vox--2020-06-09--“Be wary of things that are purely symbolic”: How to join the conversation on race

For much of America to wake up to the realities of systemic racism and police brutality , the context had to be extreme ; the violence had to be prolonged — more than eight minutes of a black man suffering , a knee on his neck , saying he can ’ t breathe .
The cameras had to not only be rolling , but the officer had to look directly at it without caring he was being filmed , or apparently worried that he was risking his own health in the middle of a pandemic .
And an audience had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ let him breathe.
” All over a $ 20 bill .
“ Violent white supremacy doesn ’ t rest , ” says Ijeoma Oluo , speaker and author of the book So You Want to Talk About Race .
But for many white Americans , this idea of active white supremacy is not one they have ever thought about before .
Amid George Floyd ’ s death and the protests it has inspired over the past two weeks , the country is waking up .
The issues demonstrators are pushing against aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brown , and indigenous people who have experienced them their entire lives .
But the diverse and widespread outrage over them we ’ re seeing right now is .
Polls show swift and significant shifts in attitudes about police violence toward people of color .
But the conversation about racism in America , especially for those new to it , is uneasy and imperfect .
Oluo knows : She dedicates much of her time talking about how to talk about race , as the title of her book suggests .
She and I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current moment , the Black Lives Matter movement , and what it will take to create lasting change .
It ’ s not inevitable that the protests will fade quickly — the Montgomery , Alabama , bus boycott lasted for 381 days — but it ’ s vital to have conversations now while the energy is high about what happens next .
We also talked about what it means to get educated on racism and to do the work and what isn ’ t helpful when it comes to solidarity .
For example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week — not the best idea .
“ Be wary of anything that allows you to do something that isn ’ t actually felt by people of color , ” Oluo said .
“ I always ask myself when I ’ m trying to do solidarity work , can the people I ’ m in solidarity with actually feel this ?
Can they spend this ?
Can they eat this ?
Does this actually help them in any way ?
And if it doesn ’ t , let it go.
” And those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than police brutality .
Racism factors into so many parts of the cultural fabric — education , work , housing , and much more .
That requires attention , too .
“ It ’ s not just that we deserve to not be killed , ” Oluo said .
“ We deserve to thrive in this country , just like everyone else.
” Our conversation , lightly edited for length and clarity , is below .
Just to start off , how are you feeling in this moment ?
I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been a lot , and I ’ m preparing to do more .
I think that right now we are tired and scared and sad and a little excited to see some steps toward real change , and I ’ m kind of holding all of that in me right now .
But mostly , I ’ m very , very exhausted .
Is this a moment in your mind ?
Is this something different that ’ s happening right now ?
I would say it ’ s definitely a moment that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , as far as a nationwide movement for change , where we ’ re actually starting to see some cities paying attention and seeing a shift in the national conversation about racism , systemic racism , and police brutality in America .
What will come ?
I don ’ t know if it will lead to something different than what we ’ ve seen , but it is different this time .
Right now , it ’ s really been a perfect storm .
We haven ’ t seen protests in all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day where every state , and then multiple countries around the world , are joining in to say that black lives matter , to say that enough is enough .
We haven ’ t seen that in a very long time .
What ’ s happening right now — when you have people who are already tired and scared and worried about the pandemic that we ’ ve been in — is that not only did it hit the black community especially hard to see that violence in the midst of this pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but to also see that violent white supremacy doesn ’ t rest .
Police will still take the time and risk their own health to take the life of a black person .
It also shocked the rest of the country to realize this is how ingrained it is .
It is this ingrained , when everyone is supposed to be staying home , when we should all have bigger things to worry about , that a supposedly fraudulent $ 20 bill will cost a black person their life .
I think that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all had less reserves , and it was just a collective “ enough.
” It ’ s been enough for a lot of us for a very long time , but I ’ m still glad to see so many people coming out in solidarity .
How is the conversation about race different from in the past ?
Ten years , five years , even two years ago ?
When I started writing , “ Black Lives Matter ” wasn ’ t a phrase that was even said .
I remember desperately getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care about this .
And Black Lives Matter itself was a movement just trying to say that we deserve to live .
And a large segment of the American population that was still struggling with , “ Is Black Lives Matter the thing to say ?
” have set that aside now .
They ’ re saying okay , there is a problem , we ’ re not going to argue whether this is something we should be saying .
We ’ re moving past that .
And that is new .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who love to shout , “ All lives matter.
” But I used to run into well-meaning people asking , why do I have to say this ?
They ’ re not asking that question anymore .
That ’ s new , because it allows us to start talking strategy .
When I wrote my book , I remember talking in a chapter about police brutality and reform .
My book is kind of an introduction to race , and I am so encouraged to see people move so far past that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to defund , to completely restructure how we keep communities safe and healthy .
I love seeing people who maybe a year ago thought reform was the way ago now saying , wait a minute , what if we imagine a whole system that doesn ’ t rely on criminalization , that doesn ’ t have a certain amount of brutality built into it as the thing we put up with to feel safe ?
That is what is encouraging to me , seeing people move past , “ Is this a big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the best way to tackle it ?
” A lot of white people seem to have been caught by surprise by the realities of police brutality and racism .
Why do you think that is ?
Our culture still frames racism as something that lies fully within the hearts and minds of racist white people .
It ’ s racism if you hate , and therefore if we can just find the few people who hate people of color , who hate black people , then we could solve racism if we could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that the everyday fear and heartbreak and stigmatization that we deal with in this country is largely ignored .
You don ’ t see after-school specials on racism that talk about the ways in which teachers don ’ t think you wrote your paper because you did really well on it , or how people with their hair in braids are seen as less professional .
