Spring 2016 Issue - SJR

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The Social Justice Review

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This volume is dedicated to those who carry the conscience of the whole of humanity.

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The Social Justice Review

The Social Justice Review Staff

Editor-in-Chief: Anna Silk Editorial Board: Marina Kay Maggie Deagon Naveen Dasari Jason Cheng Erum Jaffery Design Team: Serene Boachie Jane Byon

CopyrightŠ 2016 the Social Justice Review All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the express written consent of the Social Justice Review.

Views expressed in this journal are solely those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily represent those of the editorial board, faculty advisors, or the University of Southern California.

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Editor’s Note: Dear Reader, It is with great excitement I present you with the Spring 2016 issue of the Social Justice Review. From the inception of this journal, our goal was to create a platform for social justice-minded undergraduate scholars to formalize and distribute their work to a larger audience, amplifying its value. We were driven by the belief that publishing work that deals with the most critical and complex issues of our times is just, if not more important, than any other work we do. Looking back on the last year of publications, we are gratified by the volume and quality of pieces we receive, the ferocity of spirit and intensity of vision, and the progress we have made toward this goal.

If there is a theme that is woven through all our pieces this semester, it’s an examination of the individual’s role in groups, systems, and societies. Our authors consider the environments they were born into, engage us in the journey to cementing self-identification, and address larger system inequities that dictate group outcomes. Identifying linkages between the individual and their context is fundamental to the study of social justice - it distributes the rights, roles, and responsibilities of creating a just society equally across all those who are involved.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, following almost a decade imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp, wrote a letter to three student protesters in 1967. It famously ended: “Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.” This issue amplifies the voice of justice about issues of race, gender, class and access, linking the individual’s voice to the collective problem.

It has been both an honor and a privilege to help the Social Justice Review gain momentum, and help in addressing the strong need on college campuses to bring forward issues of social justice - not just in the everyday, but to carve out a long-lasting space within creative and academic discourse. Recording, analyzing, and representing the justice challenges of our time is a worthy and significant task - it makes the issues more concrete and visible, and improves the speed and quality of solutions. For this reason, we continue on.

Sincerely, Anna Silk Editor-in-Chief

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The Social Justice Review

Table of contents Arms...................................................Natalie Reyes Space for Aces: Finding a Home in a Sexual World......................................................Jennifer A. Smart Let’s Get it On (Consensually): Affirmative Consent and Presentations of Gender...................Shauna Switzer A Note to my Momma..................................................................Elizabeth Rojas In Our Backyard............................................................................Rebecca Homan The Dust that Never Settles and the Fire that Always Burns...........................................Madelina Rose Pratt The Effects of the Western Garment Industry on Cambodia and Cambodian Women..........Lilly Taing Black, They Say.........................................Aisha J. Counts

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Space for Aces: Finding a Home in a Sexual World

By Jennifer A. Smart University of Southern California, 2017

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The Social Justice Review

Jennifer Smart is a Cinema and Media Studies major at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She is a cinematographer, colorist, and 2D animator who has been producing films and digital artwork for more than eight years.

Minoring in Science Visualization, her long-term goal is to make difficult scientific concepts more accessible to the general public through narrative film.

Abstract: Contemporary political spaces and pop culture are rife with discussions about the ever- broadening spectrum of sexual identity and orientation. As society begins to recognize the array of possible identities, conceptual frameworks are instinctively formed around sexual identity labels such as pansexual or demisexual. Asexual is one such example of a term that has been misrepresented in medicine, law and popular media - as a result of pervasive “sexual assumption” that individuals cannot be asexual- as well as its malleable definition. This paper explores the importance of building a strong community and support network for asexual individuals, increasing psychiatric research on the orientation to dispel pathologization, and bolstering visibility for this so-called “invisible orientation” by reframing popular representations of asexuality.

10 The Social Justice Review The year is 1996, and newborn baby Judy nestles into her mother’s arms for the first of countless comforting embraces. Her summation of faithfully functioning organs clothed in unblemished, suede-soft skin portrays no sign of poor health. At age 7, Judy clamps her fingers tight over her eyes when Wendy kisses Peter Pan. Her parents share amused smiles and shake their heads. At 12, Judy misses school, bedridden with the stomach-churning dread of facing a friend turned suitor. You’ll grow out of it, her parents reassure her.

By eleventh grade, the groping hands crowding her nightmares beg otherwise. “Jude the Prude,” classmates mutter. You just haven’t met the right person yet, her mother consoles. At 17, she looks away when Wendy kisses Peter Pan and catches a fleeting flash of sadness on her boyfriend’s face. She ignores his open palm on the armrest. When I’m an adult, I’ll understand, she tells herself. At 18, an abstinence pamphlet placed prominently in her college’s health center proclaims “Everyone feels sexual attraction.” Almost everyone, she mentally amends. Desperate Google searches surrender swaths of sexual dysfunction and phobic diagnoses until one result catches her eye: Asexuality Visibility and Education Network. A click unleashes thousands of forum posts telling stories just like her own, unfolding to her as if to say what she always wanted to hear: You’re not broken. For the almost 70,000 members of AVEN, Judy’s experiences are uncomfortably familiar. Before finding their home online, many asexual people internalize messages that they are broken or immature from intimate sources - the unfortunate consequence of systematic erasure.

Building a culture less hostile towards asexuality involves forming inclusive asexual communities that fight for visibility and significant and accurate representation in queer, academic, and medical discourse.

Unlike other marginalized sexual and gender identities, asexuality fights an uphill battle against societal messages that it does not exist, or that it indicates a lack of humanity - notions which create an experience of omission for asexual people. The definition of asexuality has been a topic of considerable debate over the past 50 years because of the Perceived importance of sexual attraction in day-to-day behavior and self identification. The most commonly used operational definition is “a sexual orientation characterized by sexual attraction to no one” (Decker 22). The assumption that sexuality is uniform and universal has led to asexuality’s pathologization and it’s association

with sexual dysfunction despite the evidence that at least 0.75% of the American population exhibits asexual behavior, attraction, and identification (Poston & Baumle). The proclivity to view asexuality as a treatable illness extends beyond medical professionals to the non-asexual majority, making asexual individuals targets for disdain and prejudice. A 2012 study found participants more likely to view people not interested in sexual contact as machine-like and devoid of other traits linked with “human nature,” exposing undercurrents of unacknowledged anti-asexual prejudice in the average person (MacInnis & Hodson 729). Discourses of all types, from medical journals to popular sitcoms, perpetuate subtle misunderstandings of asexuality that indicate an underdeveloped societal conception of human psychosexual complexity. The issue of awareness not only prevents closeted asexuals from finding a community of their peers by depriving them of relevant vocabulary, but also bars academic and medical recognition by rendering potentially asexual spokespeople invisible.

The first battle in the struggle for mainstream recognition of asexuality is gaining understanding and acceptance from the queer community through the authority of respected LGBTQ organizations. The most commonly-used initialism LGBT literally stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, but as the sexual minority movement expanded to emphasize all non-heterosexual and non-cisgender identities, a popular variant adopted the letter Q for Queer.

Queer is an umbrella term that encompasses all of the marginalized orientations and genders left off of what would have become an increasingly lengthy alphabet soup. This is where asexuality comes in. Like homoand bisexuals, asexual individuals or “aces” constantly battle the presumption that they are heterosexual, are pressured to deny their true nature, and suffer feelings of isolation while forced to endure the potentially prickly process of “coming out” to friends and family. Counter intuitively, specific educational efforts are often met by uninformed, superficial vitriol from collections of strangers, queer and otherwise, purportedly motivated by “pity” for asexual people.

Too many see asexuals are either squatters on LGBTQ territory, freeloading off of hard-earned political and social gains that they don’t need in order to practice their lifestyle, or repressed, sex-negative celibates.

These knee-jerk reactions perpetuate erasure and debilitate the asexual political cause by preventing it from reaching LGBTQ institutions that would be

11 The Social Justice Review natural allies if properly and uniformly educated. In order to break the cycle of misinformation, major LGBTQ non-profits like GLSEN , an institution….. need to reframe society’s perception of sexuality and gender identity-based discrimination in school environments. GLSEN has the unique position of being a highly conspicuous resource for questioning youth, and can therefore use its influence to alleviate a lot of teen angst by simply introducing asexuality as a possible orientation. Asexual teens face alienating media portrayals, which paint people their age as bundles of raging hormones, and dismissive attitudes from their peers and parents, who insist that they’re late bloomers. A recurring theme in many asexual coming-of-age stories is the lapse into depression after attempts to ask questions about their sexual orientation in high-school Gay- Straight Alliances fail to reveal any answers. Because GLSEN works directly with local LGBTQ chapters and GSAs countrywide, they could easily distribute brochures and flyers detailing the basics of asexuality and pointing the way to online resources like AVEN and Asexual Explorations. Even inclusion on their prolific “Safe Space Campaign” posters—which currently only mention LGBT students and allies—would simultaneously spark the curiosity of confused asexual students and encourage a movement of LGBTQ solidarity in their support, empowering them to come out and join the rallying cry against heteronormativity.

As important as it is for the asexual identity to be acknowledged by queer communities and discourses, the accessibility of a distinctly asexual forum facilitates necessary internal discussion and enables external academic research. The consciously asexual population’s continual growth has given rise to multiple such outcroppings on social websites like Tumblr and Reddit, but arguably the most cohesive nexus of activity is the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN). Founded by college freshman David Jay in 2002, AVEN’s message boards house hotbeds of activity ranging from romantic advice request threads to active visibility projects. AVEN has developed its own culture complete with in-jokes, pride symbols, and an entirely new vernacular. Terminology like “poly-pan ace” (polyamorous panromantic asexual) draws ridicule from those unfamiliar with the separation between romantic and sexual attraction, but finding words to puzzle out models of intimacy is essential in a world of non-traditional relationships.

Yet for all of its richness, AVEN’s legitimacy is anything

but cemented. Methodological issues confronting academic research on asexuality—including lack of a consensus on its definition and qualitative differences between self-identified and “closeted” asexuals—have resulted in a dearth of hard evidence of its existence.

