Devaluation of Women’s Labour in Food Systems and Feminist Resistance

Abstract

The introduction of global markets has seen the rise of multinational corporations. This has allowed trade to flourish globally and enabled the transport of regional products all over the world. Critics have drawn attention to the many issues that come with this contemporary global landscape. This research argues that multinational corporate interests perpetuate and reinforce existing gendered differences in agricultural and food systems. These differences relate to the continued devaluation of women’s labour in the production of food as well as the maintenance of gendered care-work in the household. These corporate interests also contribute to increasing concentrations of wealth inequalities which put more money in corporate hands at the expense of farmers. This project conducted a critical literature review to analyze the marginalization of women’s labour in and outside of the site of food production, the key components of a corporate body, and the ways in which feminist resistance occurs in opposition to corporate interests. The findings reveal that the labour of women is continually marginalized and devalued at all levels of production and manufacturing, and that women are among the most negatively impacted by corporate interests in cheap labour.