Is Globalisation gendered? If so, in what ways and is this important? Does globalisation rely on, reinforce or transform existing gender ideologies and stereotypes. How does globalisation offer new opportunities for rethinking gender?
Globalisation has a gender
Extensive debates have been surrounding “globalisation” on whether it is a continuation of colonialism, or the phenomenon of modern age, or is just a new stage in capitalist development. In anyway, globalisation is an array of changes that occur in economy, politics and social life of nations. Therefore, globalisation is about class, race or ethnicity, and most importantly gender relations. The impact of globalisation, however, as the topic of study of many dependency and post-development theorists who argue that the impact of the economic development, has been far from what modernists expected and that it exacerbated poverty and strengthened gender stereotypes in the Third World. Globalisation has brought advanced technology, which enabled rapid movement of capital and labour. In addition, in the process of globalisation power and influence of the governments has been reduced and free market policies dominated national economic development. Consequently, organisational restructuring, minimisation and abolition of state welfare, diminishing of unions, weak labour or employment protection, unlimited corporate freedom reinforced neo-liberal ideology. (Nederveen Pieterse, 2003)
Whatever the discourse is regarding the changes, one can be wondering concerning the impact of these changes on notion of gender and gender roles in the process of globalisation, as well as whether the globalisation itself has a gender. Although globalisation itself presented as a gender-neutral process, and it even had in its agenda to bring economic growth to country and prosperity to citizens, as well as promotion of human rights and gender equality, the impact on men’s and women’s lives has been contradictory. This alleged...