The Gendered and Social Reproduction Conventions of Globalization and Neoliberalism

Abstract

Record ID: 145

Award(s): Excellence in Research Mentoring 

Program Affliliation: Supported by the Taft Research Center

Student Major: Political Science

Project Advisor: Amy Lind

Abstract: Although globalization has provided several advancements in technology, culture, medicine, etc., neoliberal globalization has gendered and social reproductive consequences on the global south, even sometimes in the north, when producing for the global north. Neoliberalism values deregulation, privatization, and free trade. Despite the seemingly positive approach to globalization, it comes with several repercussions that disproportionately affect lower-class and minority communities. The labor throughout the neoliberal market is exploitative as deregulation of the global market allows for cheap wages, dangerous working conditions, and a gendered, social reproduction of poverty, on purpose. This allows for interchangeable and replaceable working in times of plenty and a cut in times of scarcity. Neoliberal globalization emphasizes unequal exchange amongst countries holding great wealth and power against those with less. With that said, neoliberal ideologies can emulate a facade of social progression, yet they lack productive and true social changes.