The specific visuality of women of the global South in the media of the global North

The paper interrogates how media in the global North constructs “third-world” femininities within neoliberal globalization. It analyzes mainstream films and TV—Bordertown (2007), Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Mail Order Wife (2005), and Desperate Housewives (2004)—that center women of the global South amid feminization of labor and migration. The study situates these representations within the historical legacies of colonialism and imperialism and the gendered divide of globalization discourses, noting that women are often imagined as Other, fragmented, or fetishized, with constrained agency. Aims: (1) examine how marginalized women’s experiences are represented in globalization, especially via commodification of bodies; (2) analyze the symbolic/discursive dimensions of globalization through an intersectional lens (gender, race, class, ethnicity, nationality); and (3) show how these representations elicit a specific visuality of global South women, raising questions about spectatorship and consumption in global popular culture.

The review outlines feminist and transnational feminist approaches to globalization. Globalization’s neoliberal organization increases inequality and concentrates wealth, disproportionately affecting women of the global South (Jaggar; Lutz; Mies). Transnational feminism, distinct from earlier universalist “global sisterhood,” emphasizes intersectionality (Combahee River Collective; Crenshaw), relationality, and decolonizing feminist scholarship (Mohanty; Kaplan). It critiques Eurocentric, imperial perspectives embedded in globalization discourses and media, where images of migrant domestic workers, sex workers, and factory laborers reinstantiate colonial/imperial constructions of the “Third World woman” (e.g., Babel; Dirty Pretty Things). The literature underscores that symbolic/representational domains are integral to material globalization, and calls for critiques that attend to historical continuities, discursive formations, and power asymmetries (Nagar et al.; Tomlinson).

Qualitative, interpretive analysis of popular culture texts using a transnational feminist and visual culture framework. Visual culture is treated as a key site for meaning-making and identity formation (Sturken & Cartwright; Jenks). The study foregrounds femininities as sociocultural constructs (Gill & Arthurs), interrogates gendered binaries that link women to the body (Pettman), and situates depictions within the racialized feminization of labor (Lowe). It examines selected media (Bordertown, Dirty Pretty Things, Mail Order Wife, Desperate Housewives) to analyze how the specific visuality of global South women is produced through commodification, sexualization, and abjection in the context of global capitalism and intersectional oppression.

- Factory workers: Bordertown and Dirty Pretty Things depict women of the global South as cheap, flexible labor within maquiladoras and sweatshops, highlighting exploitation (low-wage, precarious, undocumented) and sexual violence. Scenes include Eva’s assault and burial in Bordertown and Senay’s coerced sexual acts in Dirty Pretty Things. Yet, some agency appears: Senay resists and strategizes escape; Eva survives and Lauren, a reporter, risks exposing the crimes. - Mail/online-order brides: Mail Order Wife’s Lichi embodies and shifts between entrenched stereotypes of Asian women (Lotus Blossom Baby and Dragon Lady), reflecting Orientalist discursive traditions (Tajima; Hagedorn; Marchetti). Her commodification and sexualization are explicit (e.g., coerced pornography; husband’s unilateral plan for sterilization), evidencing control/ownership over her body and the neoliberal marketplace of intimate relations. Notes indicate the mail-order industry’s expansion (e.g., 8,000–12,000 women immigrated in 2005; numbers doubled over six years). - Domestic workers: Desperate Housewives’ Xiao-Mei illustrates the racialized feminization of care/domestic labor and rescue fantasies. Her position is naturalized as servitude, marked by fear of deportation and precarity; she becomes a surrogate under immigration pressure, while also being sexualized. The show exposes class stratifications among women of color (Xiao-Mei vs. Gabrielle). EU domestic labor trends are cited: more than half of domestic workers are women from Third World countries (McCormick, 2003). - Cross-cutting themes: Representations converge on commodification, sexualization, surveillance/control of female bodies, and abjection (Kristeva; Creed). Abjection appears via bodily fluids (e.g., Xiao-Mei’s labor/rupture of membranes), coerced sexuality, and the display of corpses in Bordertown as the “ultimate abject,” linking labor exploitation to feminicidio. The montage of workers and corpses in Bordertown emphasizes shared vulnerability under neoliberal globalization. - Despite pervasive victimization, some texts grant complex agency and solidarity (e.g., Lauren’s advocacy; Senay’s resistance), marking a shift from earlier portrayals of purely passive “Third World women.” Overall, the findings show how media reproduces and circulates racialized/sexualized otherness while occasionally depicting women’s agency within constrained structures.

The findings demonstrate that global North media integrates material and symbolic dimensions of neoliberal globalization to produce a specific visuality of global South women—casting them as commodified labor and sexual bodies while reinscribing colonial/imperial discourses. This addresses the research aims by tracing how intersectional oppressions shape representation, how stereotypes are reproduced and circulated transnationally, and how spectatorship is implicated. The analysis shows neoliberal domination operates discursively (Smith), constructing subjects through market logics and moral governance (Skeggs) and obscuring structural asymmetries by individualizing responsibility (postfeminist/neoliberal ideologies, McRobbie). While some agency and solidarities emerge, they are circumscribed by systemic power. The study underscores the need for decolonizing, transnational feminist critiques that attend to historical continuities, intersectionality, and the politics of representation and consumption.

The paper concludes that global North media crafts a specific visuality of global South women—factory workers, mail/online-order brides, and domestic workers—reflecting feminized labor regimes and asymmetrical power relations. Their bodies are depicted through commodification, sexualization, and abjection, continuing colonial/imperial discursive traditions and circulating racialized, sexualized otherness (exemplified by public misreadings like the viral “BBC Dad” incident). Although portrayals sometimes show complex agency, neoliberal symbolic power shapes representation and subjectivity, often individualizing structural issues. The study calls for critique of the symbolic dimensions of globalization, recognition of neoliberal governance’s reach, and renewed transnational feminist, anti-capitalist analyses to address power asymmetries and decolonize discourses of globalization and femininity.