"Woman and Globalization" Conference
July 27-August 3, 2005, Center for Global Justice, San Miguel De Allende, Mexico
Co-Sponsored by the Radical Philosophy Association, the Global Studies
Association, and the Argentina Autonomista Project
Of all the social groups impacted by neo-liberal globalization,
perhaps none has felt it more severely than women, especially those in
countries in the global South. Young women have been the main workforce
in maquiladora sweatshops. Women must do more work to support families as
incomes decline. Women have felt the brunt of violence as frustrated
husbands despair about not being able to provide for their families.
Families have been pushed off the land, women have been left behind to
care for families, and men have gone north to find work. Some women have
also gone north, often as victims of coerced sex trafficking.
Many
returning men have brought AIDS with them to infect their wives. World
Bank and IMF-mandated cutbacks in state services have drastically cut
medical care, and public education now has user fees. These cutbacks
particularly affect women and children, as more women die in childbirth
and children have to leave school at an early age to work.
Similarly,
women are also severely affected in the global North. In the US, welfare
restrictions, increased costs for health care and housing, and declining
state aid for education and other services have disproportionately hurt
women and children, particularly poor women, and have increased the
feminization of poverty. Thus, in both North and South, the social
pathologies engendered by globalization have affected women most
intensely.
