Women's empowerment revisited : from individual to collective power among the export sector workers of Bangladesh

摘要

Bangladesh has become known as something of a success in advancing gender equalitysince the 1990s. There have been rapid gains in a number of social and economic domains,yet by most objective standards the current condition and status of women and girls withinBangladeshi society remain low. Rapid progress has come about under conditions of masspoverty and interlocking forms of social disadvantage, political instability and underdevelopment,overlain with persistent ‘classic’ forms of patriarchy. Mass employment ofwomen and girls in the country’s flagship export sector – the readymade garments (RMG)sector – has been one of the more visible and prominent changes in women’s lives since itslate 1970s’ introduction.Whether and the extent to which RMG or garments employment has changed the lives ofwomen workers for the better has been the subject of much debate, and the research andanalysis it has generated offers valuable insights into the processes of economic and socialempowerment for poor women in low income developing countries. Yet as this paper notes,close observers of social change in Bangladesh have become dissatisfied with the limits of afocus on individual economic empowerment. Paid work may enable some women tonegotiate the ‘structures of constraint’ that shape their lives and relationships, but what of thestructures of constraint themselves? In the Bangladesh context the experience of mass RMGemployment has given rise to questions about whether women have gained greaterrecognition as citizens with rights and roles as carers in the private and political actors withinthe public spheres. Revisiting the question of women’s empowerment in this context meansinterrogating whether paid employment has contributed to investments in the education andskills of women and girls, improvements in their public safety and rights to occupy publicspace. Given labour militancy in the sector and its partial successes in raising the minimumwage, what has the experience of labour politics meant for women’s political empowerment?Drawing mainly on the rich literature available on women’s RMG employment, this paperexplores the wider and less well-documented effects of such employment on public policyrelating to gender equality in these areas. It concludes that the overall direction of change inthe industry points plainly to the need for investments in worker productivity, with a host ofimplications for women’s work and gender equality more broadly. Factory owners have todate shown few signs of recognising their interests in supporting better state health,education and public safety for women and girls, or changing management practices to retainand raise productivity of skilled women workers. Yet with downward pressure on wagesincreasingly effectively resisted by workers at a time of global economic volatility and risingliving costs, the tide may now be turning for the RMG workers of Bangladesh. Productivitygains require the state and the industry to treat women workers as full citizens with publicpolicies that promote their skills and safety and respect, and which guarantee therepresentation of their rights and demands. RMG employment continues to be a source ofempowerment for women in Bangladesh, but social and economic change means that thatpower now depends less on the individual economic effects of paid work on householddecision-making than it once did. RMG employment is increasingly a source of power forwomen because of its more collective effects on women’s citizenship and political agency.This matters all the more because of how this group is exposed to the volatilities of the globaleconomy.