I have the same questions about opposition to the IMF and World Bank. When we talked about Larkin in class, someone mentioned the protests in Seattle of the WTO that effectively shut down the meeting in 1999. Protesters came from many different groups, but they did not form a cohesive whole at the time or afterwards. If there is so much opposition to these groups from so many different people, including at the academic level, why is there no cohesive alternative institutional opposition to these institutions whose actions have enormous consequences? Or do I just not know about it?
I am sorry to report that I have not yet finished all of the reading because I just got into a(very long) disagreement with a woman that I live with about whether or not gender roles were socially constructed. We started out talking about working mothers and fathers versus stay at home parents, and we eventually had to agree to disagree in order to continue to live together. But the readings for this week show the insidious consequences of that decision. Whether or not a woman decides to work or stay at home in the US is in fact not a decision that most women face because they are not in the economic position to do so, and those that do face such a decision do so in the face of economic stability and insurance. But for the women of Enloe's article, these gender roles have devastating consequences. For an employee in a South Korean Reebok factory, it was essential to realize that the company had a vested interested in her remaining docile and passive as part of the organizing process. That it is a socially constructed role is made obvious through their own experience and their ability to organize, but I find it very troubling when potential American consumers buy into company arguments about gender roles. I think it allows for the kind of opportunity rationalizing that Sachs engages in, which is ultimately harmful to the workers themselves.
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