How does globalization affect women?
Many critics fear that globalization, in the sense of integration of a country into world society, will exacerbate gender inequality. It may harm women-especially in the South–in several ways: • Economically, through discrimination in favor of male workers, marginalization of women in unpaid or informal labor, exploitation of women in low-wage sweatshop settings, and/or impoverishment though loss of traditional sources of income. • Politically, through exclusion from the domestic political process and loss of control to global pressures. • Culturally, through loss of identity and autonomy to a hegemonic global culture. At the same time, many women’s advocates recognize that globalization affects different groups of women in different ways, creates new standards for the treatment of women, and helps women’s groups to mobilize. In situations where women have been historically repressed or discriminated under a patriarchal division of labor, some features of globalization may have libera