The majority of investigation originates within the community from AVEN’s yearly census and a group of asexual-identifying scholars such as Andrew C. Hinderliter (“Methodological Issues for Studying Asexuality”) and Julia Sondra Decker (The Invisible Orientation). From the outside, this looks like a pharmaceutical company giving the thumbs-up to its own drugs without FDA oversight: possibly accurate, but hard to take seriously. Generating interest within academia starts with targeting budding graduate students in Human Sexuality Studies programs at large universities. Asexuality is a relatively unexplored frontier, an enticing notion to Ph.D students pressed to produce original research for Master’s theses. David Jay and other pioneering asexual researchers could appear as guest lecturers in core sexuality and queer studies courses and host open “Asexuality 101” events on-campus in order to give students insight into the ace community, filling in the inherent gaps in outdated textbooks. After presenting, they could remain on-call for the rest of the semester to advise interested students in terms of viable research topics and methods. Giving asexual advocates a voice in the classroom would go a long way to make ace students feel welcome on their campus. College life can be exhaustingly isolating for people who don’t relate to the sex-saturated culture, so removing the pressure on asexual students to explain themselves may make them feel less alien.

Incorporating asexuality into collegiate curricula and increasing the number of studies on the subject will not only generate discussion about the numerous modes of attraction and whether there are normative levels of each, but may also provide basis for the depathologization of asexuality.

With the pressing evidence of an extensive body of research, the American Psychological Association will be forced to divorce lifelong asexuality from Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) and reform their restrictive norms of human sexuality.

The most prominent source of invalidation asexuals experience is the treatment of asexuality as a disease or disorder that demands correction. Asexual people that seek counseling for depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues often encounter insistent attempts to instead “fix” their sexual orientation. The few studies

12 The Social Justice Review on the subject up to the present imply that lifelong absence of sexual desire is not pathological (Bogaert), but the American Psychological Association (APA), whose Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is used worldwide as a key guide for diagnosing pathologies, is largely to blame for continued clinical refusal to recognize asexuality. By the DSM’s guidelines, any asexual person in “distress” for reasons related to their absence of desire can be deemed mentally ill and eligible for hormone treatment with psychiatric therapy. Ironically, APA ruled Sexual Orientation Change Efforts unethical in 2007 after their task force’s assessment of peerreviewed journal literature on sexual orientation revealed no abnormality in same- sex attraction (APA Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation). Assuming future research continues to validate asexual identities, AVEN, LGBTQ allies, and sexuality academics have the power to petition the DSM subcommittee of the APA to change their stance on asexuality. The first step would be to revise the APA guidelines, which currently read, “sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic and/or sexual attractions to men, women or both sexes” (American Psychological Association 1). While explicitly exempting lesbian, gay, and bi identities from medical stigma, this categorical conception of sexuality uses Kinsey’s outdated binary model and leaves no room for asexuality. If bisexual people do not have two distinct sexual orientations, it is nonsensical to imply that asexual people do not lack one. A truly comprehensive definition should therefore logically include an attraction to neither sexes. From there, action should also be taken to make note of asexuality in the definition of HSDD in order to either expressly exclude it or warn against misconstruing it as symptomatic of sexual dysfunction. This would set up sturdy framework for the depathologization of asexuality by first encouraging therapists to acknowledge its validity, and then standardizing sexual orientation affirmation in asexual cases. Asexuals who wish to pursue therapy should not fear erasure in what is meant to be a guaranteed safe space, and an APA stamp of approval also prefaces gradual avenues into common knowledge—the ultimate achievement for asexual visibility.

Tackling problematic representation in contemporary LGBTQ, academic, and clinical contexts is vital to setting the stage for mainstream asexual recognition.

That said, in the long run, achieving success in these

areas is akin to selecting the low hanging fruit in increasing visibility. As lofty as these discourses may seem with such a small community, the most daunting barriers to widespread acceptance lie in more popular discourses such as television and movies.

The dominant culture is one of mass consumption such that the media people partake in inform their worldview, establishing norms of gender identity and sexual orientation. Even a seemingly benign weekly sitcom like The Big Bang Theory has the power lead millions of viewers by example into unintentionally intolerant behaviors. Unlike respected institutions such as GLSEN or the APA, mass media is notoriously difficult to hold responsible for any societal damages it precipitates, especially with the limited support of a comparatively tiny online community like AVEN. Massive conglomerates have little motivation to cater to quiet, niche groups of insignificant financial consequence. However, the collective force of an expanded asexual demographic backed by allies from backgrounds in queer activism and academia alike would likely raise the stakes to make accurate representation a higher priority. Only then can asexual individuals like Judy begin to look beyond the horizon to a future where their identity is not only visible, but embraced with open arms as another healthy variation of human sexuality.

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Works Cited American Psychological Association. (2008). Answers to your questions: For a better

understanding of sexual orientation and homosexuality. Washington, DC: Author.

[Retrieved from www.apa.org/topics/sorientation.pdf.]

APA Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. (2009). Report of

the Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation.

Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Decker, Julie Sondra. The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality. New York, NY:

Carrel Books, 2014. Ebook.

Macinnis, C. C., and G. Hodson. “Intergroup Bias toward “Group X”: Evidence of Prejudice,

Dehumanization, Avoidance, and Discrimination against Asexuals.” Group Processes &

Intergroup Relations 15.6 (2012): 725-43. Web. Poston, D. L., & Baumle, A. K. (2010). Patterns of asexuality in the United States. Demographic

Research, 23, 509–530.

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Let’s Get It On (Consensually): Affirmative Consent and Presentations of Gender

By Shauna Switzer Reed College, 2018

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Shauna Switzer hails from Portland, Oregon by way of Brooklyn, New York.

She is currently studying Political Science at Reed College with an emphasis on sex and gender. When she’s not fighting the patriarchy she enjoys grilled cheese, Pat Benatar, and playing with power tools.

Abstract: Affirmative consent laws, like those being enacted on college campuses all over the country, have passionate activists on both sides of the issue.

Advocates emphasize the importance of creating a consent culture and the failures of a no-based consent definition, while detractors worry about the persecution of uninformed men based on a much broader definition of sexual assault. The influence of affirmative consent extends beyond purely sexual scenarios, through the precarious position sex holds on the cusp of the private and public spheres. By changing the conversation surrounding how we have sex, these laws threaten the status quo relationship exhibited in heterosexual encounters in which the man is the aggressor and the women has the choice to either acquiesce to or reject his advances. Although sex is often considered a distinctly private experience, the roles we take in the bedroom invariably effect presentation in the public sphere. Affirmative consent legislation, through its redefinition of sexual gender roles, also challenges public gender roles and as such destabilizes prevailing notions of masculinity and femininity.

16 The Social Justice Review Laws that govern consent with respect to sexual relations have long proven to be lacking .1 In recent years, a growing movement to fix the issue of “rape culture,” the normalization of rape and sexual assault, has led to a slew of solutions aimed at combatting sexual violence, including affirmative consent legislation2. Affirmative consent legislation, commonly referred to as “yes-means-yes laws,” are laws that mandate confirmative, enthusiastic, unambiguous, uncoerced, verbal affirmation of consent of all parties in all sexual scenarios. The debate frequently plays out across college campuses with many states including California and New York, adopting official legal measures on college campuses. The enactment of these policies challenges standard, hegemonic definitions of masculinity by changing the way masculinity plays out in socio-sexual scenarios.

The phrase “yes-means-yes” is a direct response to the “no-means-no” slogan of rape prevention, which assumes de facto consent unless otherwise noted; “yes-means-yes” changes the definition of consent from the absence of “no” to the presence of “yes”.

Many proponents of this type of legislation argue that it is obvious and should change very little for people who already practice good consent and yet, affirmative consent legislation managed to cause somewhat of a gender panic among those who worry about the persecution of men under such directives. Despite the slippery slope narrative its opponents frequently invoke, affirmative consent legislation is an important step toward dismantling sexist gender roles in sex and, eventually, in the public sphere as well.

Affirmative consent legislation criminalizes situations in which anyone present is unable to give complete consent and puts into law that consent to one act does not entail blanket consent for all acts; likewise, consent once does not constitute consent in perpetuity3. These laws are the logical continuation of spousal rape laws, the laws enacted from 1979 until the early 1990s that said a marriage certificate did not constitute de facto consent, and were met with similar contention4. The text of California bill SB 967 defines consent as, It is the responsibility of each person involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other or others to engage in See the 124 colleges and universities under investigation for Title IX violations 2 Marshall University 3 SB 967 4 Rothman

the sexual activity. Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent.

Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.

The heart of both affirmative consent laws and spousal rape laws before them is that no one ever owes anyone else access to their bodies and any access taken without expressly granted permission is and should be an offense punishable by law.

One of the major ways affirmative consent laws differ from most other laws currently on the books is that they shift the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused. Critics worry that consent will be hard to prove, but often give little thought to the fact that not giving consent is just as hard, if not harder, to prove. If the law requires a “no”, then any uncertainty makes the defendant’s case5. Given that most rape cases end up turning on very uncertain “he-said, she-said” evidence, defendants are at a structural advantage. This may seem extreme, but statistics about the prosecution of rape cases show that nine percent are prosecuted and only three percent end in any jail time whatsoever6. As such, these show a pattern of victim neglect. Affirmative consent laws may actually make rape law more enforceable than it currently is by giving a clear definition of what consent is and eliminating much of the ambiguity that exists under current rape law7. The current system works to the advantage of abusers and the disadvantage of the abused. Affirmative consent legislation attempts to flip the script over who is believed in cases surrounding consent.

So who should get consent? Who should give it?

Theoretically everyone who wishes to engage in sexual activity should get and give consent every time at every step of the way, but the way consent plays out in real world interactions is much more gendered than the language of the law. Often, a man’s consent is simply assumed. Consent education all too frequently focuses on teaching men to ask for consent and teaching women that they can say no if they wish. This discussion is often tainted by outdated stereotypes that men default to wanting sex and women default

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17 The Social Justice Review to not wanting sex. While the risk of pregnancy is often cited as the reason for this gendered deviation in approaches to sex , the sexual revolution of the sixties, the accessibility of birth control, and an increased focus on family planning necessarily changes the way women approach sex8. Consent law must evolve to reflect this change in order to keep pace with the increased push for equality in the law, and affirmative consent’s gender-neutral language does.

