Women Rule? Globalization and the feminization of managerial and professional workspaces in the Caribbean.

The visibility of Caribbean women in occupational positions and workspaces once reserved for men and for people of European descent in the Caribbean raises new challenges to the theorization of the transforming relationship between gender and global capitalism. To what extent are these changes in the professional and managerial recruitment practices of the finance and banking industry constitutive of a new relationship between capitalism and patriarchy? Does the increased number of women in organizational positions that they were once excluded from indicate a challenge to forms of gender inequality in the region? This article argues that in the Caribbean, the particularities of race, class and gender relations have been such that educated women have become significant beneficiaries of the economic transformations in these countries. While it is clear that education has allowed women to challenge patriarchal structures in both the workplace and the home, these achievements have not been sufficient to challenge the gender inequalities that continue to subordinate women in this region. The article concludes that in order to truly empower all women, the very structures of income and class inequality that have facilitated the feminization managerial and professional workspaces must be challenged.