ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the negative impact of economic globalization and neoliberal economic policies on women. Using a materialist feminist lens, I describe how the sexual division of labor in conjunction with racialized and gendered ideologies structures labor both within countries and transnationally. Drawing on decolonial theory and social reproduction theory, the chapter examines the uneven impact of neoliberal economic globalization on countries in the Global South and Global North and its greater negative impact on women. Gender ideologies associating women with the home affect the type of work women are expected to perform, relegating them to working in the informal labor sector, to formal labor requiring “feminine” qualities, and to undertaking care work. The concepts of social connection, political responsibility, interdependence, and social justice provide important resources to analyze and challenge these gendered and racialized transnational inequities. Feminists can challenge the pervasive negative impact of the sexual division of labor by developing transnational feminist solidarity in ways that revalue “women’s work” (care work), advocate for fair pay and just treatment in the formal and informal sectors, and support unions, collectives, and cooperative workplaces and institutions.