Much of the discourse currently centers on the ways in which this sort of legislation would harm men, working under the assumption that men would be the ones accused of not obtaining consent. Sexual assault and rape are often coded as a primarily female problem; men rape women so therefore, men must get consent and women must give it. It does not matter to those subsumed by gender panic that the language of the bill is all gender neutral9 ; any version of sexual aggression that does not look like a man attacking a woman relies on at least one of the parties incorrectly acting their gender and as such, is unintelligible to the masses. When a bill says everyone must ask for consent and everyone must give consent, that is either read as men must ask for consent and women must give consent full stop or all people must shed their sexual gender roles by accepting and embodying the dual roles of sexual aggressor and sexual recipient at the same time.

Wendy Williams expands on the roles of women and men in sex in her essay “The Equality Crisis: Some Reflections on Culture, Courts, and Feminism,” critiquing the deeply ingrained nature of societal expectations with regards to sexual initiation. In one of her test cases of the interaction of sexual equality and the law, the Supreme Court case Michael M. v. Superior Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist opines that because men lack the biological deterrent of pregnancy, they must have a legal deterrent in place.

Williams goes on to extrapolate that sexual aggression is therefore seen as quintessentially masculine, a stereotype that becomes self-enforcing in its application to socio-sexual relationships. She explains the historical precedence of heterosexual mating practices, Then, as is true even today, men were considered the natural and proper initiators of sex. In the face of male sexual initiative, women could do one of two things, yield or veto,

“consent” or decline. What normal women did not, should not, do was to initiate sexual contact, to be the sexual aggressor10 Traditional sexual gender roles, still very much in play today, assign men the role of aggressor and women the role of victim; this relationship provides the subtext for affirmative consent legislation, which dictates that women must no longer simply yield to sex but actively participate in its initiation. Affirmative consent legislation realigns the conversation from the negative, whether she will veto, to the positive, whether she actually wants to engage in sex.

The backlash against affirmative consent legislation is wide-ranging in its authors, audiences, and legitimacy.

On one end of the spectrum are the Men’s Rights Activists trolling Reddit and complaining about America’s impending doom as a matriarchy, but on the other, much more worrisome in its sincerity, are well-respected people, women, who have been so indoctrinated into the status quo that they see fixing issues of consent as more trouble than it is worth. One of these women, journalist and cultural critic Judith Shulevitz, exemplifies this version of the affirmative consent critic in her June 28th New York Times op-ed “Regulating Sex”. In it, she claims that these laws would be difficult to enforce, require a massive overhaul of the way we teach consent, and could be a slippery slope that would lead to persecution for completely innocuous activities like an unwanted handhold11.

Her overhaul argument assumes public opinion to be fairly static, and is probably inaccurate if one believes Wendy Williams’ argument that laws either directly reflect societal opinions or very occasionally preempt what will eventually become widely accepted, as is probably the case here12. The laws are generally targeted at colleges and universities and frequently include educational requirement clauses to accompany the new definition of consent. California SB 967 includes a clause that predicates funding on a college or university’s compliance with the mandate that it addresses sexual violence in a substantial, institutionalized way. That mandate is followed by another that says the educational programs outlined above must be part of incoming students’ orientation.

The movement to reeducate people, or at least the next sexual generation, is already in place and already

Williams 76 Shulevitz 12 Williams 71 10

Buss et al 9 See California Bill SB 967 8

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Her other two arguments, either that consent legislation is a slippery slope that will lead to an overly broad definition of sexual assault and that consent legislation will lead to the persecution of innocent men who only wish to show interest in their female partners, are more dangerous because they rely on outdated and destructive stereotypes that women are either vindictive or over-sensitive. There are two logical conclusions from the assumption that women would prosecute harmless events. The first is that women, or at least enough women that this would be a legitimate concern, are vindictive and would prosecute events that truly caused them no harm just because they can. The second equally disturbing assumption embedded in this argument is that women are unable to decide for themselves what they find harmful and that the harm accrued from something Shulevitz does not see as a problem is not really harmful at all. Opponents like Shulevitz often fail to realize the revolutionary nature of consent laws with respect to the dismantling of harmful definitions of masculinity and the power imbalance built into male and female sexual roles.

“Yes-means-yes” laws threaten many of the traits frequently associated with masculinity and as such threaten the entire concept of the male gender role.

Many traits associated with masculinity are in direct conflict with affirmative consent.

Aggression, control, and intimidation14 are no longer viable tools for acquiring a mate, which throws the entire male identity into question. Sexual roles are so intimately connected to gender presentation that changing the way heterosexual pairs interact sexually simultaneously changes the definition and presentation of gender. Because of this, much of the rejection of affirmative consent legislation has little to do with sex and much more to do with general presentations of masculinity. By challenging notions of masculinity, notions of femininity are automatically challenged as well. Masculinity and femininity exist in relation to each other15 so in making the definition of masculinity more fluid, the definition of femininity becomes more fluid as well and the rigidity of gender as a social construct begins to disintegrate.

A fluid approach to gender is necessary for achieving Shulevitz Kivel 149 15 MacKinnon 169

gender equality because an essentialist approach to gender leads to the obvious conclusion that men, the stronger sex, must protect women, the weaker sex and further that women must be protected from the traditional bad of the men’s world. The gut instinct of many women as well is to reject the less admirable roles of men while coveting men’s autonomy, a desire that may ultimately hinder equality. Williams argues that both the good and the bad of agency must be acquired in order to gain real equality, and cautions about the instinct to “absolve women of personal responsibility in the name of protection.

There is a sense in which women have been victims of physical aggression in part because they have not been permitted to act as anything but victims”16 . By designating women as victims, first and foremost, we take away any sexual agency they might otherwise have. In a situation in which the man is always the aggressor and the woman is always the victim of his sexual advances, the man is the subject and the woman an object to be taken. To move away from the aggressor/victim gendered dichotomy is to move toward gender equality.

But If what the equality feminists fight for is actually a fight for choice and for independence17 then consent legislation moves toward that by giving women more choice and more agency in sexual situations. The gender-neutral society generally seen as the ideal by liberal feminists relies on completely agential relationship between the sexes, and affirmative consent legislation mandates agency in the sexual realm. By reframing the relationship between the sexes in heterosexual sex as collaboration rather than a power dynamic, both partners incur responsibility for the actions that occur. The acquisition of agency drives the feminist movement and reorients the definition of femininity away from victimhood.

Opponents often treat agency as a zero-sum game – that men must lose agency for women to gain it. This is patently false, however.

One final argument against affirmative consent legislation is that certain radical feminists theorize that women are completely unable to consent to sex due to structural disadvantages and thus affirmative consent is a moot point, no consent is real consent.

Catherine MacKinnon argues that the gender hierarchy is sexualized, that sexual relations actualize men’s power over women, and that all sex is therefore implicated in the persistence of the patriarchy18. While

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19 The Social Justice Review under this definition affirmative consent might not constitute viable consent, its work dismantling gender roles works toward a society in which women may one day be able to give a version of consent that meets MacKinnon’s standards. By unraveling important sections of what femininity and masculinity mean with regards to sex, affirmative consent legislation also works to change our entire cultural approach to sex. MacKinnon defines sexuality in terms of male dominance19, a dominance that is hopefully a little less pervasive under the new legislation.

Law is rarely a force of great social change and is almost never the site of revolution. It more often acts as a weathervane for public opinion, so the introduction of these laws is a good indicator as to changing opinions on sex and autonomy. Affirmative consent laws point to a version of sexuality that no longer falls into a yes/no dichotomy but allows for variety in sexual interaction. By eliminating and replacing laws that rely on blanket definitions of consent, affirmative consent opens up the discussion of sexuality to include differing levels of acceptability and gives people a lot more power in choosing what aspects of sexuality they do and do not want to engage in. When yes is the default, all sex acts, unless specifically rejected, are acceptable; by flipping the script such that each act must be consented to separately, sexual participants are given an increased amount of sexual freedom and choice that allow for a more pleasurable and consenting interaction for all involved.

regulating the way people have sex – ends up deregulating the way people express gender in the bedroom, and what people do in the bedroom carries over to the outside world. If one accepts the idea that the public and private sectors are not distinct but intimately related then it follows that by changing the way people interact in the most private part of the private sector, affirmative consent legislation will cause a ripple effect that eventually changes the way the public sector operates as well. So is affirmative consent legislation the end to all sex-based conflicts?

Of course not, but if, as Williams contends, “we cannot successfully dismantle any of it [gender relations] without seriously exploring the possibility of dismantling it all”22 then affirmative consent legislation, tied up in sex and gender assumptions as it is, might be a starting point.

Regardless of critics’ objections, affirmative consent legislation is likely the future of sexual assault law.

Many have noted a generational divide with younger people, importantly including those young people who will one day go into law and politics and all the other areas of civic life that shape laws, overwhelming support of affirmative consent20. That the courts are enacting these sorts of laws now is a good omen for supporters, as the courts “reflect, by and large, mainstream views, mostly after those views are well established, although very occasionally… the Court moves temporarily out ahead of public opinion”21.

Even if affirmative consent is not currently the mainstream opinion, history, the courts, and the opinions of the next generation suggest that it likely will be in the foreseeable future.

Affirmative consent legislation – rather than MacKinnon 161 Shulevitz 21 Williams 71 19 20

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Works Cited Amherst, Michael. “Rape Is Not Just a Women’s Issue.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media

Limited, 17 Mar. 2010. Web. Buss, David Michael, and David P. Schmitt. “Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism.” Sex Roles

64.9-10 (2011): 768-87. Web. Kivel, Paul. “The Act-Like-A-Man Box.” Men’s Lives. By Michael S. Kimmel and Michael A.

Messner. 7th ed. New York: Macmillan, 2007. 148-50. Print.

MacKinnon, Catherine. “Sexuality.” The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda J.

Nicholson. New York: Routledge, 1997. 158-80. Print.

Mansfield, Harvey C. Manliness. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006. Print.

