Maquilapolis: The Negative Effects Of Globalization On Women

While we talk about globalization, most of us would think of it as the process by which companies move their business beyond domestic and expand to other markets around the globe. It is supposed to increase the interconnection, to boost international economy, and to benefit all countries involved in the trade. However, the dark side of globalization is that it destroyed the life of people who lived in developing countries, particularly female workers. The effects are demonstrated in the film “Maquilapolis” and Lopez’s article. Since companies only take profit as their first concern, I believe female workers in developing countries were suffering mentally and physically from the negative effects of globalization because their problem was ignored

Due to globalization, the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed by Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The purpose was to remove barriers to the exchange of goods and services, but it hurt Mexican agriculture. Rural Mexican farmers could not compete the U.S agribusiness which lead mass migration of farmworkers to the U.S. Under this situation, the real victims were women left behind in Mexico. Their husbands escaped from poverty in a different country where they can make more money. Some men even find a new wife and stop providing financial support to families in Mexico. Women lost their spouses and struggle to feed the children. As Lopez states, “many abandoned women regularly express overt manifestations of chronic depression… many women I spoke with consistently disclosed that migration had dismembered families and destroyed domestic life in Mexico” (p36). Abandonment caused serious mental problem for Mexican women, but we were not able to image how difficult those abandoned women’s life were. The root of the problem came from globalization. If farmers could compete with other agribusiness, there is no need to flee to the U.S, and the abandonment would less likely to happen, at least those families would be integrated. Moreover, since abandoned women had few choices

Globalization brought many multinational corporations to trade in different countries. That is believe to boost economy and benefit everyone. But the problem is that companies only look at their own profit, they cared more about maximize profit rather development. No health protection and labor rights were guaranteed to maquiladora workers and they were exploited. When globalization made Mexican farmers to flee to the U.S, the life of Mexican women was extremely difficult. Although the two groups participated in globalization, the only winning group was multinational corporation. Because workers sacrificed their life to satisfy the greed of companies. Globalization could be good, but only when every group of people are taken into consideration and companies are willing to distribute their profit evenly and reward those who work for them. Because it is unfair to produce profit on those who struggle to live their life. Therefore, I really hope there could be a balance between companies and workers while developing