Maya Pietrzkiewicz on "Murder in Juarez"

In Jessica Livingston's "Murder in Juarez" she argues that many young women that work in maquiladoras are targeted to gendered sexual violence because the industry fosters inequality. The female workers of maquiladoras experience gender discriminations to justify women's cheap and disposable labor in Juarez, which leads to undermining violence of women.

The leaders in the maquiladoras factories use third world women as ideal workers because they are naturally good at non-skill worthy labor. This ideology that women are naturally well at specific skills is destructive for women because it justifies cheap labor. Therefore women in the workforce are left untrained in specific skills to keep wages low. This devalues women's work while increasing the factory's productivity. Female workers become differentiated in the work force between male workers are disposable, cheap, and unskilled.

Similarly, traditional roles of women, i.e motherhood, is used against women in the maquiladoras industry. Factories don't want their female employees to get pregnant since its counter productive and expensive for the company. However, they use the concept of motherhood as a way to avoid permanent worker status for women and to justify low wages. Therefore, factories regulate female workers sexual activities, menstrual cycles, and force birth control use. They also feminize and sexualize female workers to create a divide between female and male workers. These actions prevent women from gaining worth in a company and instead promotes consumerism. Factory leaders encourage female workers to dress up and buy items that express femininity to divide them from other workers. Feminizing and sexualizing the female work force also portrays these women as prostitutes thus, devaluing their presence as workers and justifies their deaths or violence as 'dirty girls.' The feminization and sexualization of female workers creates blame on the workers for the violence they experience.

In 2016, human rights activist in Toronto, Kathy Laird, criticized restaurants of sexualizing female workers by forcing women to apply a stereotypical feminine dress code. Laird specifically addressed Hooters restaurant for sexualizing the female workforce to bring in more clients. The dress codes that force women to wear short and revealing clothing to work emphasizes that these women's worth as employees is more important than the skills they bring into the workspace. These dress codes also play a factor in sexual harassment in the work place by co-workers or clients. As Laird states, "They may make employees more vulnerable to sexual harassment, contribute to discriminatory work environments and exclude people based on sex, gender identity ... or creed." The dress code can also be used against a female employee after being sexually harassed. Many excuses used for sexual harassment or violence blames the victim by using their appearance against them, as if they were asking to be abused. All aspects of feminization and sexualization of women in the work force is unacceptable and doesn't justify any sexual harassment or abuse an employee faces.

http://www.metronews.ca/news/canada/2016/03/08/workers-should-not-be-subjected-to-sexualized-dress-codes-ontario-agency-says.html

What can we do to stop sexualizing and feminizing female workers to provide a safe environment for them?