Mexican Women in American Factories: Free Trade and Exploitation on the Border

6. Liberation or Exploitation of Women Workers?

As globalization spreads and connects developed and developing countries , the winners and losers are easy to identify. Free trade agreements have created zonas libres, or free trade zones, and a new production model—that of mobile manufacturing. The free movement of capital (both direct and indirect), technology, ideas, and labor is supposed to improve economic efficiencies and reduce production costs. Consumers benefit in two ways. First, they have access to an increased number and variety of goods. Second, they experience an increase in their purchasing power as goods become cheaper. Consumers are able to enjoy an increase in their standard of living. Companies who move capital and technology across borders benefit in a number of ways as well. They have access to more raw materials and cheaper labor, which allows them to reduce production costs and lower prices. These cheaper goods can be sold to millions of consumers in poorer developing countries, which increases the company’s revenues. Profits will increase as well because total revenues rise as total costs fall. These successes imply that the salaries of management and the earnings of stockholders will rise. Clearly, globalization benefits the consumer and the producer. Do the workers bene fit as well? At first glance it appears they do because many unemployed or underemployed workers receive jobs that pay a steady wage. With these higher earnings poor families can move out of poverty and into the working class. A closer examination, however, reveals considerable hardship for many workers. In Mexico, this hardship falls on the women who work in the maquiladoras. Do these modern-day factories provide opportunities for women to become independent and liberated, or are they as exploited as their historical counterparts were two centuries ago? There are two theories that CHAPTER 6 Liberation or Exploitation of Women Workers? 124 Mexican Women in American Factories give conflicting answers to these questions. The integration thesis, originally developed by Esther Boserup (1970), argues that industrialization leads to female liberation and sexual equality by involving women in the labor market and eventually the political process. Both single and married women work outside the home, earning a wage in the formal economy . Initially women are marginal in their society’s developmental efforts because they are typically confined to their traditional roles in the household or in the informal economy. This is interpreted by economists , however, as a waste of human resources for the country. The existence of assembly plants is seen as a source of stable employment that yields income and benefits. This provides economic security for women and their families. In addition, women gain productive skills that increase their competitiveness in the labor market, which promotes upward mobility among industrial firms (which translates into higher earnings). These jobs expand women’s opportunities and offer them an alternative to early marriage and child rearing (Tiano 1991, 78). In contrast, the exploitation thesis, primarily developed by Tiano (1994), argues that industrialization creates a female proletariat by supplying low-wage labor. Instead of offering women new and exciting opportunities to learn useful skills, assembly plants place women within capitalist relations of production, exploiting them and deepening preexisting patriarchal relations that oppress women. Women do not take jobs because they want to and are behaving independently but instead are being directed by their husbands and working just to survive. They accept low wages and poor working conditions to uphold the subordinate and obedient role of women in the family and on the factory floor. Young women especially may be forced to quit school to take assembly jobs and often must hand over their wages to their parents or husbands. Thesis I: The Maquila Industry Liberates Mexican Women Employment in the maquiladoras can offer women an opportunity to leave home and work in a key industry in the formal economy. Depending on the situation at home, women may feel their independence as liberating . Several scholars have developed this perspective in their research on gender and production along the Mexican border. Ellwyn Stoddard (1987) claims “the ladies of the assembly line” are liberated from all three sources of oppression in their lives—their husbands, their bosses, and society. Stoddard goes even further and asserts that the assembly Liberation or Exploitation of Women Workers? 125 line jobs in the maquilas have liberated women from a life of poverty. He believes that most researchers, scholars, and observers are misguided in...