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.