Gendering Globalization on the Ground

How has globalization worked for women working on the frontlines of neoliberalism on the Mexico-US border? This critical comparison of socially similar women, working either in export production industries or in small-scale commerce and low-level services in Ciudad Juárez, reveals how export factory work constrains women's empowerment at home - as well as the wages they earn and the well-being of their households. It challenges neoliberal notions of "empowering" women to work for market growth, and analyzes women's empowerment as gender democracy to counter neoliberal globalization touching down in the lives of ordinary working women.