“97 of Every 100 Rapists Receive No Punishment.” Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.

RAINN, 2013. Web. “Rape Culture.” Marshall University Women’s Center. Marshall University, n.d. Web. Rothman, Lily. “When Spousal Rape First Became a Crime in the U.S.” Time. Time, 28 July 2015.

Web. S. 967, California Cong. (2014) (enacted). Print.

Shulevitz, Judith. “Regulating Sex.” The New York Times [New York City] 28 July 2015: n. pag.

Print.

Williams, Wendy W. “The Equality Crisis: Some Reflections on Culture, Courts, and Feminism.”

The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda J. Nicholson. New York:

Routledge, 1997. 71-91. Print.

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In Our Backyard

By Rebecca Homan University of Southern California, 2016

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Rebecca Homan is a senior pursuing a B.S. in Environmental Studies and a B.A. in International Relations. Rebecca is interested in environmental policy and environmental justice issues and hopes to pursue an interdisciplinary career that combines both areas. She is excited to graduate this May and enjoys hiking, traveling, and Major League Baseball.

26 The Social Justice Review “It is not right that we have to live with it going on in our backyard! My daughter gets nosebleeds and headaches on a regular basis… but they don’t care.

The yellow cement walls reach above sight, the gates are always closed and loud drilling noises persists 7 days of the week,” explains Monica Uriarte, a resident of USC’s surrounding neighborhood.

As Monica explains the controversial site, the USC student audience is silent with disbelief. This is many USC students’ first time hearing about hydraulic fracturing1 and acidization2 , as well as learning about the acidization site located three blocks from campus.

Monica turns to face her 7-year-old daughter, Monique, sitting at the guest lecture table, legs swinging as her feet don’t even touch the floor. Monica slowly scans the audience, pauses and concludes, “I’m not getting emotional. I’m getting real,” (USC Political Student Assembly Debate 11/6/13).

Monica’s fears and apprehensions are shared—she is just one of the many local USC community members that is unsure about what is going on in these neighborhoods.

Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, is a controversial oil and natural gas extraction method. Fracking has been on the rise in southern California within the last few years as energy demands have increased. Fracking and acidization are both methods that extract oil and natural gas by pumping water and a combination of various chemicals into the ground. This high-pressurized flow of water and chemicals breaks or dissolves shale to release oil or natural gas. The byproducts of fracking offer a cleaner alternative to traditional fossil fuels.

However, it is both the process of obtaining the resources and the method in which oil companies conduct their businesses that have local populations and environmentalists upset. Although there are numerous costs to fracking, one pressing topic that needs to be addressed is the health and environmental impacts of fracking around the USC campus.

Therefore a first step to a solution would be engaging students and community members to help raise Hydraulic fracturing “involves injecting a high-pressure mixture of water, chemicals and sand or gravel into a well bore to crack open rock formations containing oil or gas.” (Cart).

2 Rather than cracking shale, acidization uses chemicals and high pressure water to dissolve shale to release oil or gas 1

awareness of the short and long-term consequences of fracking.

Hydraulic fracturing and acidization isn’t a new process, however, it has recently become a lot more popular recently due to technology advancements.

With these advances, access to natural gas has been more readily open and consequentially more economically feasible. With California’s economy in desperate need of an economic boost, this new “abundance” in natural gas coupled with a highenergy demand has led to a spike in oil wells and production.

Although fracking offers an economic boost and a cleaner form of energy, fracking is also associated with numerous other problems. With fracking on the rise a series of questions have arisen regarding both the short and long-term repercussions. Critics of the natural-gas extraction process are quick to point out the immediate failings in the process itself. Accessing the natural gas is extremely resource intensive. Each fracking job requires anywhere between 1 to 7 million gallons of water, despite California being in its worst drought in decades (Lustgarten). Furthermore, toxic chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, lead, formaldehyde, and other poisonous carcinogens are mixed with the water, polluting the air and making the water unusable for the future. This use of toxic chemicals has led to higher than normal levels of hydrofluoric acid in the air, which has been allegedly giving close-by residents nose bleeds and bad headaches.

Additionally, opponents are concerned with the longer-term implications, including the use of unknown chemicals and quantities that many worry will contaminate the ground water supply. Conflicting interests between oil companies, politicians, environmental activists and community members has led to a high level of uncertainty as to what the outcomes of fracking will be for their specific communities. Generally, the points of controversy about future effects center around two main points: the possible contamination of the groundwater supply and increased seismic activity.

Adding on to the intense use of water, fracking can also contribute to local water scarcity issues by polluting the current supply of groundwater. When millions of gallons of water and toxic chemicals are pumped miles beneath the earth’s surface, there is

27 The Social Justice Review a possibility that the polluted water may leak into southern California’s water stock. This is hazardous because the contamination will not be solely confined to fracking areas—but rather can spread throughout the entire region. Therefore it is urgent that research be done to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to see if the risk of contaminating the scarce groundwater supply is worth the economic boost from the influx in natural gas.

Furthermore, the southern California region falls within an earthquake prone area. Therefore drilling into the earth’s crust is believed to affect seismic activity. With these two concerns in mind, it is important for southern Californians to be aware and understand what this means for the region.

These concerns are especially pressing in southern California because of the extremely dense populations in which fracking sites are in close proximity. Despite the increasing awareness about the growing trend of fracking, many southern California residents are not aware of where these sites are popping up. However, a huge challenge that the USC community faces is a lack in basic knowledge about what fracking is and why it is an important issue to address. To even begin to solve the concern it is important for the neighborhood to know that the issue exists.

For this reason it is imperative that those most likely to be affected by fracking know what fracking is, why it occurs and the potential repercussions. Although there really is no one ideal solution to this issue, the first and foremost step to take is to raise awareness about what is going on. More often than not, environmental degradation occurs in lower income and minority neighborhoods because of the lack of awareness of environmental justice issues, making it hard to identify. By educating students about the basics of fracking and environmental justice issues, students will be more engaged in the topic and want to learn more about how fracking will impact their community. Those who are directly affected should be well-informed on the topic, from numerous perspectives, before key decisions are made about what forms of actions and solutions will be pursued.

Therefore, an additional method to help improve the situation would be to mobilize students on campus.

USC is a large private institution and has importance within the southern California region. With over 40,000 undergraduate and graduate students that

live on or near campus, the two fracking sites within walking distance of campus hit close to home for students and neighborhood residents. Within the past year numerous student groups on campus have made an effort to keep themselves and others updated about the deliberation of fracking not only at the sites by campus, but also the sites in greater Los Angeles.

Word about the drilling near campus is beginning to spread—as demonstrated by the student-organized debate that took place during the fall 2013 semester.

Open forums for discussion with community members like Monica have shown students why this issue is important and why they should care. Debates are an effective way to not only teach students about the issue, but also engage and inspire students to get involved and take action.

Therefore the most feasible solution is to engage students and community members in a grassroots movement. A bottom to top campaign is key for raising awareness amongst the student body and surrounding neighborhood. One feasible grassroots campaign method is having students meet and reach out to neighborhood residents with fliers outlining the symptoms and potential dangers to fracking.

These fliers are not only a great way to increase understanding about fracking and acidization, but also a great way to encourage dialogue and participation amongst community members and local officials. Having students and community members work together to spread awareness and apply pressure on local officials is the only way to stop fracking in the region, ultimately preventing further environmental degradation and adverse health effects.

With the sites around campus as motivation to fight the injustices, students and community organizers like Monica Uriarte have already made a difference.

During the spring semester there was a successful hearing to place a moratorium on any new drilling near USC’s campus. Students and neighborhood members attended the event, showing their support for the moratorium.

Although the moratorium is still in place “until the city can verify that fracking in the city will not harm public safety or compromise drinking water” there are still many challenges that the USC community faces (Anzuoni). Because fracking is such a profitable business for both the state economy and big oil companies, there exists a large opposition to end fracking. Oil companies that are profiting from the

28 The Social Justice Review drilling are reluctant to stop fracking because of the “consequences” that may or may not affect public health and the environment. Political games are an additional obstacle that activists continue to face.

Politicians are often caught between a rock and hard place of trying to find a balance between ensuring the safety of their voters while trying to keep California economically competitive in the energy industry.

Therefore it is important to understand these challenges and know how they can affect the fracking campaign.

With these challenges in mind, it is essential for students and community members to know and understand that individuals can make a difference— despite the strength of the opponents. This seemingly marginal improvement is a victory for the community organizers and members who began the improvement efforts by becoming aware of what was going on, but then deciding to take action.

Despite the economic benefits to fracking there are numerous health and environmental drawbacks that ultimately outweigh the financial benefits. The short and long-term health and environmental impacts are unidentified—meaning more research and education awareness programming should be launched for students and community members to have access to.

It is important for USC students to be engaged and interested in learning more about what is going on so that the community will be able to decide how they want to pursue the next steps of a solution. Through an understanding and awareness students will be able to mobilize the student body, the university administration, and local neighbors to place a moratorium on fracking and completely shut down sites.

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Works Cited Anzuoni, Mario “Los Angeles Becomes Largest US City to Prohibit Fracking.” RT USA. N.p., 1

Mar.2014. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.

Cart, Julie. “Fracking Report Clears Way for California Oil, Gas Leasing to Resume.” Los Angeles

Times. Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.

Lustgarten, Abrahm. “California Shuts Down Injection Of Fracking Waste To Protect Scarce

Water.” NPR. NPR, 19 July 2014. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.

USC Political Student Assembly. University of Southern California, Los Angeles. 6 Nov. 2013.

Speech.

30 The Social Justice Review

The Dust That Never Settles and the Fire That Always Burns

By Madelina Rose Pratt University of Southern California, 2018

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Madelina Pratt is an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Spanish Language. Her academic research is in biomedical microsystems, and she is primarily interested in studying the way entrepreneurship, engineering, and clinical practice can be combined to improve health infrastructure worldwide. Madelina has studied abroad in Madrid, Spain for a summer, as well as spent a semester on exchange studying engineering in Singapore while traveling around Southeast Asia. Madelina is passionate about a wide variety of things, including reading, music, trekking, art, entrepreneurship, and exploring this big amazing world!

