A Modest Proposal and Other Prose or Global Woman

A Modest Proposal and Other Prose (Library of Essential Reading Series)

Author: Jonathan Swift

Born of English parents in Dublin, Ireland, in 1667, Jonathan Swift lived in a time of unprecedented political and intellectual change, and his career and writing bear the marks of these momentous changes. Although his professional life centered on the Church of England, it was his brilliance as a writer that brought him, briefly, into the center of power as chief publicist for the Tory regime. With the dissolution of the Harley regime, however, Swift was "exiled" back to Ireland, where he spent the remaining decades of his life as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Book about: Dive into Python or Digital Filmmaking for Teens

Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy

Author: Barbara Ehrenreich

“Important and provocative . . . There are many tempting reasons to pick up Global Woman.” —The New York Times

Women are moving around the globe as never before. But for every female executive racking up frequent flier miles, there are multitudes of women whose journeys go unnoticed. Each year, millions leave third world countries to work in the homes, nurseries, and brothels of the first world. This broad-scale transfer of labor results in an odd displacement, in which the female energy that flows to wealthy countries is subtracted from poor ones—easing a “care deficit” in rich countries, while creating one back home.

Confronting a range of topics from the fate of Vietnamese mail-order brides to the importation of Mexican nannies in Los Angeles, Global Woman offers an original look at a world increasingly shaped by mass migration and economic exchange. Collected and with an Introduction by bestselling social critics Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, this groundbreaking anthology reveals a new era in which the main resource extracted from developing nations is no longer gold or silver, but love.

Publishers Weekly

The current discourse on globalization, according to the authors, has little to say about the "migration of maids, nannies, nurses, sex workers, and contract brides," since, to most economists, these women "are just individuals making a go of it." The positive effects of their labor are sometimes noted: the money they remit to home countries is a major source of foreign exchange, and the work they do in the host country enables a large pool of upwardly mobile First World women to pursue productive careers. The negative consequences, which can include emotional hardships caused by leaving children behind as well as physical strains, are rarely acknowledged. Social critics Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) and Hochschild (The Time Bind) point out that in previous centuries the developed world imported natural resources, and now the import du jour is women, ideally, "happy peasant" women who can care for the elderly and disabled, lovingly raise children and provide sexual services for men. The editors have gathered some 15 essays on aspects of "the female underside of globalization"-e.g., Filipina housekeepers in Hong Kong, Latina domestic workers in Los Angeles, sexual slaves in Thailand, Vietnamese contract brides-mostly written by academics working in the field, but largely jargon-free. While one small book can't say everything about a major global phenomenon, Ehrenreich and Hochschild have at least brought attention to these women's plight. Maps not seen by PW. (Jan. 6) Forecast: This important book should find a place for itself among scholars of globalization, migration studies and women's studies. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Fifteen instructive essays on the causes and effects of female workers' migration from poor nations to affluent ones. In their introduction, social commentator Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed, 2001, etc.) and sociologist Hochschild (The Time Bind, 1997) voice the hope that this compilation, to which each has contributed an article, will make visible the female underside of globalization. Third World women leave home by the millions to provide traditionally female services in other countries. There are four major migrational flows: from southeast Asia to the Middle and Far East, from Africa to Europe, from East to West in Europe, and from South to North in the Americas. Most of the essays here are by professors of sociology or anthropology at American universities; the text is rife with such phrases as "intergenerational power dynamics," "gender roles," and "spatial dispersal of economic activities." An exception is novelist Susan Cheever's piece, which examines on her personal experiences as an employer of nannies. The weightier essays are based on fieldwork, including extensive interviews with migrant domestic workers, and they tackle such issues as the pressures global capitalism puts on women and their families, the ways in which the migration of married women has altered relationships with the husbands and children left behind, and the unbalanced relationships that develop between these workers and their female employers. The most disturbing piece looks at the sex trade in Thailand, where young girls are sold into prostitution and exported to brothels in Japan, Europe, and America. Somewhat out of place here, one essay explores the special case of Vietnam, where a surplus of women hasresulted in an exodus of highly educated women who enter arranged marriages with low-wage-earning Vietnamese men living overseas. An annotated list of activist organizations is appended. For women's study courses, this look at a heretofore largely unexplored phenomenon is sure to provide controversial material.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction	1
	Love and Gold	15
	The Nanny Dilemma	31
	The Care Crisis in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy	39
	Blowups and Other Unhappy Endings	55
	Invisible Labors: Caring for the Independent Person	70
	Maid to Order	85
	Just Another Job? The Commodification of Domestic Labor	104
	Filipina Workers in Hong Kong Homes: Household Rules and Relations	115
	America's Dirty Work: Migrant Maids and Modern-Day Slavery	142
	Selling Sex for Visas: Sex Tourism as a Stepping-stone to International Migration	154
	Among Women: Migrant Domestics and Their Taiwanese Employers Across Generations	169
	Breadwinner No More	190
	Because She Looks like a Child	207
	Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Brides and Low-Wage U.S. Husbands	230
	Global Cities and Survival Circuits	254
	Migration Trends: Maps and Chart	275
	App: Activist Organizations	281
	Notes	285
	Bibliography	317
	Acknowledgments	325
	The Contributors	326