Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism

by Melissa Wright

Everyday, around the world, women who work in the Third World factories of global firms face the idea that they are disposable. Melissa W. Wright explains how this notion proliferates, both within and beyond factory walls, through the telling of a simple the myth of the disposable Third World woman. This myth explains how young women workers around the world eventually turn into living forms of waste. Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism follows this myth inside the global factories and surrounding cities in northern Mexico and in southern China, illustrating the crucial role the tale plays in maintaining not just the constant flow of global capital, but the present regime of transnational capitalism. The author also investigates how women challenge the story and its meaning for workers in global firms. These innovative responses illustrate how a politics for confronting global capitalism must include the many creative ways that working people resist its dehumanizing effects.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Gender, Feminist Theory, Economics

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 17, 2005

About the author

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Reviews

[Sahel's · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melissa Wright has worked for more than thirteen years researching female workers in two factories in third world countries; one in Asia and the other in Mexico. Searching for the roots of the creation of the "myth of disposability" (that unskilled labor force is squeezed for skills and thrown out when no more needed), Wright depicts maquiladora resistance toward the myth and the female labor force agency. Wright has done quite a wonderful job in recounting her journey in such elaborate terms and writing style!

She cites Marx, Judith Butler and Walter Benjamin, Gloriza Anzaldua, and Joan Scott to further illustrate her arguments.

and here are two recommended movies to watch:

For chapter 3 watch Maquilapolis, for chapter 4 watch Bordertown 2006 to see how ideas, derived from on-cite research, are presented in the book.

[Chanda Burrage · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very written and interesting book. I picked up some useful tools from Melissa Wrights' ethnographical analysis of Third World Women in production spaces. I particularly appreciated her national border analysis and the way she related national identity to the stratification of job titles and responsibilities. Wright also mentioned a potential broader application to the exploitation of prison system production workers, which I would like to learn more about.