Patrick Campbell
Anuradha Shyam’s piece “Safe Keepers and Wage Earners,” discusses the understanding of women who are forced to balance many aspects of their lives and their struggle or triumphs throughout their experience. Furthermore, she discusses how certain occurrences in the working world, like advancement and promotion, and how it affects the other aspects of that individual’s life outside of the workforce. This piece seemed to be a very fundamental chapter regarding a person in the work force and how their change in stature in their respected business transitions to the rest of their life. Personally, I seemed to learn a lot more from Enloe’s chapter.
Cynthia Enloe’s piece, “The Globetrotting Sneaker,” sheds light on the difference of treatment towards women in America and foreign countries regarding top sneaker companies like Nike. Through research it is obvious that there are many differences concerning foreign employees of American companies. American companies operating most of their business overseas is very cost effective because the labor laws that are established in America are set to guarantee wages to their employees and in foreign nations there are no standards for payment, therefore these companies thrive on cheap labor. That being said, although Enloe illustrates these differences for female employees, there is a universal treatment of both genders regarding cheap labor in foreign countries. As Amanda has stated in her main post, I also agree that I was taken back when I learned about the government’s involvement as “a control mechanism for suppressing women’s engagement in the labor movement.” The reason this is so astonishing is because it makes these women basically handcuffed on the subject of their self advancement because there is always going to be an outside agent that maintains or worsens their current condition.
Nike's mistreatment of foreign employees:
I have always found the dynamic between men and women very interesting when it comes to who has what responsibilities in the household and who in the workplace. Society tells us that women are supposed to be at home taking care of the kids, cleaning, and making dinner. However, women have slowly began to become a much greater force in the workplace. They have begun to take on jobs that were almost entirely male a century ago. What does this mean for the dynamic in the home? There are still may more stay at home moms than dads in the world. However, there are plenty of two income households where the mother and father both have jobs. Who is responsible for the household work in these situations? I think it should be a shared responsibility, as it is in my house. However, I feel that because society says that women are the caretakers of the house, they are more likely to have to juggle their job and housework, while the man only has to worry about work. This is completely unfair, but it seems to be the way society is today.
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