Category: Inequity
Dear Men, start putting your home schooling where your mouth is
A report in the New York Times by Claire Cain Miller says that nearly half of men say they do most of the home schooling. Only 3 percent of women agree.
[T]his isn’t the first time research has shown a huge disconnect between what men say or believe they are doing on the domestic front and reality.
As Cain Miller points out in the NYT article, past research using time diaries has consistently shown that men often overestimate the amount they do, and that women actually do more.
If that wasn’t enough, in 2018, in a piece entitled “The ‘Woke’ Men Who Still Want Housewives”, US-based feminist writer Jessica Valenti wrote about a new study with data spanning four decades that shows while Americans’ attitudes on gender are progressing (there is broad support for equality between men and women) there is still a major gap in how people reconcile their political beliefs with their private lives.
Twenty-five percent of the people surveyed in the study said that while women and men should be equal in the “public sphere”, they believed women should do the majority of domestic work and childcare.
After nearly a decade that has seen the proliferation of “engaging men for gender equality” initiatives, such as Male Champions of Change here in Australia (which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year) and the UN Women’s HeForShe global solidarity movement for gender equality, that’s just not good enough.
Source: Dear Men, start putting your home schooling where your mouth is
Judge dismisses US women’s soccer team’s crusade for equal pay
The U.S women’s soccer team have been dealt a crushing blow after a federal judge rejected their claims that they had been underpaid relative to the U.S men’s team due to gender discrimination.The ruling, delivered by Judge R. Gary Klausner, comes 10 months after chants of ‘Equal pay! Equal pay!’ erupted among a nearly 60,000 strong crowd after the U.S women’s team won the World Cup last July.
The players involved in the lawsuit make up the most successful women’s soccer team in the world, having won four World Cup titles – a staggering feat in comparison to the US men’s team that did not qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
As player Becky Sauerbrunn said,”If you know this team at all you know we have a lot of fight left in us. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy, change never is.”
Source: Judge dismisses US women’s soccer team’s crusade for equal pay
It’s time to properly consider the value of women’s work
When the Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the latest coronavirus spending spree he said this: “You may have thought that was a lot (of money)“. Consider this. According to a new analysis from Oxfam, if American women received a minimum wage for the unpaid care work they do around the house, including caring for relatives, they would have made $1.5 trillion last year.
Globally, women would have earned $10.9 trillion. That exceeds the combined revenue of the 50 largest companies on the Fortune Global list. Women perform 75 percent of such work globally.
As schools and childcare centres close, as elderly or disabled parents, friends or neighbours require additional support, and as individuals en-masse (at least those lucky enough to still have a job) work from home, it begs the question: who will take on the burden of the additional unpaid care and domestic work that goes along with these seismic changes?
The short answer, most experts agree, is women. At least in the short to medium term. Past behaviour predicts future behaviour and all that.
This pandemic is causing a dramatic reappraisal on many fronts. Who would have thought Australia would essentially see the introduction of a basic income?
The value of women’s work, or the traditional undervaluing of such work, should not escape such scrutiny.
Source: It’s time to properly consider the value of women’s work
75% of the UK’s NHS workers are women. But average hospital protective-wear designed for the average man
Seventy five per cent of NHS workers in the UK are women, a figure that rises to 90 percent for nurses. And yet the personal protective equipment (PPE) currently being used across the country’s 1,257 hospitals were designed for the “size and shape of male bodies”.
That’s according to the British Medical Association, a professional organisation for doctors, with over 160,000 members.
Beer Without Beards
While both the production and consumption of beer have become masculinized over the past few centuries, the longer history of beer tells a different story. For millennia after the invention of beer, women were the first brewmasters in many societies and, in some places, the first tavern owners. Only after brewing became a profitable endeavor did men claim the industry as their own by leaning on existing patriarchal constructs and introducing new ones.
Artifacts from ancient Sumerian civilization suggest that beer brewing began as early as 3500 BCE. Beer was such serious business for Sumerians that Hammurabi’s Code included laws governing the production and distribution of beer. These laws specifically referenced women when describing the punishments tavern owners could face for legal violations, implying that most, if not all, tavern owners were female. Its classification as a domestic chore and a woman’s responsibility wasn’t unique to Sumerian society; later Egyptian and European civilizations would also consider brewing a domestic responsibility.
The history and disappearance of brewsters demonstrate patriarchy’s capacity to not only introduce but also sustain male dominance in a trade once considered “women’s work.”
Debbie Kilroy has recovered from COVID-19 & is concerned for those in our overcrowded prisons
Debbie Kilroy’s experience with COVID-19 has left her desperately concerned for those in overcroweded prisons across Australia.
Source: Debbie Kilroy has recovered from COVID-19 & is concerned for those in our overcrowded prisons
OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNMENTS – A CARE INCOME NOW!
Every day and in every emergency, unwaged or low waged caregivers, urban and rural, mostly women, often immigrant women, struggle to protect and care for people of every age and condition. But this work is kept invisible and therefore there is never a relief package from governments for caregivers, only more work, especially with the advent of Covid-19.
In the 80s, the Women Count – Count Women’s Work petition issued by the International Wages for Housework Campaign gave voice of a hidden mass movement for recognition of this work. It was signed by 1,200 organizations representing millions of women worldwide, resulting in the 1995 UN decision that governments measure and value unwaged work in national accounts.
The Green New Deal for Europe (http://www.gndforeurope.com/) takes this forward. It looks at what work is needed for social and environmental wellbeing, and what work is not, and proposes a Care Income as a key part of its programme for climate justice. At last protecting people and protecting the Earth can be equated and prioritized over the uncaring market – a major step in transforming the world and saving it. We need this everywhere.
We demand a CARE INCOME across the planet for all those, of every gender, who care for people, the urban and rural environment, and the natural world.
Ciick on the link below to sign the Open Letter to Governments – A Care Income Now!
Free childcare is too good to be true. But could this start a revolution?
Free childcare was one of the goals of second wave feminism, when we took up the cause of gender equity in the 70s. It seemed logical, because children need access to other children and expert care to develop the skills that parents can’t provide, and allowed particularly mothers, as the primary carer, time for paid work and other activities. After all, child rearing was not intended to be the sole responsibility of parents but a community: “it takes a village to rear a child”.
There’s a big benefit for the government by the reduction in the numbers of unemployed on jobkeeker payments. Low-paid female workers are likely to remain in their vital jobs, as will others who are still employed.
This brief glimpse of free care will raise expectations that are unlikely to be met when these one-offs are withdrawn.
Maybe the brief experience of thousands of users of the temporary model will create the demand for a serious revolution in this (and other) community services.
Coronavirus response must intentionally include women’s input
Women are essential to the response, we can’t ignore one half of the population.
Source: Coronavirus response must intentionally include women’s input