Soaiba Fatima on Ehrenreich & Hochschild's "Global Woman"

Ehrenreich and Hochschild start off the introduction to “Global Woman” by telling the narrative of a woman named Josephine, who migrated from Sri Lanka to work as a nanny in Athens, Greece. As they depict the life and struggles Josephine faces, the authors illustrate how she has to leave her children behind so she can take care of a strangers child in order to be able to provide for her family. Although she leaves her kids behind in order to provide for them, her “abandonment” has severely negative consequences for her kids.

In the writing, the authors describe how Josephine’s three children, ages 2, 9 and 13, struggle without their mother. The authors mention how Josephine’s middle child, Norma attempted suicide multiple times. This fact made me realize just how deeply wrong the situation of migrant workers really is. Until this reading, I had simply assumed that migrant workers didn’t have children, or if they did, leaving them behind wouldn’t be worse than how most parents leave their kids behind when they go to their 9-5 job. Now, however, I learned that when a woman migrates for work, her children are left behind long term with someone who can not give them the love or support of a mother.

Another fact this reading made me realize was that, although Josephine sends all the money she makes back home to her children, it is still not enough. To help make ends meet, Josephine’s son, Suresh must work as well, which is why he is a bus driver back in Sri Lanka. At first I didn’t understand that although she works in a foreign country, where currency has a greater value, she still doesn’t make enough to fully support her family. It shocked me to realize that even after working in Greece for 10 years, Josephine goes back again, in order to prevent her family from living in desperate poverty. I thought that migrant workers could work overseas for a few years and be able to come back and return to their lives with their families back home.

The story of Josephine reminded me of the movie The Help, which is about how African American women who served white women as nannies or maids. These African American women would leave their own children behind, like Josephine, to take care of other children. Despite resenting their wards, the women treated all the children with love, as shown in the picture below, and tried to instill good values in them. The difference, however, is that the African American women could go home to take care of their own kids every night, while migrant workers like Josephine only got to visit their children once a year, only if they saved up enough for the trip.

I’d like to discuss whether the liberation of African American women from being “The Help” has lead to the oppression of other groups of women, who must now be “The Help.”