Ulysse and Mohanty:Two Sides of the Same Coin

In response to the class, color, and gender codes in the struggles of women workers in a capitalist society, both Chandra Mohanty and Gina Ulysse essentially argue two sides of the same coin. Both women reveal the consequences of gendered, classed, and raced work of third world women in a capitalist arena. While Ulysse underscores the hypervisibility of ICIs, Mohanty highlights the invisibility of lace-makers, electronics workers, and migrant workers in Britain, both of which result in the exploitation and undervaluing of women’s labor.

As Ulysse describes throughout the text, the hypervisibility of the ICIs leave them susceptible to many damaging stereotypes. They are considered unladylike for numerous reasons, including because they work in the public arena as opposed to in the household. They are masculinized as lesbians, deemed “social pariahs,” and are relegated to the margins since they work, travel, and often stay together. Similarly, although they have been socialized to do so, the ICI’s are characterized as “naturally tough” (Ulysse 187). The toughness of the black superwoman, as Ulysse calls it, is “demonized precisely because it is a form of active agency that is seen as a theft of a naturally masculine prerogative” (189). All of these stereotypes undermine the value of the labor that the ICIs perform.

Mohanty, on the other hand, seeks to interrogate the opposite of Ulysse’s concerns—the invisibility of third world women workers. The examples of the lace makers in Narsapur and the electronics workers in the Silicon Valley posit the opposition of the definitions for “laborer” and “housewife,”  in effect defining the women as non-workers. The women workers in Narsapur defined their lace making as “housework” as opposed to wage work because it was produced in the space of the home. Therefore, their labor was viewed as a leisure activity and hence, the women were seen as non-workers. Likewise, the characterizations of the electronics workers in the Silicon Valley as mothers and wives, and secondary to male workers, demonstrates the repression of women’s work in contemporary global capitalism.

Both of these authors uncover the consequences of women workers as hypervisible or invisible. Mohanty’s principles of searching for “common interests” and “practicing solidarity” and Ulysse’s ideas of “self-making” and “reflexive political economy” both point to ways in which women workers can reclaim their agency as workers and laborers. One step in the right direction that both authors seem to agree on is the importance of organization. As Mrs. B. states, “We have to organize ourselves and come back. Some will go but some will fight” (Ulysse 209). This is the same conclusion that Irna, a woman worker in the Silicon Valley points to, “...The only way to get a little measure of power over your own life is to do it collectively, with the support of other people who share your needs” (Mohanty 139). Organization can ultimately provide a basis for a revolution.