12/4 Discussion

Before I post my question, I need to rant a little bit...

On page 51 of Enloe's The Globetrotting Sneaker, she provides Nike's justification for opening up factories in Indonesia, where the highest record for the country's daily wage was $1.89. The justification is: "Such wages should not be seen exploitative...but rather as the first rung on the ladder of economic opportunity that Nike has extended to workers with few options."

I would like to point this out, because this is the same argument that Jeffrey Sachs uses in his book, The End of Poverty, as the foundation of his Millennium Development Goals that address worldwide poverty, hunger and disease. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also currently Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He is a huge, attention-drawing name at Columbia University, and a driving force behind the UN agenda. He also has a his huge following of celebrity friends such as Bono and Angelina Jolie. I just wanted to put this information out there to note that this university system fuels a lot of his popularity and his ideas, which our readings seriously criticize.

Now for my question... our readings bring up the issue of hierarchy among women, one that correlates race, something that is arbitrary yet visible, to socio-economic status both domestically and internationally. At the same time, the readings also shed light to the issue of invisibility that is embedded into this same hierarchy. For example, Enloe discusses the struggles of women that are thousands of miles away from us, who produce our name brand sneakers. We can't see them and we will never meet them. In addition, Ehrenreich talks about how we should make the housework of our respective homes "visible" again. Which is the central problem of this hierarchy among women- visibility of differences, or the invisibility of those assigned to degraded jobs?