Gender and Oil

Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy really illuminated me about the history of the tragic consequences of private corporate ownership of oil. Mitchell notes the materiality of coal. Miners worked independently underground away from supervision which facilitated democracy and political action and unions. The European Recovery Program or Marshall Plan switched dependence from coal to oil in Europe. In discussing the phrase “self-determination,” discuss how Wilson’s Fourteen Points in reaction to Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Self-determination became an ideal without practices of democracy and still meant colonial rule. Mitchell also describes how the British support Zionist movement was primarily to bring European settlement for construction of an oil pipeline in Haifa, Palestine. Oil corporations met in San Remo, Italy, and through indirect rule of the emir, Brits created “consent.” The US, France, Britain and Italy later profited off weapons and arms deals.

Mitchell’s discussion on racial hierarchies among laborers in oil fields made me think about gendered hierarchies in this labor. Over winter break, I watched a Netflix episode of Lisa Ling’s This is Life about oil in North Dakota. Ling features the life of three women in the predominantly male labor force. I found the attention to women’s labor interesting despite the fact the episode clearly promotes oil interests in North Dakota. For this week, I selected an article on gender and oil. Ross reexamines the “oil curse.” Ross (2008) argues that economies based on mining of resources such as oil excludes women. Influx of oil money analyses often ignore the gendered spheres of labor where women in developing nations are largely barred from non-tradeable goods income. Ross notes how in Bangladesh, factory work brings women together outside the home, and income allots more bargaining for women within the home as well. Ross argues that in South Korea women earned half of men’s wages, but women’s labor facilitated larger scale involvement in lobbying and subsequent laws such as the Mother-Child Welfare Act in 1989. In his comparison on gender and oil, Ross omits Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as these countries are influenced by Soviet emphasis on gender equality. Ross compares Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia which are former French colonies. Algeria is a major oil producing country whereas Morocco and Tunisia are not. Morocco and Tunisia developed in textile industries and Ross correlates the lack of oil industries with more gendered political influence. While Ross does not address gendered inequalities in labor, he does bring up important thoughts gender that complement Mitchell’s book.

References

Ross, Michael L. 2008. “Oil, Islam, and Women” American Political Science Review. 102(1):107-123.