1.2 Nimle fingers or raised fist?
It is during the process of the above-mentioned debate that the idea of “nimble fingers” was introduced to describe the reason behind the feminisation of the labour force. Feminists argue that women are considered to be born with nimble fingers, dexterous in doing manual work, and are inherently more docile. These characteristics lead to their proficiency in assemly line, their tolerance to tough work discipline, and their less involvement in trade unions. As a result, women workers can be paid lower wages, be trained easily, and can accept the discipline of factory life easily (Reddy, 2007; Poster, 2001; Kerr, 1999; Elson and Pearson, 1981). All of these “merits” were favoured by the profit-chasing capitalism …show more content…
Not totally agreeing that women are always domicile, some researchers pointed out the truth behind the docility is the self-repression of women factory workers. Their passivity and fatalism is an “inner, private, rebellion and subversion, like the colonized people displayed towards the colonizers” (Elson and Pearson, 1981, p.95). Other researchers argue that women workers have been resisting and protesting the capital industrialisation in their own diversified ways. Mills(2005, p.138) argues with empirical study in Thailand that low-wage migrant women workforce, far from being unorganizable, are already engaged in oppositional practice and collective action as “raised fist”. Louie (2001a) called them “sweatshop warriors” for their challenge to employers with their solidarity. Fanon (1969, p.48) believes that when the women workers resist, it could be even stronger with a spontaneity and intensity for it has been long oppressed and hidden. Expanding the norm of protest, Pun (1995) sees all the body pains, the psychological disorder and disobedience of the factory rules as the resist from the women factory workers. Within all these struggles, resists and protests of the women factory workers, Elson and Pearson (1981, p.96) found that these actions are most probably to erupt outside the official trade union framework, rather than …show more content…
However, how do we pull together all these complicated academics that offer such conflicting insights into the nature of women in industrialisation? Social reproduction or the care economy borne by women in terms of cleaning, cooking, child rearing, health care and numerous other services was invisible in national economic accounts and official policies in the process of industrialisation. And when women did enter the paid workforce, they are often allocated to jobs that are an extension of their social roles in the household services, underevaluated by the economic account as “supplementary wage earners”. Women continue to be confined to poorly paid jobs and to be marginalized by industrialisation. Their “nimble fingers” boosted the economic growth in many developing countries, but they themselves performed struggles, resists and protests in their own ways, wishing to turn the “nimble fingers” to “raised
It is during the process of the above-mentioned debate that the idea of “nimble fingers” was introduced to describe the reason behind the feminisation of the labour force. Feminists argue that women are considered to be born with nimble fingers, dexterous in doing manual work, and are inherently more docile. These characteristics lead to their proficiency in assemly line, their tolerance to tough work discipline, and their less involvement in trade unions. As a result, women workers can be paid lower wages, be trained easily, and can accept the discipline of factory life easily (Reddy, 2007; Poster, 2001; Kerr, 1999; Elson and Pearson, 1981). All of these “merits” were favoured by the profit-chasing capitalism …show more content…
Not totally agreeing that women are always domicile, some researchers pointed out the truth behind the docility is the self-repression of women factory workers. Their passivity and fatalism is an “inner, private, rebellion and subversion, like the colonized people displayed towards the colonizers” (Elson and Pearson, 1981, p.95). Other researchers argue that women workers have been resisting and protesting the capital industrialisation in their own diversified ways. Mills(2005, p.138) argues with empirical study in Thailand that low-wage migrant women workforce, far from being unorganizable, are already engaged in oppositional practice and collective action as “raised fist”. Louie (2001a) called them “sweatshop warriors” for their challenge to employers with their solidarity. Fanon (1969, p.48) believes that when the women workers resist, it could be even stronger with a spontaneity and intensity for it has been long oppressed and hidden. Expanding the norm of protest, Pun (1995) sees all the body pains, the psychological disorder and disobedience of the factory rules as the resist from the women factory workers. Within all these struggles, resists and protests of the women factory workers, Elson and Pearson (1981, p.96) found that these actions are most probably to erupt outside the official trade union framework, rather than …show more content…
However, how do we pull together all these complicated academics that offer such conflicting insights into the nature of women in industrialisation? Social reproduction or the care economy borne by women in terms of cleaning, cooking, child rearing, health care and numerous other services was invisible in national economic accounts and official policies in the process of industrialisation. And when women did enter the paid workforce, they are often allocated to jobs that are an extension of their social roles in the household services, underevaluated by the economic account as “supplementary wage earners”. Women continue to be confined to poorly paid jobs and to be marginalized by industrialisation. Their “nimble fingers” boosted the economic growth in many developing countries, but they themselves performed struggles, resists and protests in their own ways, wishing to turn the “nimble fingers” to “raised