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NAFTA and Gender Identity in Mexican Women
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As Reyna Elizabeth Montere states in Work and Health, Women at Risk – Revealing the Hidden Health Burden of Women Workers, “Mexican women are making a significant contribution to the national economy, but their quality of life has not enjoyed a corresponding improvement.”i The North American Free Trade Agreements Export-Processing Zones (EPZs) are filled with false promises and benefits. Although providing work for Mexico’s numerous unemployed, the accord harms female workers on social, mental and physical grounds. That these factories are heralded as a forward movement for females is intensely ironic in its undermining of these factors. The provisions of NAFTA leave this to the Mexican government’s responsibility, as American and Canadian employers are legally unresponsible for the harms incurred. Moreover, were they to want to take action, it is often impossible under the terms of the agreement. The accord heavily undermines traditional cultural gender roles without offering an opportunity for women to explore or establish a new communal identity. The idea of ‘machismo’ in Mexican society emphasizes male dominance in the economic sector and restricts females to domestic labor. Female factory employees cite economic difficulties first and ‘machismo’ second when asked what their concerns were regarding their employment.ii Women are also often hired based on traits generally associated with femininity. The initial draw of females as an employment base came as a result of their “docility” and “dexterity.”iii Leslie Salzinger notes that “Gender and class positions are discursively linked.” She elaborates later that, in accord with the stereotypes women are hired on, “To reframe the work as men’s work would be to define it as underpaid.”iii Additionally men simply do not want their wives to work.iv Half of Mexican women are still homemakers. But even for those who have gotten jobs, the role of housewife is still their burden to bear. Even though they have been granted freedom of employment, the expectations that are placed upon them in the home haven’t changed at all.v Gender roles simply were not considered in the NAFTA agreement. The growing needs for women to seek employment outside the home in order to support their families is a modern trend and NAFTA does not protect against the exploitation women suffer from foreign firms within EPZs.vi The heralding of these agreements as forward movement for Mexican females is ideologically sound at best. As long as women continue to work under conditions that further images of them as docile and submissive, EPZs offer little to them. In addition to the reinforcement of gender roles that maquiladoras create is a prevalence of sexual harassment. Leslie Salzinger notes that this occurs both from fellow male employees and employers. Among workers there is heavy flirtation, though she carefully notes that women are pursued based on their appearances and docility, while men exclusively pursue.
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