ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Juárez, Mexico, a microcosm of the deleterious social consequences of globalization and patriarchy, and home to the largely foreign-owned maquila (assembly plant) industry, the fastest-growing sector of the Mexican economy since 1994 (when NAFTA went into effect). It synthesizes diverse literatures (e.g., economics, political science, sociology, gender, and feminist studies) in order to explain the market incentives behind the tragic disappearance and murders of thousands of young female maquila workers, the pandemic of drug cartels and government corruption, the dearth of basic infrastructure, and the dumping of toxic waste. This chapter demonstrates that markets can perpetuate injustice when they develop in the context of unjust infrastructures that include extreme income inequality, a social ideology that devalues indigenous migrants, and patriarchal norms that interact with race- and class-based power dynamics. It is no accident that throughout the 1980s and 1990s employers in the industry advertised for and hired mostly young women. As with meatpacking, maquilas do not necessarily create these norms, but they profit from perpetuating them.
