Globalization justice and equity: a gender perspective.

Capitalistic economic growth can reduce human well-being by creating job and entitlement insecurity bolstering inequalities marginalizing women and their work degrading the environment privileging the acquisition of wealth over other human needs and generating conflicts and violence. Economic globalization heightens these problems and has a particularly detrimental impact on women who accept jobs that offer low wages and poor working conditions or that demand labor migration beyond the reach of governmental protection. While Bretton Woods institutions hold that a good government refuses to intervene in production some interventionist Asian countries have achieved high economic growth. Women benefit most from governments that foster social development. In order to protect women from paying the highest price for economic and social development the detrimental effects of globalization must be challenged by instituting ways to deal with the threat posed by the extreme mobility of capital; by transforming the Bretton Woods institutions so they become more responsive to the needs of women; and by making transnational corporations accountable for their production marketing and labor practices. In addition states must be transformed to serve ordinary citizens and to meet the particular needs of women. State processes must be made more transparent open and participatory in order to be more accountable. Finally the role of social movements especially the womens movement is to act as autonomous watchdogs over private and public agencies and to provide models of alternative forms of development organizations. Women must recognize their ability to act locally nationally and regionally and must build carefully chosen alliances on negotiated terms.