32 The Social Justice Review Reality is not a vacation. It is everyday life. It is hard, it is often painful, and it is often heartbreaking.

Cambodia is a country of dirt streets and motorcycles and sandals and burning trash and dust-filled skies and houses made of wood and hammocks hung from Bamboo trees and chickens and leaves painted the rustic red-brown of volcanic clay. After decades of conquest - raided by Thailand and Vietnam, inhabited as a colony by the French, and bombed by the Americans in the Vietnam War - Cambodia is a nation of children, women, and men in the process of being reborn from the ashes of the garbage littering the smoking ruins of the past.

I have had the chance to see what this smoking country looks like, not on a map, but in the faces of the people who live there. We visited Angkor Wat, of course, and marveled at the archeological beauty of these ancient mighty stones. We walked the colorful tourist markets, absorbed the smells, and filled our stomachs. We trekked the Ratanakiri Virachey forest, and enjoyed playing explorer sleeping in hammocks under the stars carrying full packs of food while walking through villages where food was a luxury. When we began removing the blinded lens of complacent egocentric tourism, however, we began to see Cambodia for what it was. On our way back from trekking, our young guide introduced us to the local school children. Their primary school is only two rooms, and consists of only wood panels with colored drawings on the walls. Each child worked in a simple lined notebook used for practicing writing. Very few of the children wore shoes or carried backpacks, and one child had one sandaled and one bare foot. All were in various stages of disheveledness, a ragged and scrawny crowd of stained shirts and toothy smiles.

As we walked into their classroom, we felt instantly self conscious with our packs, paralyzed with our inability to communicate. Some stared at us, others smiled, some waved, and little ones laughed and ran, hiding beyond posts and peaking out cautiously.

Eventually, however, someone suggested futbol, and an old deflated volleyball was offered up - the skin was peeling and there were several patches barely holding the tired air inside, but it was enough. The kids followed us outside and formed a ring around us in the dirt, smiling shyly and elbowing one another.

We then started to play, passing the ball to one child who in turn would pass it back to one of us. The crowd of little voices laughed as the ragged ball was passed around. After a while we noticed that some of the more vocal, energetic boys were pushing the girls

and littler ones out of the way in their excitement, so we began to point to the children in the shadows, calling them forward with beckoning arms and words they could not understand. At first they tried to hide, but eventually as their friends pushed them forwards they would scamper out of line and kick the ball back before hurrying back to the safety of the crowd. This game continued under the beating Cambodian sun, in a dusty schoolyard with barefoot children - it was here in the sweat and heat and dirt that friendships were made. It was beautiful to see these little ones begin to bloom like flowers, their smiles widening as we became not strangers but playmates. Eventually their class was excused for lunch and we all walked towards the village, where the children sat on dusty stools eating noodles out of plastic bags. A few knew how to say “hello” and we tried answering back “susdai” - it was an odd exchange, and yet somehow no words were needed to communicate the feeling of good intention.

There are many little faces I will never forget - the little girl missing her two front teeth wearing an eternal smile, the vibrant boy in soiled green who ran for the ball with a vengeance, the quiet girl with short hair who had a great kick and wore sunshine like a crown, the little boy who repeated hello back and forth with a giggle of gold - all precious beyond measure. The elders and more weathered youth were far more skeptical, however. They watched our profiles with hawk eyes, questioning, probing, uncertain and unhappy. There was no outward disdain for our presence, but evident discomfort in our unwelcomed interference in their world.

We then boarded the same longtail boat and made our way back to the Lamoi village on a peaceful boat ride. Seeing the same women out washing the same clothes by the same riverside ramshackle shacks was somehow more jarring the second time. One of the greatest blessings, in my opinion, is the luxury of change - momentum is a gift. While our days are constantly shifting as we enjoy trekking, traveling, exploring, studying, and growing up, these people live the same difficult, dusty life generation after generation. My life is being propelled always forward, constantly in motion, while these people are trapped in a world as stagnant as the dry riverbeds. It is heart rending to leave knowing the children we saw will inherit this wash bucket and will likely never know a world beyond their dry wooden village, much less the feel of a real, fully inflated soccer ball. I will always be moving forward, from school to adventures around the world, varying y my interests, my goals, my opportunities, and my surroundings. These people

33 The Social Justice Review will live the same impoverished day over and over again - the same house, the same food, the same river, and the same struggle for survival. What we saw in Lamoi was far worse.

As we approached another dusty red earth village, we noticed huge plumes of black smoke emerging from beneath the bridge over a dry riverbed, marking the entrance to the village. The air smelled rancid as the smoke wafted across the village to the river.

As we walked closer, we chanced a look down only to find the horrible mess of a massive dump on fire; enormous piles of melting plastic and rubber formed coagulated spires of ugly gray, angry embers peaked out between smoldering heaps of rotting food and human waste and wood and plants and charred rubbish. The air felt as thick as tar, the flames eliciting toxic fumes as they licked through the evidence of human refuse. The poison was settled on the town like an unpleasant ghost, permeating every nook and cranny with a nearly visible presence. Most ironically, the first store in this village next to this monstrosity was a pharmacy. I will never forget watching three small boys walking across the path, their young lungs inhaling pure smoke without knowing it was slowly killing them, peering into the unfenced pit with curiosity - innocent and unknowing victims. The life expectancy in Cambodia is one of the lowest in the world - I am grieved to admit I now understand why.

their petitions in Khmer. They had glued themselves to the van of potential customers before the vehicle had even come to a stop. As we neared the capitol, the roads gradually became smoother and the shacks progressively nicer, as the wood became bricks then the bricks became plaster and eventually skyscrapers appeared along the city skyline. The fully constructed, glossy skyscrapers were few and far between, however.

Most buildings were still a mess of crumbling plaster, decaying wood, and piles of trash lofted amongst enormously tangles of hundreds of electrical wires knotted precariously on wooden posts that were sometimes even hidden in small trees. How the city has not burned down, purely from electrical shortages, is a miracle.

Our truck ride back to Banlung was not much better, as we drove through village after village burning large masses of trash and fields. The air of Cambodia is heavy under the burden of permanent smoke - it almost feels as though it is possible to see air browning before one’s eyes. Arriving in Banlung to the sunset across the lake at our hostel felt like a arriving at a small oasis after a draught, until shortly after our arrival they began to burn the trash and unwanted brush right across the street. We ate dinner watching trees go up in flames and fell asleep as glowing scraps of burning plastic were tossed into the smoldering night sky. We awoke early the next morning at the bright sunny hour of 5:30 am to board another minivan packed with locals heading to Phnom Penh.

The bus ride was bumpy and rather uneventful, passing town after town of wood shacks, dust, faded signs, metal bowls of rice, barefoot children, tumbleweed and burning trash.

The streets were full of tuk tuk’s asking for rides, buzzing with people and tourists alike. The sky was solid brown, without a speck of blue to be seen and the river was the same - a line of what appeared be mud bordered by shores of trash. Phnom Penh, the nation’s capital, reflects a city trying so very hard to move forward amidst a poor people in a very broken system. There are only a handful of nice buildings and fancy offices - all of which are owned by the banks or the government. The rest of the city feels fragile and dirty, covered in dust and barely able to keep its head above the dirty waters of economic collapse.

There are sordid streets of markets where hundreds sit on floors caked with dirt and urine and oil, selling fish still flopping around in buckets of brown water that are sliced and left in the open to dry on slabs of wood dried with blood and grit under a constant haze of flies. There are huge slabs of red meat, large assortments of fruit, whole fried ducks with the beak and feathers and flippers still attached left out in the scalding sun while bugs take their feast. Even the parks are piled high with stacks of garbage, and scenes of skinny barefoot children picking through rancid scraps of food and wilted trash by overflowing trash bins is a common sight. There is a huge central market on filthy streets, boasting dozens of shops selling pirated labels; tired stall after stall teem with towers of fabricated shoes and shirts and bags of American and European label with desperate merchants bartering away the hours. Everywhere trash and dirt and grime even walking around makes one feel dirty, coating the lungs with smoke and polluted air, and layering the skin with city filth.

When our van stopped briefly at one of these little villages on our drive home, we were hailed by multiple men and women in hats carrying mangos and roasted corn and eggs and roasted chicken skewers who immediately filled the open doorway of the car with

We had the luxury of enjoying a view of the city from above at a cheap, well kept hostel by the river called 11Happy, but we soon discovered this was an oasis amidst the chaos that is Phnom Penh. There are museums and temples and historic sites in this city;

34 The Social Justice Review but to me those are scuffed gems in a rotting city. The reality is far more painful and no tourist site can hide it. The labyrinth of streets holds a plethora of nothing but poverty and desperation and starving beggars against a soiled sky. Even seeing the grand Royal Palace and Ministry of Anti-Crime and Government Headquarters felt like witnessing a horrible scandal of hypocritical injustice. The people just outside these massive gates are coughing with punctured lungs from pollution and are slowly being crushed with poverty, and yet the government boasts luxury. The city feels inescapably dirty - the streets are dirty, the buildings are dirty, and the air is putrid with heavy exhaust, pollution, and toxic smoke. And the many kind and smiling people, as a result, are dirty - soiled clothing, dusty feet, diseased skin, and malnutrition are rampant. This is the ugly face of poverty and it isn’t foreign; its the face of a fellow human being looking out from behind a mountain of dead maggoted fish asking “You buy?” because a few dollars is what it takes to get by. It is the fingers of the three-year-old boy in rags who grabbed onto our tuk tuk at a stop light, his desperation speaking louder than any words as he clenched my skirt and pointed longingly with starving eyes at the bag of almonds on my lap to feed his swollen belly. It is the unknowing smile of the little girl missing her two front teeth wearing an eternal smile, the vibrant boy in soiled green who ran for the ball with a vengeance, the quiet girl with short hair who had a great kick and wore sunshine like a crown, the little boy who repeated hello back and forth with a giggle of gold - the little ones who don’t know yet that they are trapped in an unchanging cycle of need and lack. Poverty is real, poverty, is ugly, and it is loud while suffering quietly - and Cambodia burns with it.

