Jane Sternbach-- Bodies and Labor

Jane Sternbach

4/23/12

Sociology of Globalization

Response to Bodies and Labor

            The theme of this week’s readings is clearly bodies: the commodification, exploitation, and globalization of them.  Each author discussed a different way in which globalization has impacted the movement, use, and availability of bodies around the world.

            Parrenas gave a description of the ways in which gender roles can effect globalization and the global economy. She discusses the way that women in more developed, postindustrial countries have the resources to pay someone (a female someone) else do the devalued reproductive labor, so that she has more time to be in the productive economy earning the money to pay the woman who raises her kids. These women who are doing the reproductive labor travel from all over the world, but Parrenas discusses Filipina women specifically, and leave their families, or reproductive labor responsibilities, in someone else’s hands. Basically if your family has enough money, then you have the right to be raised by someone, otherwise your mother is too busy raising someone else’s child. Something that I found interesting is that regardless of level of development or economic prosperity, societies all over the world expect that women do the double shift of working outside the home for a paycheck, and then working inside the home to keep it running. Parrenas says that in the United States, if a man makes less money than his wife, he is less likely to share the housework (p.568). This is what creates the demand for the migrant domestic workers. In other words, if we had more gender equality in the united states, and all over the world, it wouldn’t matter if your parents were rich or poor, you would be able to be raised and taken care of by someone in your family. Something that she doesn’t mention is the cultural implications of children being raised (at least in part) by women from other cultures. It would be interesting to find out if those children then grow up to do with their mothers did, and hire a migrant domestic worker, or if they are somehow socialized differently because of the cultural differences?

            Wonders and Michalowski discuss the ways the globalization has lead to the creation and expansion of sex tourism through out the world, but specifically in Amsterdam and Havana. The authors say that sex tourism arises from global forces and global connections. In their discussion of Amsterdam, something that I found interesting was the way that sex tourism was an industry, not just a few prostitutes employing themselves. I have been to Amsterdam and can say that that assessment is 100% correct. In certain parts of the city, you cannot walk down the street without being bombarded with offers to buy sex itself, or other sexual paraphernalia. I also thought it was interesting the majority of the prostitutes in Amsterdam are not from Amsterdam and the majority of their clients are not Dutch. So, the sex tourism industry is completely globalized to the point where it almost doesn’t matter that it’s in Amsterdam because the Dutch are pretty much uninvolved.

            Wonders and Michalowski’s discussion of the sex tourism trade in Havana was also very interesting. It was a nice contrast between the two places. Where Amsterdam has an overt sex industry, Havana has a subtle sex trade that in addition to commodifiying bodies, it also commodifies intimacy. It reminds me of an article I read for my Sex, Gender, and Society class about a town in the Dominican Republic where women from all over the country travel to to become a foreign businessman’s escort with the hope that he will eventually want to take her away from her home and marry her. These marriages would rarely happen, and when they did they wouldn’t work out because of the tremendous power differential inherent in the relationship.

            I found Taylor’s article the most interesting out of all of this week’s readings. It is not really news that women’s bodies are being commodified and sold to men to exert their power over. That scenario fits perfectly within the gender constructs that are prevalent throughout the world, and definitely commonplace in the United States. However, the idea that women are exerting their economic independence from men, and the power that comes from that, over men of color abroad makes sense but is still surprising. On the one hand it is good to see women taking control over their sexuality, and not just being passive reciepients of men’s sexuality. On the other hand, it is troubling that these white women are exploiting the poor, black men in the Caribbean. Exploitation in general is troubling, but with the long history of black men’s bodies being exploited, this phenomenon is particularly problematic.