
Gender violence has local economic dimensions:
Poverty and disruption of traditional gender systems put strains on domestic
relationships In strongly patriarchal societies …
men’s work is a matter of identity, pride and self-esteem
economic changes can challenge traditional views
when women’s labor is needed to support the family
Gender, Power and Globalization
Gender violence has local economic dimensions: A case in point — Morocco
Median age: 25unemployment ages 15-30 = 40%
Generations-long economic crisisfrom globalized economic
changesSo: women moving out of the home and
into the workplace, displacing menNetwork of women’s crisis centers sees
increase in victims of domestic violence
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/willow/geography-of-morocco0.gif
Gender, Power and Globalization
Substance abuse can aggravate the situation
When men — and women — use alcohol to cope
Alcohol is strongly associated with domestic violence
Not just in the developing world!
Gender, Power and Globalization
The take-away at the local level:
Economic globalization is gendered:
It operates in an aggressive, masculine mode …
That in turn transforms local economies …
Which turns gender systems around by bringing women into the labor force …
And one result: increasing domestic violence as both men and women struggle to find new identities within the new economic order.