Dora’s Dirty Secrets of the Global Industry

1449 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Child labor in factories hardships

In this essay, I will explore how the Mexican women are exploited in the global industrial economy. I’ll take a look at how Dora the explorer is an English-Spanish youngster who solves problems with the tools in her backpack and with the help of other characters that largely exploited by the toy industry. The global market is not only for the source of making the companies money but also responsible for the unfair treatment of women in general. There have been a burst of these maquiladoras(factories) popping up all over in less industrialized countries because it’s cheaper to mass produce these toys/products at a fraction of the price after NAFTA was signed in 1992. In many instances inequality is visible in these young women’s lives from when they begin to work as teenagers in what appears to be a booming industry of the maquiladoras(factories). It also gives an excellent view of the inequality that the women face who work in the maquiladoras (factories) in Mexico. Producing toys in these countries bring its share of problems too, such as recalls in toys containing lead paint.

Lois Leveen begins her article by giving an excellent description of whom and what Dora the Explorer and the other characters do to help her solve problems. It is a made for television kids program but behind the scenes will focus on giving an insight into the global industrial exploitation of the toy market and women. Since Dora was created she is adored by many children, Leveen states “Ultimately, Dora is the product of a global television market and serves the transnational capital interest of Viacom, which own Nickelodeon, and Mattel, whose subsidiary Fisher-Price makes Dora toys that are sold worldwide. As the Campaign for a Commercial-Free C...

... middle of paper ...

... in the maquiladoras of Mexico that in order to help these women who work in these conditions we must look closely at the impact and turmoil that has been created by the Global Industry and NAFTA.

Works Cited

Dominguez Edme, Icaza Rosalba, Quintero Cirila, Lopwz Silvia and Stenman Asa (2010)

‘Women Workers in the Mawuiladoras and the Debate on Global Labor Standards’,

Feminist Economics, 16:4, 185-209.

Iglesias Prieto, Norma. 1997. Beautiful flowers of the maquiladora: Life histories of women

workers in Tijuana. Austin: University of Texas. (75).

Leveen Lois, 2008. Factory Girl: Dora the Explorer and the Dirty Secrets of the Global

Industrial Economy. Bitch Magazine. **http://bitchmagazine.org/article/factorygirl

Wilson, Tamar Diana. 2002. Forms of Male Domination and Female Subordination:

Homeworkers versus Maquiladora Workers in Mexico. 56-72.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Cherrie Moraga's Vendida

    1606 Words  | 4 Pages

    As much as men are working, so are women, but ultimately they do not face the same obstacles. For example, “Even if one subscribes to a solely economic theory of oppression, how can one ignore that over half of the world's workers are female who suffer discrimination not only in the workplace, but also at home and in all the areas sex-related abuse” (Moraga 98). This gives readers a point of view in which women are marginalized in the work place, at home, and other areas alike. Here Moraga gives historical accounts of Chicana feminists and how they used their experiences to give speeches and create theories that would be of relevance. More so, Moraga states how the U.S. passes new bills that secretly oppress the poor and people of color, which their community falls under, and more specifically, women. For instance, “The form their misogyny takes is the dissolution of government-assisted abortions for the poor, bills to limit teenage girls’ right to birth control ... These backward political moves hurt all women, but most especially the poor and "colored." (Moraga 101). This creates women to feel powerless when it comes to control one’s body and leads them to be oppressed politically. This places the government to act as a protagonist, and the style of writing Moraga places them in, shines more light to the bad they can do, especially to women of color. Moraga uses the words, “backward moves”

    Read More

  • Mexican Lives by Judith Adler Hellman

    1248 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ople extort from others. It’s a way of life… The NAFTA treaty isn’t meant to rescue people like us, it’s meant to help the rich" (pg. 157) Later, the reader learns that Maria was driven out of business by competators after NAFTA took effect.

    Read More

  • Maquiladoras & NAFTA

    2053 Words  | 5 Pages

    Naumann, Ann K. and Mireille Hutchinson, The Integration of Women into the Mexican Labor Force Since NAFTA THE AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, June/July 1997, 950-956.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Underdogs

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    Azuela shows these impacts by the progression of Camila, from a sweet innocent woman, to joining the rebel forces, and lastly to being killed. Symbolically, Azuela kills off Camila almost immediately upon her rise to power and drops her from the novel’s plot. This shows the how insignificant of an impact that women had on the battles, and how easily they were forgotten after death. Women still struggle today with gaining equal rights and treatment within the Mexican culture. It has taken nearly 70 years for women to gain equality with men in the workforce, gaining rights such as voting, and having a shared family responsibility with the male figure (Global). Unfortunately, many women within the working-class household still suffer from the traditional norms and values regarding the roles of men and women. In addition, these women were often subjected to control, domination, and violence by men” (Global). This validates Azuela’s stance on how women should stay within their traditional roles because fighting for equality has been ineffective even still

    Read More

  • The Women Of Colonial Latin America Analysis

    1470 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Women of Colonial Latin America serves as a highly digestible and useful synthesis of the diverse life experiences of women in colonial Latin America while situating those experiences in a global context. Throughout, Socolow mediates the issue between the incoherence of independent facts and the ambiguity of over-generalization by illustrating both the restrictions to female behavior and the wide array of behavior within those restrictions. Readers of varied backgrounds will come away with a much deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that defined the lives of the diverse women of the New World ruled by Portugal and

    Read More

  • Woman Hollering Creek: Dreams and Reality

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nevertheless, Cisneros’s experience with two cultures has given her a chance to see how Latino women are treated and perceived. Therefore, she uses her writing to give women a voice and to speak out against the unfairness. As a result, Cisneros’ story “Woman Hollering Creek” demonstrates a distinction between the life women dream of and the life they often have in reality.

