Globalization and its Discontents

         Cynthia Enloe’s chapters “Globetrotting Sneakers” and “Daughters and Generals” provides an insightful look into the gendered elements of political economy and globalization, the foreign manufacturing of sports goods, and its implications on developing countries and their local constructions of femininity. She reviews the ascension of sneaker giants Reebok and Nike in the global market, and details the exploitative dynamics of globalization on women’s status in society.

        Women, mostly Asian women, during the Post-Cold War era, worked in grueling conditions for lower than subsistence wages to produce sneakers in export-oriented factories. Seeking work to assist their families and to prepare for marriage dowries, these women are led to believe that working for U.S. sneaker companies is an “opportunity” for their countries progress and development. Social values also informed women’s decisions and attitudes towards their employment; Confucian philosophy, adopted by many Korean women during this time, measured a women’s morality by her willingness to work hard for her family and to satisfy her husband’s and father’s requests. Pressures to adhere to local conceptions of femininity embedded in Asian political economy placed women in positions vulnerable to exploitation, and perpetuated their subordination in society. 

        As the global economy expands, sneaker executives employed new strategies to keep costs low, and maintain cheap labor. I found Enloe’s examination of “cheap labor” particularly interesting because it highlights the many relevant social factors that determine economic decisions. As Enloe describes, we often hear and understand cheap labor as automatically cheap by default. However, it is important to acknowledge the multitude of social factors that create “cheap labor” and how “global strategizing is dependent upon local constructions of femininity” (60) to keep labor cheap.  Sneaker executives, U.S. Government Cold War strategists, Korean male factory managers, and militarized officials exerted pressure on women to adhere to constructions to stifle unionizing, self-organizing, and labor protesting. 

        Her analysis evokes the harsh reality that we Americans are literally walking on the dreams of exploited women with the very same sneakers they produce.  These women are subjected to “fantasies of power”; as Enloe claims, “To work in the sneaker factory was many young women’s strategy to rise a rung on the Korean Class Ladder.” (63) Women were led to believe that working in the factories was an opportunity for empowerment, national progress, and social improvement, only to be exploited for profit and patriarchy. To change this reality, women must continue to redefine and challenge what it means to be a “women” in their respective society, and reconstruct their conception of femininity to account for their needs and concerns, living for themselves, not others.