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Volume 3, Number 1, 1997
Ping-Chun Hsiung "Living rooms as factories," the slogan of a Taiwanese government-sponsored community development program that promotes married women's participation in the work force as homeworkers, captures nicely the interconnections of patriarchal and capitalist interests in controlling women's productive labor. It makes a fitting title for Ping-Chun Hsiung's investigation of the daily reality of Taiwan's "economic miracle" as viewed through the life experiences of married women workers in the satellite factory system. Exploring the reconciliation of the "potential conflict between the capitalists' interests in having plenty of cheap labor and the patriarchal demand for the unconditional service of full-time housewives in the home" (p. 15), Hsiung uses ethnographic, as well as statistical data, to analyze the interplay of macro and micro socioeconomic forces in Taiwan during its transformation from an agricultural to an export-oriented manufacturing economy. Like many developing countries, Taiwan has seen the establishment of large multinational corporations in export processing zones. In contrast with many such nations, however, Taiwan's uniqueness lies in its strong reliance on small-scale, family-centered subcontracting factories outside of these zones. Indeed, Hsiung contends that these satellite factories have been at the core of the country's economic accomplishments. [Page 211] The study incorporates three levels of analysis: the sociopolitical environment of the satellite factory system (including an analysis of the state as a capitalist agent), the organizational structure of the satellite factory system as part of the country's export sector, and the micro-level processes that occur in the day-to-day life of workers and owners on the shop floor. In the tradition of feminist research, Hsiung treats the gendered division of labor within both the family and the factory. In this manner, her project contributes to the ongoing feminist intellectual project of demonstrating the blurred nature of the split between public and private spheres. In particular, Hsiung is interested in the changes that the shift to manufacturing has brought in the everyday lives of married women, an understudied group in research on gender and global production. Hsiung finds that although the first generation of Taiwan's satellite factory workers tended to be single women, family-oriented factories have increasingly relied on the paid and unpaid labor of married women since the 1970s. While the satellite system has offered men the opportunity to become owners of small factories, this opportunity rests on the unpaid labor of female family workers or casual homeworkers. Thus, the male "heads of household" can strengthen their authority within the family by becoming the owners of the means of production, and the foundations of the patriarchal family system are simultaneously reinforced. As industrialization has unfolded in Taiwan, women are not only molded into dutiful wives, mothers and daughters-in-law, but are also transformed into productive laborers. Husbands expect their wives to work in factories as paid or unpaid laborers, making the satellite factory system "the latest version of the Chinese family -- a locus where capitalist logic and patriarchal practices intersect" (p. 13). In this new household economy a woman's procreative capacities are not enough to ensure her financial security. Hsiung, therefore, calls for an amendment to Margery Wolf's notion of the "uterine family" as a financial support system for married women in Taiwan. [Page 212] Hsiung's analysis of the labor process within satellite factories outlines the ways in which factory owners utilize work schedules, wage systems and boarding arrangements as forms of labor control. Oppressive labor practices are combined with close surveillance on the shop floor, as factory owners or their family members often work on the shop floor, closely monitoring the labor process and setting the pace of production. In addition, factory owners employ preexisting family and kinship structures as well as elements of ethnic pride to control workers. Often labor disputes are handled as familial matters, thus legitimizing the decisions of the factory owner. This practice, however, is also employed by the workers in labor disputes. Factory owners are called upon as family members who are responsible for the well-being of other members of the family. Thus, satellite workers use the logic of paternalism against factory owners. Hsiung spent three months working in and visiting satellite factories that produced wooden jewelry boxes. Her work contributes to Burawoy-related literature on the labor process as well as research regarding the gendered dynamics of global capitalism and production politics. Although Hsiung briefly introduces the case of women workers of the Taiwanese factory system as part of a global trend of transnational production, she frames the study almost completely in terms of prior research conducted on Taiwan. In this manner, Hsiung is more concerned with filling the void in research on women factory workers in Taiwan, demonstrating the gender-blindness and biases of prior research treating Taiwan's small factories and updating ethnographic depictions of Taiwanese families than with drawing theoretical connections between the Taiwanese case and factory systems in other areas of the world. Thus, this work is valuable as a first-time analysis of the gendered aspects of the organization of Taiwan's satellite factory system and the labor process within it as well as an investigation of the experience of married women within this system. It lacks, however, an in-depth theoretical treatment of the how this case fits into the larger picture of the global restructuring of capitalism. [Page 213] For example, work on gender and industrialization in Latin America and other areas of the world reveals certain commonalties and distinctions with the case presented by Hsiung, and the absence of comparison is disappointing. Hsiung does not explore