Prostitution In Leslie T. Chang's Factory Girls

Leslie T. Chang’s Factory Girls follows the trials and tribulations of a migrant class of Chinese workers: young women and girls who have left literally all their material possessions back in their origins in the hope of achieving greater economic freedom. Most of the stories are relayed to the audience through the factory girl’s first-hand account. Throughout the book, the frank, matter-a-fact tone these factory girls retell their stories draws a stark contrast to the actual content; the jarring disconnect between serious issues such as minimal job security, hostile and abusive work environments, and even prostitution helps to illustrate the consequences of a country whose laws have not yet caught up with its own industrial pace. The China of today is nearly indistinguishable from the China just a generation ago. Where the country primary source of income was split between agriculture and a fragile military industrial complex, now the dynamic has completely shifted as industrial manufacturing coupled with a capable financial sector have catapulted their economy to be, by some measures, in excess of the U.S. gross domestic product. Most economic and political forecasters seriously expect to see China become the direct challenger to U.S. sole superpower status.

By doing so, I was immersed in the diverging stories of women and girls who, essentially, only had two common traits: there gender and their youth. This break from the usual broad-stroked narrative was made all the more compelling by the way that Chang describes the double-edged nature of factory employment. These factory girls throw caution to the wind because they feel like there is nothing to really lose and everything to gain. It is that sentiment that leads them to experience a life that Chang describes as a “perpetual