Blog #2 - Seen One Crotch, You've Seen Them All

     Through the progression of this Women's Studies course, I have had the opportunity to get to know Nadine, a 93 year-old woman who has lived quite a spectacular life.  After learning the dress making trade in her last two years of high school, Nadine went to work in a factory as a full time seamstress sewing countless numbers of crotches in women's underwear.  Men owned and managed these garment factories while women sat endless hours operating the rows of cumbersome, labor intensive, and unsafe sewing and cutting machines.

     During this time, export-based industrialization had not been adopted yet by the United States; therefore, U.S. brand name manufacturers supplied the majority of inner city residents with highly sought after industrial jobs (Hu-Dehart, 2007) after the great depression.  An hourly minimum wage was not required, so weekly salaries were dependent on the number of timed piecework produced; however, if a worker were to produce too many pieces within the allotted time, her pay was reduced.  This factory did not provide its employees with:  any benefits, a union, workman's compensation, or air conditioning, and typically recruited women who were young, unmarried, white, low skilled, and most importantly low-cost labor.  These jobs were considered temporary, and women did not have the option of building a career, because they were expected to leave their positions when they married and/or became pregnant.  In today's standards, I would describe this work environment to be highly discriminatory and oppressive; however, back then the women did not complain, because every day they were reminded that they were replaceable.

     According to Surviving Globalization by Hu-Dehart, these types of working conditions in 1938 still continue today, and could easily be compared to a modern day garment sweatshop or electronics assembly plant.  Export processing zones (EPZ) and some state-side factories similarly rely heavily on female labor to do "women's work", and continue to take advantage of women by failing to meet minimum wage, labor, and safety standards.  It is interesting, that when paralleling these women who have worked in very diverse eras, they are still alike in the fact that they both must overcome basic survival problems by working for factories that possess the same ideology:  Exploitation of female labor in order to benefit the already wealthy.  The only difference is that Third World immigrant women are now being exploited and suffering in extremely poor working conditions in order to make the lives of American women more comfortable.

     At age 20, Nadine left her seamstress position and married a man who freshly enlisted into the Navy.  During WWII, Nadine returned to work in an armory producing bullets, a factory that was once again managed by men and operated by women; however, when her husband returned home, Nadine was dismissed from her position and the post-war climate set the stage for the rest of her life.  Her life was very similar to other women's lives that were described in the Excerpt from The Feminine Mystique by Friedan.  Nadine happily settled into a traditional marriage, where the husband is more dominant than the wife, and both partners maintained strict traditional gender roles.  She sought fulfillment and devoted her entire life to being a domesticated suburban housewife and mother of four who was allowed to make decisions about housework, childcare, and meal planning, while her husband had control of the finances and the ultimate authority in family decisions.  She was never interested in:  earning a higher education, a career, or politics, but enjoyed baking, cooking, sewing, and playing cards with her "neighbor ladies" once a week.

     During this second wave of feminism, Nadine denies feeling dissatisfaction with her life.  She claims she has never experienced "the problem that has no name", as Friedan suggests.  She has never felt that she has given up any dreams, and has never felt imprisoned by her marriage, home, or family.  In fact, her greatest accomplishment in life was raising her four children and her greatest regret is not spending enough time with them.  She agrees that creating equality for women in the home and workplace is essential; however, she has never identified herself as being a feminist.  She holds on to white privilege and traditional family and Christian values; therefore, she does not truly believe in racial equality, divorce, same-sex marriage, abortion , or birth control methods for unmarried women.  Her opinions on life are polar-opposite to mine, but her perspective is understandable considering that she has lived through the trials and tribulations of almost a century.

                                                                       References

Hu-Dehart, E. (2007).  Surviving Globalization, Immigrant Women Workers in Late Capitalist
     America.  Women's Work Inside and Outside the Home (pp. 470-480).

Friedan, B. (1994).  Excerpts from The Feminine Mystique. in P.B. Levy, 100 Key Documents
     in American Democracy (pp. 431-436).  Westport, CT:  Greenwood.