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

9. Workers Conditions Poorly paid Typically no promotions
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