SOC425H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Asteroid Family, Maquiladora, Labour Power
Document Summary
"9 in the early 1980s the image of the docile young woman began to crack. Inter- union conflicts led to several strikes, bringing anomalous pictures ofdefiant women work- ers, sticks in h and, to the front pages of local newspapers. Shortly thereafter, peso devaluations dramatically cut wage costs in dollarterms, and the demand for maquila workers soared. This led to a shortage ofyoung wome n willing to work at maquila wages and to an increasingly assertiveattitude on the part of those already employed. Confronted by young womenworkers who did not behave like"women" at all, some man- age rs faced byshortages turned to young men. Individual manager"s claims around the gendered nature of the "ideal" workerreference public framings but do not reproduce them. As a result, within the context of these individualized strategies and workers" responses to them, distinct ive gendered subjectivities emerge for workers oneach production floor.
