INDIVIDUAL TASK Module 1 | Situating the Field of

1 Gender and Politics

Name: Sean Audric E. Uy | 4 APL Prof: Ms. Claudine S. Coles, MA

PolSci Elective 3

I. Expound the following concepts which are relevant to the changes in gendered
division of labor during the half of the 20 th century that significantly altered the
political position of women.

1. Global Capitalism
 The advent of global capitalism in the 20 th century changed the political and
economic position and demands of woman, though with varying circumstances
depending on the level of their society’s development, historical junctures, and
position in the global relations of power.
 The transition retained global patriarchal norms that saw women to work unpaid,
however women gradually entered the work force especially during World War 2
as part of countries’ war efforts.
 Women in the workplace were generally in gendered occupations and were
treated as a separate group from men with lower wages.
 In the industrialized world, women began to move to sewing, textiles, and
cigarettes.
 In the developing world, women remained stuck in agriculture, the market, and
home duties as they care for their children.
2. Global Feminization through Flexible Labor
 Following World War 2, it became more profitable for companies to exploit the
cheap labor of offshore production especially where women are cheaper to
employ than men.
 The deindustrialization of America due to this phenomenon further removed men
from jobs which necessitated having women in the family to support them and
thus worked jobs that used to belong long-term to men.
 The workforce being feminized is already a global phenomenon by the 1980s that
saw now just their increase in numbers but the restructuring of available work that
used to be mainly for male workers.

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INDIVIDUAL TASK Module 1 | Situating the Field of
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3. Commodity Chain Production

 The flexibility of factories relocating to where employment is cheaper allowed
commodity chain production.
 This affected women who were recruited in export economic zones as part of low
waged manufacturing. However, these remained under low wages and were
generally unstable occupations that soon impacted feminist movements and
conceptualizations in developing countries different from developed countries for
bearing the brunt of investing countries’ global economic expansion.
 Division of labor remained gendered out of women’s disparate economic benefits
which was amplified in the above instance.
4. Neo-Liberal View
 Neoliberalism emerged from the disillusionment and problems caused by the
state-centered Keynesian economic order that preceded.
 This advocated for spending being cut and crucial industries deregulated affecting
women from reduced services. Women in the developing world were moreso
impacted compared to those in the developed world and saw the divide between
feminist apprehension of the workplace in the west and the global south.
5. Revolutionary Phase
 This phase denotes the increase of educated women in the workforce and not
necessarily the number of women in the workforce.
 It was revolutionary for how it shifted the life expectation of women who are now
focused more on their careers rather than married life at home, and changed
norms when it came to their roles in their family, work, and identity and women.
 Women’s aspiration compared to that of men in terms of career and life visions.

II. Enumerate the course of events on the following years that created the socio-
economic milieu of women in the late 20th century.

1. 1971
 The Bretton Woods agreement saw its breakdown alongside the Keynesian
paradigm of political economy in favor of Neoliberalism represented by the rise
of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank who leveraged on the debts
of developing countries to restructure their economies in favor of neoliberal

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policies in the west. This introduced the Washington Consensus on indebted

nations.
 This called for deregulation, reduced spending, and increase of commodity
production for the purpose of defraying debt. This affected women who were at
the receiving end of state services, health, water, energy, and the likes.
2. 1973
 The Oil Crisis Shock of 1973 saw the spike in oil prices from OPEC which led to
countries having high debt burdens which forced them to shift their economic
structure in favor of OPEC and neoliberal countries and institutions like the IMF
and WB.
 OPEC used the payment of debt towards western banks which in turn exploited
the global south through high interest loans. These loans were conditions on SAPs
or structural adjustment policies in favor of Western economies.
3. 1980’s
 In the developing world, women shifted their occupations from agriculture to
white collar jobs.
 Young women entered the workforce and attained high education levels which
changed their perception of life towards their careers and not simply confined to
patriarchal gender expectation of working at home and living a married life.
 Economic norms began to shift with greater emphasis to individual identity rather
than class with the advent of the Neoliberal paradigm.
4. Early 1980’s
 Women expected to work at 35 years old and were more highly educated.
 Married life became less of a concern compared to their interest in employment,
and long-term engagement their careers.
 More counts of divorce emerged, and the neoliberal view began to take root
which shifted the role of state and the position of women in different parts of the
world towards neoliberal philosophies, albeit some were in opposition which led
to debates in the feminist studies of political science between the west and the
global south.

III. Identify the significant events that lead to the emergence of women’s movement
beginning 1960s.

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INDIVIDUAL TASK Module 1 | Situating the Field of
1 Gender and Politics

1. 1960’s Second Wave of Feminism

 Keynesian state-centered paradigm following World War II gave way to the
second wave of feminism that addressed the state as the primarily institution to
challenge due to its domination.
 The feminist wave was amalgamated by the civil rights movement and in
challenging authority structures that were hierarchically male dominated, were
able to push for legislation beyond citizenship and suffragette issues and into the
prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and
the legalization of abortion and contraception.
 Norms, symbols, and institutions were subjected to critique in the public sphere
by more radical elements of the second wave of feminism.
2. 60’s to 70’s Feminists on Gender Inequities
 Global efforts of women who began organizing internationally with the United
Nations Commission on the Status of Women saw a shift in the focus of struggle
from equal citizenship rights to social and economic rights for women.
 Feminists were divided between the developed and developing or colonized
nations due to varying norms, political and economic demands, histories, and
power relations.
 The west was seen as championing imperialist feminism in contrast to the easy
which provided a new level of gender inequity and contests between feminists
themselves. Newer levels of criticisms on gender inequities and wider power
structure slowly cultivated the framework of intersectionality adopted by later
waves of feminism which saw its greater emergence in the neoliberal period.
 The dominance of the state retained the calls of feminists to increase public
childcare programs, pregnancy leave policies, responsibilities by males for care
work, and economic independence.
3. On Neo-Liberal Capitalism
 The Neoliberal capitalist order saw greater focus on individualism that affected
feminists’ vision of femininity beyond family structures and more towards their
individual identities as women, and eventually their intersectionality that

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INDIVIDUAL TASK Module 1 | Situating the Field of
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highlighted differences in varying contexts of women that included their gender,

race, ethnicity, class, and whatnot.
 Neoliberalism shattered the state-centeredness of Keynesian political economy
and sought to erode regulation and service provision managed by the state through
reduced funding. This primarily affected working women especially in developing
and colonized nations.
 Women addressed the social and economic ills of neoliberalism through grassroot
mobilizations and social movements against the massive gender, class, and
intersectional inequalities that neoliberal both produced and helped realized
through its individualist-intersectional framework.

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