A Paradox of Women’s Employment and Empowerment in Flexible Capitalism

This paper discusses a paradoxical implication of employment for women’s empowerment in flexible capitalism. Export-oriented factories employ women from the poorer sections of a society and their earnings make substantial contribution to poverty reduction at a household level. However, an implication of wage work for women’s empowerment is contentious. Many socialist feminist critics highlight exploitative aspects of export-oriented industries. The micro-level studies point out women’s empowering experiences through employment in daily life. Employing a materialist feminist perspective and Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this paper examines the discussion on women’s employment and empowerment in the past fifty years and attempts to understand women’s multifaceted exercise of agency within patriarchal power relations and explain a paradox of exploitative employment and women’s empowering experiences. It argues that flexible employment has empowered many women in the world, yet, in a way to serve flexible capitalism and patriarchy.