In Angkor Wat you will find the eighth archeological wonder of the world, which is pretty to look at and an interesting relic of the past. But in Cambodia as a whole you will find the most incredible wonder this world has to hold: humanity in its most raw and untempered state. What we found in Cambodia were some of the kindest and most beautiful people humanity has to offer within a country that is crumbling to pieces.

Cambodians are unknowingly burning their country - they are burning their sky with brown smoke that sits in the air long after the orange flames have been extinguished. The once clear skies are now muddy and the air is painfully heavy with the dusty embers of their mistake. They are burning the land with the remains of smoldering trash, heaped in piles alongside roads and schools and homes and hospitals where its poison contaminates all who ride through its

consuming smoke. They are burning the lungs of their youth, filling these poor young ones with the melted remains of plastic bottles and plastic bottles and unwanted debris.

Cambodia is a country of dusty fire. There are kilometers of wooden houses lofted precariously on wooden beams. There are people packed on motorbikes like books on a shelf. There are stretches as far as the eye can see of dilapidated markets selling food out of big metal pans and fruit and fish from long bags on the ground swarming with flies. There are long dusty roads, bumpy and uneven with barefoot children walking along them for kilometers without water.

There are also beautiful forests of bamboo and winding rivers and many green trees. Magnificent ruins are scattered throughout the land. Most amazingly, there are so many beautiful people - Dai Long, T, Brakkeo, Nam, the precious smiling children at the school, and so many others we did not chance to meet. I think that is what makes it all the harder to watch. We get to enjoy the best parts of Cambodia then go home to our comfortable and clean homes, where opportunities in education and career are readily available, where we always have access to a clean toilet and warm running water for a shower and clean food and as much clean drinking water as we desire. We get a home with fresh air, a nice car, and a safe neighborhood.

These people will likely never see such comfort.

In every village we passed through, a formal bathroom was a rare commodity, shoes were uncommon, and the schools and homes were falling apart. It is impossible to paint accurately with words what desolation it is to traverse an entire country from west to east, south to north, and see nothing but shacks and trash and toxic waste and rubble and dust. I want so much more for the people we met, and know they deserve so much more that what life has doled out. I must admit, however, that I am at a loss, overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of just how much needs to be changed. Infrastructure, construction, and supplies are clearly needed, but education and cleanliness are even more vital. The years of burning trash must be untaught, there is a desperate need for public sanitation, and good hospitals, and good roads and good school rooms. There is heavy need for filters for motorcycle gas, and the rivers need to be completely decontaminated.

Everywhere there is need, and a great deal of it. Need.

Pure, raw need. Thirsting, unquenched need that

35 The Social Justice Review burns the heart as strongly as sparks from the fire singe the lungs.

It is my hope that someday Cambodia and the Khmer people will be rejuvenated from the ashes of this burning land, that someday change will come.

Looking poverty in the face is a nasty experience. It is obvious, it is undeniable, and it is needy with a void I am unable to fill. One need look no farther than the child walking by the burning unfenced rubbish heap with dirty hands and tattered clothes and leeches on their feet with skin caked so thickly with dust they are several shades different in color, to know that something has to change. People should never be forced to live this way, and no child should be raised to believe this is all there is. Where and how to heal Cambodia I have no answer for - but one thing is for certain - the fire must be put out so this nation can finally start to heal.

My closing words as I fly back to my life of blessing are merely these - Cambodia is not and never should be treated as a vacation. It is an experience, and an important one at that. It is profoundly important for us all to see the ugly truth, to taste the filthy air, to smell the rotten fish, to feel the dusty grime, and meet the broken big hearted people so that we may be motivated to make a change and pay forward kindness with fervency. If you go to Cambodia and see only temples and elephant printed skirts, you have missed the point and ignored the truth. And the longer we ignore the truth, the longer Cambodia will continue to suffer.

Go to see reality, go to learn from it, and go to have your lungs burned and your heart broken. Only then, when we ache and bleed with Cambodia, will finally be inspired to actually do something about it.

36 The Social Justice Review

The Effects of the Western Garment Industry on Cambodia and Cambodian Women

By Lilly Tiang

University of Southern California, 2016

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Lilly is currently a senior at USC majoring in Health and Humanity and minoring in Health Care Studies and International Health, Development & Social Justice. As the daughter of Chinese-Cambodian immigrants, Lilly has a keen interest in investigating Cambodia’s current sociopolitical climate, an under-researched problem which has stunted the country’s development.

She is passionate about working with the community to promote social justice with a focus on gender issues, health inequality, and food insecurity. After graduation, she hopes to become a physician working to address sexual and gender-based violence and its impact on local and international communities.

Abstract: Cambodia’s multi-billion dollar garment industry has been portrayed as the key to its successful economic and social revitalization after years of genocide and civil war. However, the mass strikes in Cambodian factories and 2013-14 sociopolitical protests called international attention to widespread government corruption and the poor working conditions that have plagued the Cambodian garment industry, and the lives of Cambodian women who make up the majority of the workforce. Years after the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia continues to suffer from corruption, poor infrastructure, and widespread poverty. The lack of accountability by the Cambodian government, as well as international apparel brands and their home governments, reinforce the economic and political subordination of Cambodian women, bringing maldevelopment to Cambodia.

38 The Social Justice Review I. INTRODUCTION After a long era of civil war and genocide, Cambodia emerged as a developing economy with the assistance of the United Nations (UN) and the Western powers.

In the 1990s, Cambodia signed the first of many trade agreements with the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) to manufacture apparel for Western corporations, contingent on Cambodia’s ability to maintain strong labor standards and eliminate common labor abuses. Consequently, Cambodia’s garment exports industry has grown rapidly and is now a multi-billion dollar industry, supporting a significant portion of the nation’s budding economy and job market. In abiding by their trade agreements, Cambodia developed a reputation for being a “sweat-free” country and became a model apparel producer in the world.

In recent years, reports of mass strikes in Cambodian factories and sociopolitical protests have flooded international media headlines, calling attention to government corruption, low wages, and poor working conditions that widely plague the Cambodian garment industry (Kim, 2012; De Launey, 2012; Al Jazeera America, 2014). Young, uneducated Cambodian women and girls, with hopes of supporting their families and their own independence and aspirations, make up the majority of today’s factory workers.

They are bearing the full force of the problems in the garment industry, with both poor pay and substandard working conditions, contributing to daily mass fainting of workers in the factories (Benson, 2014). In response, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government issued a crackdown on the protests and the Cambodian military police opened fire on the workers during their peaceful protests, leaving many injured and killing five people (Benson, 2014).

Hun Sen’s use of violence on his own citizens and his targeting of activists and union leaders leaves little opportunity for reform, and the apparent lack of accountability by Western corporations and their respective governments to enforce labor standards continue to perpetuate labor abuses.

Despite the positive contributions of the industry in employment and economic growth, a closer inspection reveals that the garment industry has not significantly improved the lives of Cambodians and has instead generated additional troubles in the face of a rapidly growing and dynamic global economy. The development and rise of Cambodia’s garment industry

- despite being a beacon of hope for the country as a way to rise from its past and to rejuvenate Cambodian society - has resulted in a form of maldevelopment, with Cambodian women and girls being used to fulfill the economic vision of the Cambodian state and Western corporations. Unless the Cambodian government and corporations can work to address the challenges and constraints on the current garment industry system, the predicted benefits from the rise of the garment industry will remain transient and unsustainable.

II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK In Women, the State and Development, Charlton et al. establishes a framework to help understand the relationship between women and the state and the methods used by the state to reinforce or increase female subordination (Charlton, Everett, & Staudt, 1989). The state and corporations’ impact on gender relations and socioeconomic development can be seen as an interaction of three levels: state and its officials, state policies and institutions, and corporations and their interests.

At the first level, the state officials seek to enhance their own autonomy and the development of the state.

This development includes promoting economic growth and military strength, but may also involve expanding the state’s influence in society to maintain the current social order (Charlton et al., 1989). In the case of Cambodia and Hun Sen, the maintenance of the current sociopolitical environment is favorable towards the state elite’s goals by allowing them to continue to exert greater control over the nation and its people. This secures the state elite’s power and helps protect it from any threats to its authority. In a traditional patriarchal society, state elites continue to promote male domination to maintain social order, further strengthening the gendered division of labor where the private, domestic female realm is subordinated to the public male realm.

The state manifests itself in society through state policies and institutions. Men continue to hold positions of power in politics and in various economic sectors. Women are expected to stay in the private, politically invisible sphere thus lack access to resources and the political power available in the public sphere, perpetuating male domination and female subordination. This lack of resources prevents them from enacting changes and reforms to address

39 The Social Justice Review their own interests and needs. This gender inequality is also reflected in the state’s policies. While some policies may appear to directly address the needs of women. In some cases, women’s interests are ultimately subordinate to the state’s goals of economic growth and development (Charlton et al., 1989).

These contradictory policies may seek to enhance the state’s economy by maintaining female dependency on men, simultaneously supporting wage labor and paid maternity leave. Ultimately, these policies keep women excluded from state power.

The rise of corporations in the 21st century has added another force to the state-gender dynamic. Powerful Western corporations not only have significant control over today’s global economy, but also have great influence over nations’ socioeconomic development.

Corporations believe their work and influence in a developing nation will help bring the country’s economy into the global market and by boosting its economic output, will also generate wealth and bring about social improvements for the country.

However, in her book Staying Alive, environmental and anti-globalization activist Vandana Shiva argues that “development” has become a new project of Western imperialism defined by Western categories of economic productivity and growth based on commodity production (Shiva, 1989). Similar to the state’s subordination of women for its own purposes, corporations’ economic vision is based on the exclusion and exploitation of the nation to generate wealth for the corporations.

III. CAMBODIAN HISTORY On April 17, 1975, the communist Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia and converted the nation into an agrarian-based, classless society. To create their vision, the Khmer Rouge sought to dismantle all of the nation’s social and economic institutions.

Schools, government buildings, and churches were converted into prisons and radical communist reeducation camps (Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, n.d.).

In addition to banning money and free markets, they led a campaign to forbid and suppress interactions between friends, family, neighbors, and displays of emotion (Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, 2015).

