The establishment of the Border Industrialization Program (BIP) between Mexico and the United States in 1965 led to the creation of free-trade zone assembly factories--or maquiladoras--along Mexico's Northern border and in the interior. Thousands of Mexican women have since entered the industrial export sector as maquiladora workers, and make up the majority of unskilled and semi-skilled assemblers in electronic and apparel maquila plants. This paper agues that maquiladora managers' preference for women is the result of an unquestioning belief in the gender-specific traits of women--such as dexterity, docility, patience--and well-calculated hiring and personnel policies, which have been designed not only to take advantage of the patriarchal system in Mexico and women's weaker social, political and economic position, but to maintain and control women's qualities of "cheapness", "docility", and "productivity", to the advantage of business.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.60467 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Mills, Virginia S. (Virginia Sarah) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Anthropology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001236844, proquestno: AAIMM67684, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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