the similarities between the organization of production of the satellite system in Taiwan and cases like the mini-maquila system in rural Colombia (Cynthia Truelove, "Disguised Industrial Proletarians in Rural Latin America," in Kathryn Ward, ed., WOMEN WORKERS AND GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING, 1990). Another fruitful point of comparison would have been trends in work-force composition in other areas of the world where export-oriented production has existed for approximately the same amount of time, such as northern Mexico (cf. Susan Tiano, PATRIARCHY ON THE LINE, 1994). Sadly, Hsiung does little to remedy the lack of rigorous comparative analyses on gender and industrial work. The most compelling parts of this book are those devoted to the ethnographic depictions of married women's experiences of transformation into productive laborers and their day-to-day lives as workers on the shop floor. Unfortunately, Hsiung does not turn to this part of her analysis until midway in her book. I found her consideration of worker resistance to be one of the most interesting sections of the book. Adding to the accumulated body of knowledge regarding nonunion resistance on the part of female factory workers, she picks apart the social relationships which constitute the labor process in satellite factories. Hsiung penetrates the "personal" guise of worker-owner relationships to reveal calculated tactics of worker control and resistance. For example, one common tactic directed at the factory owner is "wrangling": rapid, verbal battles in which opponents attempt to shoot the other down by shaming them or by demonstrating superior verbal prowess. Victorious wrangling sessions build solidarity among workers and may even have material results such as increased wages. In this manner, Hsiung's analysis of workers' resistance to the labor process represents yet another challenge to the notion of female factory workers as docile, passive targets of capitalist and patriarchal control. [Page 214] Hsiung's depiction of worker complicity and resistance would be much improved, however, if she had employed a more in-depth cultural analysis of these practices and their meanings. Such an analysis would have imparted to the reader the cultural context in which the meanings of these practices are deployed, providing a richer understanding of the dialectic of worker resistance/control within the satellite factory setting. Hsiung glosses over women workers' use of wrangling as a collective bargaining technique and this is also disappointing. The reader is left wondering about the theoretical implications of this more-collective mode of negotiation. In addition to exploring the daily life of the shop floor, Hsiung moves her analysis to the state level, demonstrating how state policies and patriarchal norms are mutually supportive. Government policy has defined women's productive and reproductive responsibilities through community development programs, such as the "Mothers' workshops" and the "Living Rooms as Factories programs." These programs are means by which the state has reconciled the conflict between female labor force participation and women's dependent role within the family by "instructing them to remain morally obligated to contribute to Taiwan's economic development through fulfillment of their traditional duties in the family..."(p. 15). In this manner, the government reinforces women's subordinate status in the family, while at the same time incorporating this group into the labor force as subsidiary workers. By analyzing the implications of state policies and economic processes at the level of the family and the day-to-day experienceof individual workers, Hsiung challenges the research of economists and political scientists who have analyzed Taiwan's economic shift from agriculture to manufacturing from a purely macro-level perspective. At the same time, she does not ignore this level of inquiry and uses statistical data to address the macro-level, gender-specific aspects of the country's "economic miracle." Although Hsiung's multi-tiered analysis is impressive in scope and the introduction of her book promises much, the work's short length leaves the reader wanting. With so much to accomplish at so many levels, Hsiung is not able to go into sufficient detail regarding any one aspect of her analysis. Thus, she seems unable to fulfill some of the theoretical promises she makes in her bold introduction. [Page 215] For instance, in her analysis of the varied experiences of women factory workers Hsiung promises to "disentangle the tension between women's class and gender identities" (p. 14). Although Hsiung depicts how work in the factories benefits women differently according to their relationship to the factory owner, she pays scant attention to how the women themselves perceive their identities and any tensions among them. In addition, the book's introduction states an intention to derive sociological concepts from Hsiung's ethnographic data regarding worker resistance. The reader is hard-pressed to discern what these concepts are. Here, again, a more in-depth comparative analysis would have been useful. Connecting the satellite factory workers' practices of resistance with personalized, informal tactics in other factory systems and even other work situations would have provided a richer theoretical understanding of how worker resistance in Taiwan fits into a larger, cross-cultural, and transnational scheme. Although those with interest in the global restructuring of capitalism will find Hsiung's work useful, its lack of comparative analysis means it will mainly be of greatest interest to those who study this area of the world. Despite the contributions this work makes to the existing literature regarding gender and the state, the interconnections of patriarchy and the global restructuring of capitalism, and the interplay of gender and class, the reader is left hungry for richer ethnographic detail. At the theoretical level the reader may also be disappointed by the work's failure to fulfill the bold promises of theoretical advancement. [Page 216] |