Under the regime’s Four-Year Plan, the entire population was forced to evacuate from cities to communal farms in the countryside, where they were starved and overworked, resulting in 2 million deaths

from illness, exhaustion, starvation, and executions (Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, 2015). Minorities, intellectuals, professionals, and Khmer Rogue party members suspected of being traitors were targeted and sent to prisons to be tortured and eventually executed (Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, 2015).

Cambodia was transformed into a hermit state and the international community would not know the full extent of the damage until years after the regime’s downfall in 1979, when Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia, forcing top party leaders to go into hiding in neighboring Thailand. The following decade was characterized by continued instability from guerilla warfare as different groups aimed to gain power. With the country’s infrastructure and culture left in ruins, Cambodia and its people emerged broken and lost.

In response to the humanitarian crisis, on March 15, 1992 the UN - led by major Western powers began - a large-scale peacekeeping operation, called the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) to restore peace and stability by disarming all armed forces in Cambodia and supervising the ceasefire and various administrative sectors (“UNTAC Background Summary,” 2015). By organizing and overseeing Cambodia’s first post-conflict free election, a constitution that guaranteed human rights and a civil, but flawed, government was established (“UNTAC Background Summary,” n.d.).

With a more stable formal government and recovering economy, the US, the EU, and Western corporations saw an opportunity for both Western economic development and growth and profit in Cambodia by helping develop the country’s fledgling garment industry. Cambodia signed its first framework agreement with the EU to establish trade relations and promote economic development in Cambodia (“Cooperation Agreement,” 1997). On January 20, 1999, Cambodia and the US signed their first bilateral textile trade agreement in which the US agreed to give Cambodia greater access to the American market in exchange for Cambodia’s promise to improve its labor practices and maintain a program that ensures working conditions in the apparel industry meet international labor standards (“Cambodia Bilateral Textile Agreement,” 1999).

In recent years, Cambodia’s garment exports industry has grown significantly, producing apparel for international brand-name companies such as Gap,

40 The Social Justice Review H&M, Levi Strauss, and Adidas. Today, the industry is estimated to be worth $5.7 billion and makes up 95 percent of the country’s exports (Clean Clothes Campaign, n.d.). There are approximately 700,000 people employed in its factories, with over 90 percent of the workers being young Cambodian women (Human Rights Watch [HRW], 2015). In following its trade agreements, its 2001 third-party monitoring program called Better Factories Cambodia (BFC), that produces factory reports and advisory services to non-compliant factories, has become one of the industry’s main attractions (HRW, 2015). Garment manufacturers are required to participate in the monitoring program to receive export licenses from the Cambodian government to produce apparel (HRW, 2015). BFC is managed by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and supported by the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC), which works with the Cambodian government and the Labor Ministry to set labor policies, enforce regulation, and ensure Cambodian factories meet international labor standards (Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, 2015).

Cambodia has become a major garment exporter to the rest of the developed world and its status as a “sweat-free” industry provides it an advantage in a competitive market that is facing increasing public scrutiny over its human rights violations and lack of accountability.

Of the over 90 percent of young women and girls who make up the garment industry, an overwhelming majority chose to migrate from their rural villages to seek employment in urban areas to support their families and achieve some form of independence for themselves (Derks, 2006). Historically, women in Cambodia have been limited to roles as homemakers - deemed unfit for, and consequently excluded from, political roles in the public sphere. The growing economy and the accompanying rising cost of living have placed pressure on women and girls to enter the workforce and to become industrious workers to support their families. Their labor acts as both the driving force behind the growth of the apparel industry in Cambodia’s globalizing economy, and rebuild their identity as a prosperous, developed nation after decades of war and conflict. Driven by both economic necessity and dreams of a cosmopolitan lifestyle, Cambodian women and girls have taken on a vital role in advancing Cambodian society and in promoting national economic development by choosing to move to the city to work

in the garment export factories.

IV. LABOR RIGHTS ABUSES IN CAMBODIA’S GARMENT INDUSTRY While developed nations have applauded Cambodia for its successful road to economic and social recovery, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a 2015 report documenting the labor rights abuses in Cambodia’s garment industry. Several news reports have also surfaced detailing the labor violations found in Cambodian apparel and shoe factories. Despite the passage of strong labor laws in accordance with the trade agreements, there have been poor inspections and enforcement of these laws and policies by the government labor inspectorate (HRW, 2015). This has been due in part to the widespread practice of subcontracting, where contracted factories frequently outsource parts of their production process to smaller garment factories without garment licenses (HRW, 2015). Many companies engage in subcontracting to save costs by hiring part-time employees to take on additional work, increasing the factory’s output and productivity. These factories do not have to go through BFC monitoring and working conditions and violations are worse in these factories than those with export licenses because of the lack of regulation and oversight.

The hiring practices exacerbate the problems that arise from corruption and lack of labor law enforcement.

Subcontracting relies on using part-time employees who lack the full benefits and job security of a wouldbe full-time employee. Factory managers use shortterm contracts that make it easier to pressure and control workers, and to fire those who fail to meet production quotas (Cheang, 2015). Under these contracts, managers can easily underpay workers and suppress grievances because of the workers’ job insecurity. Additionally, managers force workers to work overtime. Out of necessity, workers also choose to accept excessive hours to earn more in order to feed themselves, pay rent, send remittances to their family and pay other fees. To meet high production targets, it is common for workers to put in 70 hours or more per week without breaks, leading to exhaustion (HRW, 2015). Work exhaustion and lack of nutrition due to inadequate funds have led to thousands of reported mass fainting in factories (HRW, 2015).

Women and girls bear burdens that male workers do not, that go far beyond poor pay and working

41 The Social Justice Review conditions. Female workers are often subjected to sexual harassment from managers and male coworkers and pregnancy-related discrimination pregnant women less likely to be hired, have their contracts renewed, or be provided maternity benefits (HRW, 2015). In a 2012 ILO report, it was found that one in five female workers reported being sexually harassed and felt powerless to stop the behavior (HRW, 2015). One worker described the experience as “‘terrible. Women don’t really like it. We are never seen as equals. They target young and pretty girls. It’s just seen as normal’” (HRW, 2015). BFC offers sexual harassment training programs but does not enforce participation in or attendance to these programs, and the government has no clear procedures to prevent and address sexual harassment in the garment factories (HRW, 2015). Although women are the driving force behind the apparel industry in Cambodia, they are devalued and have no opportunity for advancement to be managers or union leaders, who are overwhelmingly male. The lack of female participation in leadership prevents sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination concerns from being addressed. Instead, the workers who attempt to file a complaint risk losing their jobs or see their pay cut (HRW, 2015).

The biggest concern among workers and labor activists has been the poverty wages paid to the workers. Although the living wage in Cambodia is approximately $294 per month, garment workers were paid $80 per month, an insufficient amount to live on (HRW 2015). Female workers often have dependent children and elderly parents to support in addition to their own costs for food, healthcare, housing, clothing, and other living expenses in the city.

V. WORKING ON THE ASSEMBLY LINE OR WORKING ON THE STREETS Developed countries have supported the growth of Cambodia’s garment industry sector and claim it is the nation’s key to prosperity, even in the face of widespread mistreatment of garment workers and their poverty wages. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof described in his 2009 op-ed, “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream,” that “a job in a sweatshop is a cherished dream, an escalator out of poverty” for an impoverished nation and its people who have no better alternatives to wealth (Kristof, 2009).

As advocates for use of cheap labor in developing countries, economists Jeffrey D. Sachs of Harvard

and Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman argue that similar to the Industrial Revolution in the West and its characteristic labor violations, sweatshops “are a clear sign of the industrial revolution that is beginning to reshape Asia,” with sweatshops generating thousands of jobs and ultimately serving as a source of progress towards a higher standard of living for the entire population (Kristof, 2000; Myerson, 1997).

Krugman details his argument for sweatshops by discussing how low wages allow developing countries to gain access to world markets by producing “shirts and sneakers” that are of greater value than the country’s raw materials and agricultural practices in the Western-dominated global markets (Krugman, 1997). Multinational corporations move their operations to developing countries in order to lower apparel production costs and to increase their net profits through the use of cheap labor.

Although Krugman acknowledges that low wages and poor working conditions are undesirable, they are inevitable, given that companies are seeking to maximize profits, not the comfort of its workers, and these jobs are a better alternative to unemployment for Third World citizens escaping material poverty (Krugman, 1997). In the long-term, these exports industries improve the standard of living for the entire nation, as growth in this sector promotes growth throughout the entire economy, and competition between the growing numbers of factories drives wages upwards. Krugman and other economists assert that the developed Asian nations of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea also experienced a sweatshop stage of development that laid the groundwork for economic growth which helped these countries to achieve their current status as highly developed nations (Krugman, 1997).

Western media and anti-trafficking organizations have argued that the opportunity to be a garment worker employed in a factory is better for Cambodian women and girls because their other option, being a sex worker, is much worse. Due to their limited options for employment, Cambodian women often feel forced to turn to a life as a sex worker to financially support themselves and their families. For years, the Cambodian sex industry has been depicted as dangerous and degrading, a clear embodiment of the patriarchy of Cambodian society and the persistent subjugation and depreciation of women.

Countless stories of young Cambodian women and girls “forced to have sex with hundreds of men”

42 The Social Justice Review and who were “beaten, shocked with an electrical cord, denied food, and water” if they refused, have shocked the international community and summoned the sympathy and action of celebrities, journalists, politicians, and the general public (Pesta, 2012; Omaar, 2007; Hansen, 2005). Both the sex and apparel industries attract young, poorly educated Cambodian women and girls seeking to earn wages to support themselves and their families. Given the choice, many would argue that choosing a job in the garment sector and helping increase the garment industry’s productivity and growth is much more favorable than participating in socially taboo work that has a high risk for STD infections and violence. For Cambodian women and girls, the added stigma of being a sex worker in society provides additional motivation to enter the global assembly line as a garment factory worker. Being a garment factory worker represents a chance for these women to rise out of poverty and to gain independence while playing a key role in Cambodia’s revitalization.

Many in the West support the current direction of Cambodia’s garment industry in spite of its problems.

