Gender in Latin America: Is Economics the driving factor?

The policies of countries can affect the role of gender in the workforce, as there exists constructs of identity depending on what is deemed appropriate by employers. An argument is that gender exists as a construct entirely by biological factors, I argue that gender exists as a socio-economic construct.
The effect of globalization on women can be a model as to how gender can matter in economics regarding employment. Eswaran notes:
The expansion of the garment sector afforded women in Bangladesh the opportunity to participate in the labor market on a scale not previously witnessed. One study based on a sample of 1,322 women surveyed in 2001 found that women working in the garment export industry were economically much better off than women who worked elsewhere in the domestic economy (Eswaran 172).
Globalization has helped Bangladeshi women in that they had opportunities to participate in the labor market. This is important because these women were in a somewhat patriarchal society where women have lesser opportunities to participate in the labor force. From this information patriarchal society must have something to do with constructs of gender deemed appropriate from employers. This would be consistent with the fact that matriarchal societies are “relatively rare” (Eswaran 87).
There have been global trends of what an ideal worker should look like. The construction of Mexico’s maquila industry is sufficient evidence of this. When the US expelled migrant farmworker jobs there was an influx of Mexican men ready to be employed (Salzinger). The existing notions of the appropriate worker however eventually lead to protests in the 1980s, but ideas persisted
In an interview held more than a decade after men began entering maquila jobs in large numbers, the head of labor relations for the Association of Maquiladoras still advocated hiring women, commenting: “Men are not inclined to sit. Women are calmer about sitting. (Salzinger).
It was not until peso devaluations that employers started turning their attention to male workers.
Managers strive to reach the ideal worker: “One was farther south, having moved in search of the docile women workers who had become increasingly elusive at the border.” (Salzinger). Corporate culture is a considerable aspect as well as it has had detrimental effects:
In the Juárez auto parts assembly plant, a group of U.S. managers were deeply wedded to the notion that the work was appropriately “women’s work.” Yet they could not attract enough female workers and succeeded only in antagonizing most of their male employees and provoking them to interfere with their female coworkers’ production. (Salzinger)
It is undeniable that the effects of gender in the workforce have considerable repercussions on employability.
Managers select workers based on desired productivity. The industry pays attention to the type of results they want: “” In a typical article, a manager commented matter-of-factly: “Eighty-five percent of the labor force is made up of women, since they’re more disciplined, pay more attention to what they do, and get bored less than men do.”[6] “”. Whether these results are accurate they have repercussions on employability. As Salzinger appropriately describes it is paradoxical, but the impetus for the chaos has been merely policies against migrant workers.
In a case along the U.S Mexican border capitalists took advantage of a cultural dynamic to maximize profits. They found that rarely will Mexican women work for wages outside the home then proceeded to hire them paying low wages, the capitalists had an 85% female work force. The capitalists have found a cheaper source of labor but considering this and patriarchal societies becomes clearer when you consider globalization. Globalization is the process of integrating with global economies. It would make sense that employers would use that model for employment since for cultural reasons it was rare for women to work for wages outside the home.
The growth of maquilas in the border region was due to Mexico’s initiated Border Industrialization Border Program viewed as a response to the termination of the U. S’s temporary worker program at the time (Robert 133). In the context of the Panoptimex structure described in Salzinger’s Making Fantasies Real we see that the global economic lens of “feminine productivity” incentivizes mangers to control labor to establish order. I hypothesize that employers are taking advantage of cultural dynamics to maximize profits and establishing identities to keep contentment. This would be consistent with the fact the peso devaluations and worker strikes show the workplace idea is a fabrication.
The implication of these facts can be a model into modern corporate culture. There is irony in patriarchal society talk of women being better suited for the work of the maquila factories described in “Making Fantasies Real”. The image of the defiant women worker is in direct contrast to the fabrications of the workplace. If one were to look at modern juxtapositions, the value is in considering if workplace conditions parallel what has been documented in the maquila industry.
Economics is the driving factor of gender in the work force as policies can affect the role of gender in the workforce. Countries or individual employers can strive to combat what the effects the role of gender creation in the work force are if they are formal about the repercussions. It can be appropriately described as an education problem. According to the view of gender constructs as economic schemes it is possible that employers are aware.

Works Cited
Salzinger, Leslie. “Making Fantasies Real: Producing Women and Men on the Maquila Shop Floor.” NACLA, 2007, nacla.org/article/making-fantasies-real-producing-women-and-men-maquila-shop-floor.
Eswaran, Mukesh. Why Gender Matters in Economics. 2014. Print.
Fernández-Kelly, María Patricia. For We Are Sold, I and My People : Women and Industry in Mexico’s Frontier. Albany: State U of New York, 1983. Print. SUNY Ser. in the Anthropology of Work.
Huesca, Robert. “”They Are the Experts:” a Workers’ Agenda for Social Change in Mexico’s Maquiladoras.” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 31.62 (2006): 131-165. Web.