Global Woman

Global Woman

Adult nonfiction
"Whether they know it or not, Clinton and Princela Bautista, two
children growing up in a small town in the Philippines apart from
their two migrant parents, are the recipients of an international
pledge. It says that a child 'should grow up in a family environment,
in an atmosphere of happiness, love, and understanding,' and 'not be
separated from his or her parents against their will...' Part of
Article 9 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child
(1959), these words stand now as a fairy-tale ideal, the promise of a
shield between children and the costs of globalization."
When we study about the slavery that was practiced in the United
States for centuries, we pretty much unanimously are horrified by the
abilities of slave owners to break up slave families, selling off
parents from their beloved children. We think, thank God that's
over. And we're wrong.
"Today coercion operates differently. While the sex trade and
some domestic service is brutally enforced, in the main the new
emotional imperialism does not issue from the barrel of a gun. Women
choose to migrate for domestic work. But they choose it because
economic pressures all but coerce them to..."
Can you imagine working thousands of miles from your beloved
children because that's the only way to keep them from starving? Can
you imagine, as a small child, waking up to find your mother gone and
not knowing when/if you'll see her again? This tragedy is only one of
the cruelties depicted in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, And Sex
Workers In The New Economy edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie
Russel Hochschild. Many people have documented a "brain drain"
exacerbated by globalization. Needed professionals such as doctors
are being enticed to move from impoverished countries to First world
nations where they enjoy more adequate work facilities, more money,
and more upward mobility. When it comes to the opposite side of the
coin, the globalization speeded up mass migration of women, often the
poorest of the poor, there is little written. Global Woman attempts
to remedy that dearth of knowledge. A series of essays includes:
*Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo's Blowups and Other Unhappy Endings
discusses the precariousness of domestic jobs for transnational
workers. In the case of live in workers an abrupt termination can
involve lack of food and shelter;
*a number of pieces are litanies of the deprivations care workers
often suffer. Would you like to sleep on the floor of an unheated
storage room?;
*Rhacel Salazar Parrenas' The Care Crisis in the Philippines:
Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy
delineates the ways in which many children growing up with distant
mothers suffer;
*Kevin Bales Because She Looks like a Child describes the suffering of
girls sold to pimps by parents. Can you imagine a fifteen year old
having to have sex with fifteen men a night? There is also physical
abuse to keep them subserviant. And many die much too young from AIDS.
And others.
If, like me, you believe that being raised by your own mother
and caring for your beloved children, living and working under
adequate conditions, and not being sold into prostitution should be
birth rights, not luxuries only afforded the birth fortunate, read
this book and get angry, very angry.
On a purrrsonal note, when I read this book I felt even more grateful
than I was already and ANGRY that so many girls and women have to be
deprived of this so their children will survive.
It is morning and Tobago is watching one of her cat tvs (windows).
She finds the 24 hour all neighborhood channels fascinating.
Yesterday was the first day of spring semester. Of course I was happy
to be back at work. And the class I'm taking on social justice in
regard to higher education will be the cat's pajamas. Not only is the
topic fascinating, but it's a great group. Where this class is not
required, it's only people who are really interested. Everyone I see
gets to see a picture of Tobago. They agree that she is a beautiful
girl.
A great big shout out goes out to my professor and classmates, my work
friends, and sweet little Tobago.
jules hathaway



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