Global Woman **** if you skip the parts that suck

[livingbyfiction]

I read this thoughtful review of Global Woman 5 years ago, and now I’ve finally read it. Every Sunday, I walk past hundreds of Filipina women who have come to Hong Kong to work as domestic helpers.  They live in little cubbyholes smaller than walk-in closets, so on their day off they congregate on the side of the street just to get out of their “

Comments

[livingbyfiction]

“Clashing Dreams” by Hung Cam Thai was the most surprising article

[therizabella]

Great, great post. It is saddening to know that women still get abused like this and sold, no less. It is a result of poverty and maybe desperation. I believe that each person has a moral code inside them, but circumstances can make them choose to look another way or accept situations. I am Filipina myself and stories of domestic helpers who were once professionals back home but earning less are well-known but not less heartbreaking. There are other Filipinas especially in the Middle East where glitz is even more tempting where they have days jobs and then sell themselves at night.

This is on Global Woman?

[livingbyfiction]

Global Woman is a collection of over a dozen pieces, each somewhere between social science and popular reporting. Over a quarter of the pieces are on Filipinas because there are so many aspects to Filipina migration. I have to warn you, a lot of the book is skimmable--women's studies is notoriously self-indulgent. There's also a lot worth reading, though.

I think the title is intended to riff on how we imagine "global women" as smartly dressed executives jetting off to London and Dubai, but in fact most female migration consists of migrant women.