The Gender Ideological Clash in Globalization: Women, Migration, and the Modernization Building Project of the Philippines

Abstract

My article interrogates the local impacts of global economic processes on the socio-cultural geography of the Philippines. I argue that the development of an export-oriented Filipino economy incorporates a gender ideological clash resulting from simultaneously encouraging and discouraging female domesticity. This clash emerges from the economic dependency of the Philippines on women s work outside the home on the one hand, and a longstanding gender ideology that continues to locate women's gender responsibilities inside the home on the other hand. The dependence of the Philippines on remittances from women 's migrant domestic work magnifies this clash. My article looks closely at this gender ideological clash caused by working women s paradoxical positioning vis-a-vis the home, addresses why this clash occurs, describes its consequences for relations in the family, and, lastly, links it to a larger discussion of the status of women in globalization.