Until every working woman is given her due
- Michelle
- Jul 23, 2020
- 5 min read
This is part four of my sensory journey across the field of employment equity. In this section I write about what I learnt about Women Employed (WE) and economic integration for women of all backgrounds.
I’ve volunteered with Women Employed for a few weeks in late 2019. However, I didn’t take the “sensory journey” approach to my time at WE, so my write up will be from my perspective.
I stopped attending WE Advocacy Council meetings in early 2020 because the timing clashed with my pottery classes. Now that the world has been brought to my couch, this couch potato has run out of excuses to not be involved.
As such, come join me on August 13th for a (virtual working) lunch with a panel of (literal) bosses who will be talking about the wage gap for Black Women’s Equal Pay Day.
Given the choice between modernity and barbarism, prosperity and poverty, lawfulness and cruelty, democracy and totalitarianism, America chose all of the above.
As each month passes by in the United States of America, I’ve been feeling more and more like life here is designed for an aggressively narrow definition of normal.
If I was a healthy white male that grew up in a traditional nuclear family in the northern suburbs of Chicago and followed the expected trajectory from university to corporate career, I dare say I’d find life rather suited to my needs.
That’s not to say that life would be easy. As Michelle Obama says in Becoming, “challenge is relative”.
Either way, it is understandable that the privileges unearned by some people are regarded with resentment by others.
I had been applying and interviewing for full time jobs, but was ultimately offered a part time role.
It took me a while to accept the role because I felt apprehensive about my benefits package, which consisted of:
No retirement contributions
No sick leave
No paid time off
No maternity leave
No health insurance
No dental or vision insurance
No employment contract, because Illinois is an at will employment state
To my Australian mind, that sounded like I was going to be taken advantage of. That sounded like a package put together by an employer that knew that they held all of the power and that employees held absolutely none.
But this kind of benefit package is not unusual in America at all. On the flip side, what I’m used to - 20 paid days off per year, generous maternity leave, flexible work hours, a superannuation guarantee of 9.5% - is considered abnormal for most jobs in America. Overly generous even.
Not impossible though, because these benefits do get included in well paid corporate jobs as part of a salary package designed to entice the best of the best (as determined by a patriarchal white culture) - jobs that are coincidentally deemed non-essential in today’s pandemic climate. So if you’ve been fortunate enough during your formative years to benefit from a top notch education and strong professional network, you will continue to be fortunate enough to benefit from a safety net built by your employer.
Not so fortunate in the ovarian lottery? Tough luck.
Three weeks into my part time job, a woman came by with her three extremely cute grandchildren. I told her my job title and she asked if I was working full time or not.
“I’m working part time here.”
“So what other jobs are you working when you’re not here?”
“Oh, this is my only job.”
“Well, different strokes for different folks!”
I was slightly surprised by the conversation. Was I swimming in the wrong lane by just working one part time job? After all, working a part time job makes sense if you have other things in your life, like family or university.
Her questions were linked to America’s severe underemployment problem. Many people work multiple part time jobs to make enough money to survive. There aren’t enough full time jobs going around. It’s cheaper for employers to hire two part time workers who don’t qualify for any leave, retirement or health insurance, than one full time worker who would qualify for all of the above.
I’m in a very privileged position here. I can afford to live on a part time income because my husband also has an income. I can go without paid leave because I was fortunate enough to be able to save up an emergency fund over the last few years and I don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. I can go without sick leave and health insurance in the short term because I’m relatively healthy. I can go without a retirement contribution because it's not an absolute life necessity (even if I still feel terrible about it and my potential future).
That doesn’t mean that all those things aren’t necessities for life.
Sick leave and health insurance is important because illness can strike at random.
Paid time off is important because no human can work nonstop tirelessly, particularly if they have more work to do outside of their place of employment.
Maternity leave is important because pregnancy and labor is incredibly taxing on the human body and mind, and time is needed for a full recovery.
Retirement contributions are important because humans grow old and rusty (unless they die first - a genuine possibility under existing conditions).
All these things sound like universal problems for everyone in the labor market in Illinois. But they disproportionately affect women, and especially women of colour. According to Women Employed, “nationwide, nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and people of color are disproportionately represented in low-paid jobs.”
And so we get into the wage gap, which is largest for women of colour, and things suddenly get twice as complicated.
Or maybe less so, because then it all boils down to how much we value people based on their external presenting gender and the colour of their skin.
(not very much)
Which is where we get into the work of Women Employed.
Where Best Buddies and Upwardly Global address employment conditions on the individual level by supporting jobseekers to find gainful employment, Women Employed tackle the institutional sources of discrimination by campaigning for legislative action for equal pay, medical leave and against sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination in the workplace.
I like their self-description and I am a shameless copy-paster, so here it is:
WE do not accept the status quo. WE do not ask permission. WE do not wait for things to happen.
WE pursue equity for all women.
And WE are not done yet.
A lot of WE’s work is done “behind the scenes” - they write policy and chase around lawmakers in Springfield, Illinois. They also run leadership programs for young women.
I attended a few Advocacy Council meetings last year. The Advocacy Council focuses on “friendraising” - getting your friends to hop on board the equal opportunity train and learn more about how systemic discrimination plays out in the Illinois employment scene. But it’s not just fun panel discussions and book talks - it’s also about aggressive fundraising to support the WE lobbyists in Springfield.
Asking for money is always a nerve wracking exercise for me, but I did admire the Advocacy Council’s confidence. They knew what to do to raise money and exactly how to do it.
Last year, WE successfully advocated for a raise in Chicago’s minimum wage to $15 by 2021 (as part of the Raise Chicago Coalition). It’s pretty awesome news, and would raise a single adult working full time out of poverty. Unfortunately, $15 per hour is nowhere near the living wage required for an adult who is also responsible for other human lives.
So, yes, plenty of work still to do.
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