Bringing Fantasies to Life: Panoptimex

1. Bringing Fantasies to Life: Panoptimex from Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico’s Global Factories by Leslie Salzinger

2. Panoptimex • Maquiladora Factory in Juarez, Mexico • Part of Electronics transnational: "Electroworld" • Manufactures televisions • High standards of speed and quality while maintaining relatively lower costs than U.S rivals

3. Hiring Women • 70-75% of Panoptimex workers are women • Average age of women is under 20 years old • Women work with electronics and men work "heavy" labor jobs • "What sets Panoptimex apart is the lengths to which management went to ensure a female workforce during the shortage of young women workers in the late 1980s, even as colleagues in other maquilas reluctantly began hiring men." • Electroworld managers claimed they traditionally hired women

4. The Look of Panoptimex: Feminine • Extreme feminization and objectification of workforce • Only young, flirtatious women are hired • Women are expected to keep an appearance to fit the factory • heels, make up, thin hands, short nails • "In Panoptimex they don't look for workers, they look for models-short skirts,heels, beauties" • "In the process, they have designed a machine that evokes and focuses the male gaze in the service of production"

5. Importance of Appearance • Carlos, one of the head managers, talks of designing the factory to have a specific look • Walls painted in a certain fashion, everything color coded • Even workers’ uniforms are color coded • Light blue for women, dark blue for men, and yellow for new workers

6. A Watchful Eye • Managers installed cameras to watch employees • Installed large glass windows for bosses to peer down at workers • "there are visitors all the time, and the windows all around. . . all the time you know they're watching you" • With everything kept tidy and color coded, bosses are able to easily see when something is wrong or if an employee is not doing their job correctly

7. Ethnic Discrimination • The head bosses are never Mexican • Some are from the U.S • Most cannot speak Spanish fluently • Which sets them apart from their workers • Bosses look down on Mexican workers • Openly admit U.S employees earn 20% more • When labor complaints are made, they blame it on the "Mexican Mind" • Discrimination is clear in the clean appearance and overly watchfulness of bosses

8. The Hierarchy Top managers: observing from top window • Foreign managers at top of hierarchy • Men • Mexican workers at bottom • Women Supervisors: watch lines and observe workers from the floor Workers: Keeping up with the established work rate

9. Workers Conditions • Poorly paid • roughly 40 U.S. dollars per week • below standard of living in Juarez • missing a day of work costs 1/3 of weekly pay check • Typically no promotions • 3/4 of workforce is replaced annually • Many teen workers who lack benefits • Obsessive observing by bosses creates motivation for rapid work

10. Self-Worth of Employees • Part of visual aspect- making the efficiency of the worker public • Via charts, competition • "I feel ashamed. It's all just competition. You look at the girl next to you and you want to do better than she does even though it shouldn't matter." • Gives managers a power leverage by making workers’ performance public • Worker identity is ignored, they are merely "objects"

11. Male Gaze • The distinction between jobs for men and jobs for women are over-exaggerated • Through the hierarchy of top male supervisors and bottom female workers, compounded with obsessive observing, the women become objectified and gendered. In a sense, it becomes a male gaze • The communication between male supervisors and female workers oftens is sexualized • Supervisors flirtatiously joke with workers

12. Masculine Issues • Between the men in the factory, there is often competition for appearing macho • Men compete to show control over women workers • The men who work the line are ignored by male supervisors because a job on the line is not deemed “masculine.” • Lack of supervision gives male line workers relative autonomy, however.

13. Gender Matters • "Gender matters because women workers are addressed and constituted within the confines of a particular set of gendered meanings-made anew on the shop floor in the transnationally produced image of nubile pliancy." • Importance of gender dynamics extend to masculine identities of the men • macho supervisors, unimportant men doing line work

14. Conclusion • The focus of visual upkeep in the Panoptimex factory has objectified and gendered their employees • To their women employees it has sexualized them • This in return has created a hierarchy between the workers placing Mexicans in lower positions and women at the bottom