The Pros And Cons Of Homogenization

Globalization has fostered cross-cultural awareness and has provided access to a variety of low-cost goods. While modern people enjoys the fruits of globalization, many critics discuss about the disadvantages caused by it. Social issues like child labor, environmental degradation, and cultural homogenization are often under passionate debates; the gender issue is of no exception (Marx 1). Some of the feminist scholars are skeptical about the rise of women in a globalized era. They does not believe globalization will necessarily empower women. For example, Denise Riley argues that “whenever women are at issue [the persistent connection between women and teleology] becomes impossible for progress not to eclipse change” (qtd. in Marx 5). Barbara Enrenreich comments, although globalization brings the ambitious and independent upper-middle-class women from “an affluent nation and the striving [women] from a crumbling Third World” together, migration itself generates intractable class barriers between professionals and the service workers (qtd. in Marx 4-5)—this phenomenon can be observed in Brick Lane through the interaction between Mrs. Islam, Lovely,

First of all, she is shunned at the garment factory because her coworkers suspect there is something illicit going on between her and Mr. Chowdhury. One year later, she is fired for allegedly engaging in prostitution. When applying for a new job, she fails because “nobody have machining job. [That] is all training [she] have” (Ali 175). At the end, she becomes a real prostitute. The tragedy begins with the fact that she does not keep a prudent reserve from the opposite sex, which strongly against the convention of Bangladeshi culture. Also, the fact that she cannot find a machining job implies that those job trainings she has had do not really equip him with skills which can help her survive in a rapidly-changing globalized