We are Running Out of Time.

We are in a moment of reckoning for working parents, especially mothers. We are seeing the impacts of a society built for (mostly White) men and how it negatively affects women's jobs and businesses. We are all simply participants in a system not designed for working and care work.

Time is the real commodity we trade in. As Eve Rodsky, a leading expert on creating work/life balance at home points out, time is the key. While we (White women) work to amplify the need for fair pay, how we spend our time is what defines our happiness. Black women don't have time to fix these systemic issues. They are using their time fighting to stay alive.

According to Eve's research, the three most important ways to get that feeling to get your cup-is full feeling. The "Happiness Trio" consists of real self-care like a yoga class, time with adult friends, and actively creating work we love (which can include hobbies, like baking, painting, writing, etc.) Note: jobs, dates, time with family, and housework are NOT on this list. As we tell our kids, employees, and partners, we can't pour from an empty cup.

"There is no substitute for time."

-Sarasvatti Hewett

If mothers who work are expected to do even more during this pandemic, not less, we were already set up to fail. "Black and Brown women are being impacted more"is a great acknowledgement, but what are we doing about it?

Our society is setting up a whole lot more women to feel depressed, unsatisfied, uninspired, and invisible.

"Since the pandemic began, my panic attacks have returned and I have even sought counseling for depression.

I expect that postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety diagnoses will dramatically increase over the next year. No one is going to be prepared for the fallout."

-Maya McKenzie, MLK50Memphis

We are setting up more women to be out of money and out of time, widening the gender gaps. Furthermore we are widening the chasms in race and ethnicity that divide non-White women from White society as a whole.

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Time is Money.

The following is an excerpt from Time After Time, published on Mother's Day.

24 hours a day, mother continue their quest for visibility, economic equality, and harmony.

We are in several crises of care. Women and front line workers are falling behind. We are still centuries away from gender equality. We don’t have that kind of time.

Science, data, and facts are useful (for everyone but Trump). Mountains of evidence show the financial benefits of closing gender and racial divides. Gender parity creates a better economy for everyone and increases GDP. Ensuring that women are financially and physically safe creates a better global economy.

When money is invested in women, they invest back into families. By paying women for all their work, we improve society for everyone. This is especially true for investing in education and childcare, small businesses, financing, and paid leave for women in poverty.

Time, like money for care work, is often seen as a gift for mothers, rather than a right. The idea of paying women for caregiving and paying women equal wages is still a fringe idea.

The 1% is focused on getting businesses back to “normal.” Even when men talk about reinventing capitalism, their reopening efforts continue to ignore the need for gender equality. We have the information (see any link above), reasoning, stories, and solutions, and tools.

To prevent a full-on collapse of this country, women need money. Ideas once considered radical are surfacing. “The Emergency Money for the People Act” and the “Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act” would give $2,000 monthly payments to 90% of Americans. (Immigrants and undocumented people are likely not counted here).

By that account, 10% of the U.S. is ok financially, and the vast majority are not. Yet these bills are unlikely to pass. The GOP will blame costs, (but quickly save big banks). Math isn’t the issue. They are just not interested in helping certain big groups of Americans: poor, vulnerable, marginalized, people of color, and women.

The irony: paying women creates a better, more robust, economy.

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UPDATE: There is Less Time to Waste, and Still No Plan.

2 months later, now entering our 5th month at home, we still have zero information about what happens next. Who is supposed to pick up the pieces from the time we lost to school, camp, and additional family, friends, and paid care and domestic support?

Without guidance or government support, women and single parents (95% of whom are women), have zero control over our own incomes, businesses or careers.

As I said on Mother's Day, we need a radical transformation in the way the United States government supports mothers who work, and mothers in general. We need it now.

The deeper we get into this "new normal", "great pause", or "great reset", workers are struggling. American workers, as we know, are not faring well, and we know women "bear the brunt" of the pandemic thanks to a new article almost weekly. This impact is greatest for parents, women, single parents, and marginalized communities in roughly that order.

Black and Brown women, because of systemic issues, are being impacted in the workplace far more than White women and men. Black women are represented in the highest numbers of Americans who are unemployed, losing small businesses, unable to get pandemic relief money, without access to healthcare, without access to career growth, venture capital, or new job opportunities.

Mothers are watching the tsunami from the beach. Entrepreneurs who have kids are stunned. Maybe we were able to survive but now we debate our next move: Do we close up shop? Women who hung on to careers for dear life these past 5 months are wondering: Do we throw in the towel?

How can we do anything else, if schools are out or at home for another year?

With little to no resources or safety net, women, especially Black women have NO TIME to wait for society and our government to step it up, fast.

We don't have 12 hours a day to keep calling to find out where our unemployment checks are, while Trump gives PPP loans to Mitch McConnell's wife. We don't have time to be camp counselor, maid, entertainment director, chef, counselor, financial advisor, teacher, and "mom" AND do another job full time.

It's great we have begun to move away from invisible labor as a society. The pandemic "helped" in that we moved towards seeing and valuing care work, (thanks in part to men being stuck at home as first person witnesses). Mothers with jobs or businesses were already at our breaking point before this pandemic. It's not enough for men to step up, which thankfully many have. We need our government to do more. 

Seeing the value of care work is not enough. We need a shift to policies, programs, practices, and PAY so care work is supported and all women can thrive. Women in leadership, researchers, and even the World Economic Forum report on this ad nauseam. The United Nations agree; Goal 5 is entirely dedicated to gender parity. Yet, women keep shouting into the void.

Women are faced with an impossible choice, one not of our own design. We must believe women and supporting evidence without question. We weren't lying (why would we?)! We said working and parenting was unsustainable before the pandemic. Now it's simply untenable. When women, especially parents who work, tell you what they need to succeed, and we go ignored, no one will succeed.

We continue to waste more time, and time is fleeting. Summer is not that long. Sure, we made March through June work and we can make this summer work. We can do anything for a few months. But another year? For working women, especially those with kids, especially non-White women with privilege, it won't take a bandaid. The United States needs to throw a Hail Mary.

#women #equality #dei #gender #payequity #pandemic