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I don't buy their theories nor do I find this book very objective in the message they SHOULD be conveying. Not a good read. The author(s) come across as extremely feminist and claim that all women subject to these conditions are victims of globalization and capitalization.
Hochschild is professor of sociology at Berkeley.The major migratory pathways for women are described generally as from south to north. In Viet Nam, the war killed many males and a disproportionate number of males were able to migrate to the US after the war. A single mother can earn enough in a developed country as a nurse, a nanny or as a prostitute to leave her children behind in the care of a relative and pay for their education and daycare. The hours are long, overtime is seldom paid, time off it minimal, workers are sometimes farmed out to other families, or required to travel with the family on "holiday." The children often become attached to the nanny as part of the family, but this can result in jealousy on the part of birth mothers. The book lacks the impact it could have had.This book is nicely done and thought provoking, but the absence of proposed solutions is a major omission.
Presumably better laws are needed as well as a willingness to enforce existing laws in the case of the sex slavery and sex tourism. Index. This good money is used to pay the family bills, but husbands sometimes spend the funds on alcoholism and gambling when the wife is away. In France, they now come from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria; in Italy, from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Cape Verde. Apparently several previous books have issued, but this subject has received little attention in the overall scheme of immigration policy. This has resulted in an over abundance of females. Industrial workers have more money to spend on prostitutes. In Europe migrants come from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Generally, migrants have replaced those who once came from poor rural areas of their own countries.Several chapters on nannies and their problems are especially informative. In the oil rich Mideast, many come from Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Phillippines, and Sri Lanka. Mountain Thais now are more willing to sell their daughters to fund the purchase of electronics and other consumer goods. Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, Metropolitan Books, Holt & Co, 2002.Most of us are well aware of the patterns of illegal immigration which bring numerous undocumented workers to the US and other developed countries from less developed countries. I saw no discussion of how these problems should be addressed. These include maids, nannies, nurses, those who care for the young and elderly and extends to those kidnaped or sold into the sex slave trade and those who seek marriageable partners in developed countries to obtain visas. They have now been replaced by Latinas mostly from Mexico and Central America.
Those who work in agriculture, lawn care, and low paying jobs like janitors are well known. Different solutions seem appropriate in the case of licensed nurses who are aided in getting visas to fill a real shortage. The sociological aspect is consistent with Ehrenreich's usual works--always rich with social commentary. This time she functions as editor and provides one chapter from her earlier experience at Merry Maids as told in Nickeled and Dimed. Educated females become un-marriageable. Bibliography.
This book takes a detailed look at female migrant workers. Perhaps different solutions are needed for each group. Now, rapid industrialization and rising standard of living have created major growth in sex tourism. Notes. Arranged marriages with US citizens is one solution to this problem. The presence of undocumented migrants working as nannies and domestics is yet another problem. In Thailand, in the less prosperous mountain districts, daughters once were sold into sex slavery when the economic survival of the family required it.
A collection of charts provide details of the female migrations. In the Dominican Republic, married women may voluntarily go to the larger town of Sosua to work as prostitutes in the sex tourist industry. Mixing all of them in a single volume confuses the issues. This process gives her children access to a better education that can lift them out of poverty.This book is a collection of essays authored with assistance of researchers from numerous third world countries. This book provides perspective on another aspect of the woman's rights movement in developing countries. Some prostitutes hope for a marriage proposal from German tourists. In the US, African American women accounted for 60% of domestics in the 1940s.
Many nannies leave abruptly after an argument.Various aspects of the sex trade are explored.
This harsh reality of the vulnerability of these women is discussed with jargon-free, scholarly precision. The topics are clearly delineated between domestic workers, cheap labor and the sex trade - however, there are unfortunates whose experiences range from one to the other out of necessity, desperation or coercion. Excellent for libraries, research and the well-read individual. In brief essays, the authors present generally unbiased academic discussions of the globalization of female workers. Though hardly a new phenomenon, it has dramatically increased in the last 50 years and is a topic that is deserving of this type of examination.
For example, in various essays we get to meet Dominican women in the sex trade hoping to form relationships with European men; a college-educated Vietnamese women entering into an arranged marriage with an immigrant man holding an unskilled job in the U.S.; Filipina household workers laughing about the rules proposed by prospective Hong Kong employers; and a Sri Lankan man taking over the traditional woman's role to assist migrant relatives working in Saudi Arabia.There are some gaps here, such as the lack of first-person narratives and the views of Eastern European women working in Western Europe, but no anthology can be all-inclusive. I was particularly interested in the articles which did not have an American viewpoint and which presented the views of the women (and occasionally men) involved. This book is a good start and will be an intersting learning experience for most readers. .Nevertheless, this book gives the reader valuable insight into the impact and opinions of women migrant workers in the service trades. All of the anthologized authors write in an accessible style free of academic jargon.
This may sound unimportant and nit picking but the reality is diseases we thought were erradicated like whooping cough can be traced to the unimmunized worker. Safety issues also arise when you consider that most of the illegeal aliens caring for our children have never had childhood immunizations, and refuse the TB test. Leaving your children behind to take care of mine is something we as a nation should give more thought about. As the mother of five that relied on childcare during the many years of single parenting I think we tend to concentrate too much on the elite and their need for childcare. The notion that this childcare contributes to the foreign exchange is a little off base when in reality it contributes to an underground economy because the salaries are mostly off the books and taxes are not paid in any form.
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