Description
This research explores the systematic subjugation of women’s bodies and labour in the global corporate food and plantation industry. It further reveals how this subjugation occurs through the interconnected categories of emerging ethno-nationalist patriarchal politics aligned with neoliberalism. By examining the narratives of daily minimum-wage, semi- or uncontracted women regarding universal policies on menstrual hygiene management, the study constructs knowledge by redefining labour rights, consciousness, and representation in the corporate world.
This redefinition contributes to understanding and critically engaging with the social reality of providing necessary material support for women during menstruation, which the United Nations acknowledged through Resolution 56/11 in 2014. This resolution affirms member states’ obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM).
The research problem is: Despite the United Nations’ commitment to ensuring menstrual hygiene, why do women working in global food corporations continue to experience menstrual poverty? Two research questions guide this inquiry: (1) How is period poverty defined as a form of structural inequality linked to the body politics of patriarchal culture? and (2) How does the neoliberal market economy in postcolonial countries recognise or fail to recognise the natural bodily process of menstruation among working-class women? This research is grounded in the socialist feminist scholarship of Angela Davis and Nancy Folbre.
This qualitative research draws on the narratives of working-class women employed in the tea and cocoa plantations of Sri Lanka (Hill Country region) and Nigeria (Ondo State). Empirical data were collected from 30 participants, 15 from the tea sector and 15 from the cocoa sector, through semi-structured interviews conducted via online platforms such as WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams.