    Read More

  • Inside Toyland by Christine L. Williams

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    Inside Toyland, written by Christine L. Williams, is a look into toy stores and the race, class, and gender issues. Williams worked about six weeks at two toy stores, Diamond Toys and Toy Warehouse, long enough to be able to detect patterns in store operations and the interactions between the workers and the costumers. She wanted to attempt to describe and analyze the rules that govern giant toy stores. Her main goal was to understand how shopping was socially organized and how it might be transformed to enhance the lives of workers. During the twentieth century, toy stores became bigger and helped suburbanization and deregulation. Specialty toy stores existed but sold mainly to adults, not to children. Men used to be the workers at toy stores until it changed and became feminized, racially mixed, part time, and temporary. As box stores came and conquered the land, toy stores started catering to children and offering larger selections at low prices. The box stores became powerful in the flip-flop of the power going from manufacturers to the retailers. Now, the retail giants determine what they will sell and at what price they will sell it.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera

    1127 Words  | 3 Pages

    The contrast between the Mexican world versus the Anglo world has led Anzaldua to a new form of self and consciousness in which she calls the “New Mestiza” (one that recognizes and understands her duality of race). Anzaldua lives in a constant place of duality where she is on the opposite end of a border that is home to those that are considered “the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel and the mulato” (25). It is the inevitable and grueling clash of two very distinct cultures that produces the fear of the “unknown”; ultimately resulting in alienation and social hierarchy. Anzaldua, as an undocumented woman, is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Not only is she a woman that is openly queer, she is also carrying the burden of being “undocumented”. Women of the borderlands are forced to carry two degrading labels: their gender that makes them seem nothing more than a body and their “legal” status in this world. Many of these women only have two options due to their lack of English speaking abilities: either leave their homeland – or submit themselves to the constant objectification and oppression. According to Anzaldua, Mestizo culture was created by men because many of its traditions encourage women to become “subservient to males” (39). Although Coatlicue is a powerful Aztec figure, in a male-dominated society, she was still seen

    Read More

  • Replace the Old Stereotypes and Myths in Our Society

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cofer, Judith Ortiz. "The Myth of the Latina Woman." Bullock, Richard, Maureen Daly Goggin and Francine Weinburg. The Norton Field Guide to Writing. Ed. Marilyn Moller. 3rd. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013. 806-812. Print.

    Read More

  • Women In Mexico And The United States And Mexico

    1684 Words  | 4 Pages

    ¬¬The women in Mexico and the United States were both faced with enormous obstacles to overcome. In spite of the difficulties they faced, women from both countries sought to better themselves in the midst of the chaos. They strove to gain control of their lives and demanded a voice within their country.

    Read More

  • Snow, Yolanda by Julia Alvarez

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    Suaréz, Lucia M. “Julia Alvarez And The Anxiety Of Latina Representation.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 5.1 (2004): 117-145. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 25 Mar.2014.

    Read More

  • Mexican Revolution Analysis

    1965 Words  | 4 Pages

    Having discussed the Mexican Revolution in brief, it is appropriate to turn to the first actor in the revolutionary drama: the Mexican worker. The process of rapid economic development under Porfirio Diaz beginning in the 1890s had created the country’s first significant industrial working class. Alicia Hernandez Chavez notes that railroad workers, for example, numbered in the tens of thousands by 1910, whereas they had not existed before the creation and expansion of the industry (MBH 173). The arrival of the streetcar, now found in a number of major Mexican cities, created another skilled working-class occupation that did not exist before. In the two decades before the outbreak of the revolution, a modern textile sector also emerged. It reached six hundred and six thousand workers, many concentrated in large factories producing cloth for domestic consumption (MBH 173). Mining, a boom-and-bust industry that dated from the colonial period, recovered and expanded considerably thanks to the railroads. In 1910, miners numbered almost a hundred thousand in Mexico (MBH 173). They lived in mining camps and towns found largely in the Mexican north. More generally, various mass consumer goods were increasingly shifting to small-scale factory production, including items like soap, candles, beer, furniture, soft drinks, cigarettes, meat, and baked goods.

    Read More

  • Cinderella Ate My Daughter Summary

    1538 Words  | 4 Pages

    Orenstein is a journalist and wrote this book about raising her daughter in a media and self-absorbed culture. She talks about everything from the recently marketed Disney princess culture to other Disney trends for older kids. Examples she mentions would be Disney

    Read More

  • Disney Princesses: Feminism and Gender Roles Debate

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    Peggy Orenstein has been very popular around the literary world, writing books, and publishing for many popular magazines such as O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, Elle, Glamour, New York Times and many more. She mainly focuses on today’s society issues such as topics that affect women and girls. Orenstein’s article originally published in the New York Times in 2006, “What’s Wrong with Cinderella?” is the article I chose from the book, The Conscious Reader (page.64-74). Disliking the princess industry, and the impact they have to young girls and forcing gender roles, Peggy Orenstein writes this article as a feminist mother who has concerns about what it will do to her three year old daughter.

    Read More

  • Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

    1932 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...Halevi-Wise, Yael (1997). Story-telling in Laura Esquivel's Como Agua Para Chocolate. The Other Mirror: Women’s Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995. Ed. Kristine Ibsen. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997. 123-131.

    Read More

More about Dora’s Dirty Secrets of the Global Industry

Open Document