Both Kristof and Krugman claim that the antisweatshop movement’s push for improved labor standards and living wages impacts production costs for corporations and disincentivizes them from manufacturing and contractng in the developing country of interest (Kristof, 2009; Krugman, 1997).

The Cambodian Ministry of Commerce reported that garment industry growth has been on the decline with blame being placed on the protests and strikes that have damaged buyer confidence in the Cambodian market (Ford, 2015). Sweatshops are not a source of poverty but rather a “symptom,” and attempts to ban sweatshops would eliminate job opportunities for Cambodians (Kristof, 2009).

VI. 21ST CENTURY SWEATSHOP COLONIALISM The West contends that economic development will pull Cambodia out of poverty to become a developed nation and help improve the status of Cambodian women in a patriarchal society. However the labor rights abuses and recent government crackdown hint at a larger systemic problem inherent in the current development process in Cambodia.

Western development is focused on capital accumulation and commercialization of the economy to generate profits and create wealth for corporations

and developed countries. This is also accompanied by the creation of poverty. After pressure from the 2013-2014 protests, the minimum wage was raised to $128 per month, yet still falling short of a living wage of $294 per month (Kim, 2015). In addition, over 90 percent of the garment and shoe factories in Cambodia are foreign owned and “80 percent of middle managers at the garment factories are non-Cambodian nationals. Although the garment industry directly supports Cambodian workers through wage packets, the sustained impact of the middle level profits is not retained by the country” (HRW, 2015). Since Cambodia’s garment industry makes up a large part of the nation’s economy, the economy is heavily dependent on this one industry and Cambodia’s export partners, the US and the EU. The heavy reliance on its garment exports makes the economy particularly sensitive to economic downturns affecting the US. After the 2008 recession, Cambodia’s exports fell 18% in the first half of 2009 with its largest falls being in the US market and the industry laid off 10% of its workforce (World Bank 2009; United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2009). The wealth generated by this industry does not return to the Cambodian people through beneficial infrastructure reconstruction or sufficient wage increases, but instead Cambodian workers are paid non-living wages and Cambodia’s economy is extremely dependent on the US economy, with the US being Cambodia’s largest export market and exports total $2.8 billion (Office of the US Trade Representative, n.d.).

Women’s access to economic resources, other employment opportunities, and education are still limited and surprisingly, women make up the majority of the poor of Cambodia (UN Women, n.d.). Women are forced to juggle their roles as homemakers and as wage earners, creating additional responsibilities and pressures for women. In order to survive amidst rising costs of living, education is neglected in favor of paying for food, water, rent, and other living expenses for both themselves and their dependent family members using their meager wages. In all areas of Cambodia, women have lower levels of education and higher dropout rates than men (“Women and Men in Cambodia,” 2011). For girls aged 6-17, the most common reasons for discontinuing their education were that they “must contribute to household income” and “must help with household chores” (National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning, 2011).

There are very few programs available for women

43 The Social Justice Review for alternative livelihood training or job placement assistance, further limiting opportunities for upward mobility and career advancement. Cambodian women are underrepresented in the political sphere, with only 18 percent of the elected positions belonging to women, and in the 2008 election, the share of women as members of the National Assembly was 22 percent (The Asia Foundation 2011; National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning, 2011).

Many are forced to discontinue their education to help contribute to the familial income by taking low-paying and high-risk jobs that have limited upward mobility (Eaton, 2015).

The combination of low pay and abusive, hostile working conditions in garment factories have led some women to opt for sex work instead, a striking reality challenging previously held assertions of the greater advantages of choosing to work in a factory to working in a brothel and on the streets (Alvi, 2015). A 2009 UN report found that a 20 percent of Cambodian sex workers had chosen their jobs because of good working conditions and high pay compared to other job options after the 2008 global financial crisis caused many apparel workers to be laid off and factories to close and other women being pressured by employers to waive their benefits (United Nations, 2009; United Nations Development Program, 2010). When the women and girls were asked why they entered the entertainment sector, one woman described how “‘it is harder to find money…I do not have enough money to support my children to go to school and to pay my daily expenses,’” demonstrating how the lives of women and girls in Cambodia have not improved and have possibly grown worse because they choose to take jobs as sex workers over working in a factory (United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking [UNIAP], 2009) Under the current economic atmosphere, exploitation of women and girls in both the garment and the entertainment sectors have increased and excessively long work hours have become the norm for any working Cambodian woman (UNIAP, 2009). Labor and mobility into cities has perpetuated gender inequality with women still having limited access to education and economic resources that would provide them better job prospects. Cambodian females continue to be marginalized into work that is out of the public eye, and to be silenced in any sphere they occupy in Cambodian society.

VII. FAILURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY At the center of the garment industry’s troubles is the severe lack of accountability for poor working conditions and poverty wages by the Cambodian government, international apparel brands and their home governments.

The 1997 Cambodian Labor Law required the government to set policies and conduct regular investigations to monitor and ensure compliance in the factories. However, government corruption and collaboration with garment factory management and the police have impeded efforts at reform and improvement. The GMAC, intended to help ensure basic labor standards, has been documented as to provide funding for government officials that have been known to discredit and target union leaders (Sotheary & Teehan, 2015; de Careret & MacIssac, 2014). Former labor inspectors described an “envelope system,” where factory managers bribed government labor inspectors in exchange for favorable factory reports and workers have reported seeing local police accept bribe money from managers to ignore abuses they may witness in the factories (HRW, 2015).

Managers have also been reported to threaten workers to lie about working conditions to the inspectors during their visits (HRW, 2015).

From 2013 to 2014, protests for a higher minimum wage rocked Cambodia and coincided with the country’s general elections. Hun Sen’s ruling party refused to address labor concerns and in response to the protests, his government deployed armed police to quell the demonstrations (Kim, 2015). The military police fired at protesting garment workers and the ensuing government crackdown resulted in many workers, union leaders, and labor union activists being arrested, fired or killed. The violence captured international media attention and received condemnation from both the UN and the US. The protests resulted in a $200 million industry loss and have left international brands more reluctant to source product production in Cambodia (Coates, 2014).

International apparel brands such as Gap, Adidas, and H&M, have failed to make their supply chains more transparent and still today fail to protect whistleblowers that report labor violations from retaliation by their managers. Few brands disclose their supplier and subcontractor factories, making it difficult for labor rights groups and the government

44 The Social Justice Review to monitor these factories for poor working conditions. Gap has cited “commercial reasons” for not disclosing their suppliers and that “[they] don’t know the implication of disclosing” (HRW 2015).

When garment workers attempt to file a report on violations in their factories, they face retaliation from their managers who have been known to file false complaints against workers and threaten to fire them because brands have failed to guarantee confidentiality and other protections (HRW, 2015). Among the major brands, only Adidas has clear whistleblower protections and many other companies have no minimum guarantees for workers and unions who file complaints (HRW, 2015).

The developed countries where international brands are headquartered also have the ability to pressure companies to be more transparent and to introduce regulations that facilitate labor rights compliance throughout the brands’ supply chains.

No such policies that call on apparel brands to end poor working conditions have been introduced or strongly enforced by any of the home governments.

The factory reports and advisory services created by BFC, which was created to comply with the request of the US government in the trade agreement, have been found to be limited because BFC is restricted to only monitor licensed factories, thus they fail to regulate the several subcontractor factories that exist, and factories coach workers to not discuss their complaints to BFC inspectors (HRW, 2015).

Additionally, BFC is also not transparent about what brands’ factories it monitors, thus weakening pressure placed on brands to be held accountable for their assurance of labor law compliance in their supply chains (HRW, 2015).

The ultimate consequence of the states’ and the corporations’ policies and poor enforcement is that women and girls are instruments used to meet the development goals of greater economic growth and wealth creation. In an investigation, it was found that the Cambodian government’s aggressive antitrafficking campaign, created in 2008 in response to pressure from the U.S. government to crackdown on prostitution, has forced women (who did not look to be rescued) to either stay indefinitely in jail or to enter a “re-education” training program to prepare them for low-paying, demanding work in Cambodia’s most vital economic sector (Alvi, 2015).

VIII. THE CAMBODIAN WOMAN’S FUTURE Decades after the Khmer Rouge and the UN peacekeeping operation, Cambodia still suffers from a corrupt government, poor infrastructure, and widespread poverty that plagues its people. The trade agreements and the establishment of the Cambodian garment industry has been lauded by many as the first needed step towards socioeconomic development for a country still struggling to recover from years of civil war and genocide. While the country has experienced economic growth and improvements in health, income, and education, Cambodia is still considered one of the world’s Least Developed Countries and women still lag behind men in economic and political opportunities (United Nations Development Program, 2010). Dangerous working environments and poverty wages continue to taint the garment industry. Women who comprise the majority of the worker population still have relatively poor access to education, employment opportunities, and economic resources to help them rise above their poverty. Their burden is doubled as they struggle to fulfill their domestic responsibilities and their new responsibility to be wage earners contributing to the nation’s economic growth. The failures of the Cambodian government to enforce its labor laws, of Western apparel brands to disclose their supply chain and protect whistleblowers, and of developed nations to introduce regulations to require brands to be compliant with international labor standards, have brought about maldevelopment for the Cambodian people, with the effects disproportionately impacting Cambodian women.

Without any changes to the system, the future of the Cambodian woman and of Cambodia appears to remain unpromising. There is a need for a guaranteed living wage for a worker so they are able to pay for food and living expenses for them and their family.

Current production costs are exceptionally low in the developing world and consequently, brands could still provide the Western world with very cheap clothing and generate large profits while paying factory workers more and helping raise many Cambodians out of poverty. Although there are many failures and problems in guaranteeing compliance from factories, pressure from the public, from regulatory bodies, and from the brands themselves and their home governments will help move the industry towards greater supply chain transparency and labor law enforcement. Brands and their home governments must be pressured to ensure higher wages for workers

45 The Social Justice Review and to also be more transparent with their supply chains and subcontractor factories. If the benefits purported by Western corporations and their home governments are to be realized and sustained, the Cambodian government and all of the garment industry’s stakeholders need to address their own failures of accountability in maintaining safe working conditions and in preventing human rights violations.

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