Inequality in New Clothes

REVIEW BY LISA TORRES

Department of Sociology, George Washington University

Fashioning Inequality: The Multinational Company and Gendered Employment in a Global-izing World. By Juanita Elias. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004. 210 pp., $94.95 (ISBN:0-7546-3698-4).

Are multinational firms socializing agents that inculcate workers in develop-ing countries with progressive, democratic values that might erode cultural beliefsof sexism and racism? This is an intriguing question, and the answer forms the coreof Juanita Elias’ straightforward book, Fashioning Inequality. If you believe in theaffirmative, as do Elias’ opponents, then there is some hope for an upside to aglobalized economy marked by exploitation, environmental degradation, andother ills. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to assume that, as workers becomeacculturated employees of Western multinational firms, local cultures change.Multinational firms do (at least publicly) promote progressive ideals of ‘‘socialresponsibility’’ and ‘‘diversity.’’ And as highly rationalized organizations, theirinternal policies are meant to minimize arbitrary or discriminatory practices, which(as economists argue) are inefficient. But, as Elias shows, this assumption would bewrong.

Fashioning Inequality is straightforward in argument and structure. The book isorganized into two parts. The first part sets up her opponents’ thesis, the secondpart knocks it down. Elias’ opponents are supporters of the international politicaleconomy perspective, or IPE, one of the many abbreviations used throughout thebook. For Elias’ purposes, the key set of ideas that readers need to derive from IPEtheory is that multinational firms are ‘‘neutral rational-economic’’ actors (p. 2). As aresult, when they locate production to developing countries, they act as a democ-ratizing force, ‘‘generating progressive change’’ (p. 2). From this perspective, mul-tinational firms transform not only the economies of developing countries (throughthe transfer of technologies and skills); they also transform cultural understandingsthrough their organizational policies. Thus, the policies of multinational firms arebelieved to be a mechanism that upends ‘‘locally produced, unequal, patriarchalrelations’’ (p. 4).

Elias refutes these ideas with data from her study of Malaysian garment factoryworkers. She examines the case of UK Apparel Ladieswear Malaysia, a pseudonymfor an offshore subsidiary of a British garment-manufacturing firm. Elias’ researchinterest lies in gendered employment outcomes and the policies of UK ApparelLadieswear, specifically those dealing with employment and recruitment. The caseserves Elias’ goal of testing whether multinational firms actually mitigate genderinequality. As her opponents argue, the nondiscriminatory policies of multinationalfirms should result in more employment opportunities and advantages for womenworkers. But after observing UK Apparel Ladieswear Malaysia’s recruitment ofwomen sewing machinists, Elias finds that ‘‘the multi-national firm does not havean impact . . . in host states’’ in mitigating gendered labor practices. To the contrary,she shows that (1) workers, in fact, ‘‘track’’ local cultural practices and beliefsinto the employing firm; (2) these practices and beliefs eventually becomereplicated within the firm’s organizational policies, specifically its personnel poli-cies; (3) firms allow this because it is profitable, as it was for UK Apparel Ladieswear

r 2005 International Studies Review.PublishedbyBlackwellPublishing,350MainStreet,Malden,MA02148,USA,and9600GarsingtonRoad,OxfordOX42DQ,UK.

International Studies Review (2005) 7, 481–483

Malaysia because it served to keep women’s wages low compared with men’s; and(4) as a result, multinational firms reproduce rather than erode gendered laborpractices.

Fashioning Inequality has several laudable qualities. Methodologically, Elias offers auseful example of how qualitative research can be employed to test social theory.Many social science students are taught in their methods courses that, even thoughqualitative research is acceptable for identifying and describing social patterns,quantitative methods are better suited to the rigorous work of testing theory. And,of course, quantity counts; the more cases of a thing one has, the more robust one’sfindings will be. So, there is methodological value in Elias’ research, which usesinterviews and source documents to take on theory and does so successfully. Eliaspresents readers with convincing data refuting the IPE prediction that the policiesof multinational firms can change local beliefs about the status of women. Indeed,because Elias uses qualitative strategies to get at the social interactions within firms,we see that IPE theory fails to take into account a variety of pressuresFsuch as thepressure for profitsFthat subvert organizational polices. So, for example, in thecase of UK Apparel Ladieswear Malaysia, workers’ beliefs became incorporated intothe firm’s personnel practices.

Fashioning Inequality would contribute an important perspective to courses onorganizational behavior in various disciplines. Elias presents a coherent account ofan organizational process through which local sexist beliefs resulted in womenbeing tracked into low-paying, female sewing jobs. She points in particular to thefirm’s tendency to hire local human resource managers and the lack of monitoringby the parent company to ensure compliance with its corporate policies. Elias pro-vides nice quotes from UK Apparel’s human resource managers highlighting theirbeliefs about women as docile workers who can provide the feminine touch re-quired in sewing.

Certain substantive and stylistic features of Fashioning Inequality, however, are lessuseful and more annoying. Substantively, the literatures that Elias referencesFregarding organizations and gender employment inequality in particularFareoddly parochial. Elias is addressing a specific audience, but she should have citedworks by organizational scholars, who have had a great deal to say about howorganizational practices generate and sustain inequalities (see, for example, Acker1990). Also absent are references to those globalization scholars who have madeimportant contributions to the study of global garment productionFsuch as EdnaBonacich and Richard Appelbaum (2000) on gendered employment in garmentproduction and Gary Gereffi on global supply chains in East Asia (Gereffi andKorzeniewicz 1993). In short, if readers are looking for an overview of the glo-balization literature, this book is not very helpful.

Regarding style, Elias’ use of abbreviations is puzzling and irritating. There areover 55 of them. Although she does provide a reference table to help readers keeptrack of who’s who, the whole effect reinforces the feeling that Elias is mainlyinterested in engaging a very narrow audienceFone already familiar with thesubstantive terrain. After the first chapter, one begins to wish that Elias had handledthe various organizations and theories she cites without relying on constant abbre-viations.

One final note on styleFFashioning Inequality reads like a dissertation. Althoughthat is not a terrible thing, it is not something that recommends the book. Elias’organization of chapters and sections contributes to the feeling that one is reading along research report. Moreover, a self-imposed restraint, characteristic of disser-tations, runs throughout the book. Elias is so careful not to overstate a claim, andshe sticks too narrowly to the storyline at hand. Although good scholarship requiressuch discipline, inspiring scholarship demands more. It is clear that Elias spent asignificant amount of time doing interesting fieldwork. More of that experienceshould have been allowed to come through.

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References

ACKER, JOAN. (1990) Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations. Gender andSociety 4:139–158.

BONACICH, EDNA, AND RICHARD P. APPELBAUM. (2000) Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los AngelesApparel Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press.

GEREFFI, GARY, AND MIQUEL KORZENIEWICZ. (1993) Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism. Westport:Praeger.

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