These are not issues that people think of when they think racism .
When I give talks , when I say someone ’ s a racist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people say , “ The Klan.
” For people to realize that it had to be so bad in our police forces , it wasn ’ t just the act .
It wasn ’ t just the fact that the way George Floyd was killed was so shocking .
It was the fact that things had to be so bad that all four of those officers knew that they would be completely fine to murder someone long and painfully in front of cameras , in front of a live audience .
What it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it spoke to an entire culture .
You can ’ t say it ’ s a few bad apples at that point .
That ’ s where a lot of that shock is coming from .
It ’ s frustrating .
I know that I ’ m frustrated , and I ’ m hearing from so many other black people who are so frustrated at getting phone calls from white people they ’ ve known for a long time saying they had no idea .
And you think , “ Why weren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve been saying this the whole time .
I ’ m a human being with words who can say that this is what ’ s happening.
” Had it just been one officer , it wouldn ’ t have been as shocking .
But to see four officers participate in this , in front of an audience , knowing they were being recorded , was really what showed that this goes deep .
This is a systemic issue in a way that people who don ’ t have to worry about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen ] .
So when we see white people rallying en masse against racism now and in support of Black Lives Matter , do you think it really is just seeing George Floyd ’ s murder ?
Or what do you think is happening , that these protests are now finally very diverse ?
I think that ’ s part of it .
It really did shock the conscience of people in ways it hasn ’ t before .
It ’ s important to note for the black community , for the indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Floyd .
It was the accumulation of Breonna Taylor and all these other beautiful black and indigenous lives that have been taken .
It ’ s also white people are seeing other people say something , speaking out , protesting .
And they ’ re saying , “ I can do it , too.
” And it ’ s contagious .
People forget that this sort of resistance is a social activity — it ’ s not a fun social activity , but it is a social activity .
It is a collective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people to come out .
I do think people have more time .
We can ’ t overestimate the impact of a lot of people being out of work , having time to get out there with protests and talk about this .
Our social connections to people via the internet are sustaining us in a way that hasn ’ t happened in the past , because we can ’ t see people in person .
Therefore , we ’ re talking about these things in a way that we weren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out to a bar ; we ’ re talking about the social issues of the day on social media .
And I think that ’ s also contributing to it .
I hate to use the phrase perfect storm , but it took a perfect storm of events to really engage white America in a way that hasn ’ t happened before .
So what is your advice to those white people who want to talk about race right now ?
Right now , you need to be running two tracks at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ running your track of education , asking why didn ’ t I know about this ?
Why wasn ’ t I doing something sooner ?
Where am I lacking ?
What words are confusing me ?
Start reading up and start learning .
At the same time , look at being of use .
Look at what your local protest leaders and resistance leaders are doing .
Do they need donations ?
Do they need masks ?
Do people need certain messages amplified ?
Start looking at conversations you can be having in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school districts , in your offices to bring those issues forward .
It ’ s not just that we deserve to not be killed .
We deserve to thrive in this country , just like everyone else .
Look how you can be of use to the people who have been struggling for justice and for black , indigenous , and people of color to really thrive in this country .
Ask how you can help make sure that it ’ s something people actually want and can feel .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can , give money to causes .
But give your time .
Amplify voices .
Open doors .
If someone ’ s saying they ’ re having trouble at your office talking about the issue of race , can you add your voice to back that person up ?
If your school board is not talking about the ways in which their disciplinary systems are set up , or talking about getting police out of schools , that is something that you can bring up .
And you can bring your friends in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be of use , and then also , at the same time , keep your personal education going .
What should people avoid when talking about race ?
If you are a white person , right now is not the time to go seek out the most racist person and try to tell them they ’ re an awful person and argue with them — not because they don ’ t need to know that , because I think that open racism should always be met with resistance and pushback , but because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be doing actions .
There ’ s something really performative about saying , “ I spent all my day today arguing with my Trump-loving uncle.
” I , as a black person , don ’ t know your Trump-loving uncle .
I don ’ t feel that — the only reason why I know is because you posted that you did it .
It does not help my life .
I hear from a lot of people saying , “ I ’ ve never been black , but this happened to me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s like.
” Don ’ t minimize the experiences of black and indigenous people with state violence by comparing it to the time that someone didn ’ t like you or you were accused of doing something you didn ’ t do .
Recognize that you will never fully know what it ’ s like to live under white supremacy as a black and indigenous person in this country .
You will just have to believe us , and you just have to take us at our word and fight with us .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ about you .
Don ’ t try to make it about your pain and your journey , and keep your energies focused on where you can be of use to the struggle and to the movement that ’ s happening right now .
When you talk about the question of being performative on social media , I ’ m curious about your thoughts on Blackout Tuesday , when people were posting black boxes on social media to show solidarity .
Is that helpful ?
It ’ s not helpful ; it actually harms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s an important conversation to have .
This is very similar to me to the whole safety pin debacle after Trump ’ s election [ where people put a safety pin on their clothes to signify they opposed acts of religious and racist violence and abuse in the wake of his victory ] .
What it is is people who are looking for something quick that they can do to feel like they ’ ve done something .
These are not things that black people come up with .
When I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe in this country ?
It ’ s not “ I wish everyone ’ s Instagram squares were black.
” I can ’ t feel that .
Especially when coupled with the disengagement — people do this performative gesture and then disengage .
People aren ’ t even open to the feedback of why that ’ s not helpful or what they could be doing to be helpful .
Be wary of anything that allows you to do something that isn ’ t actually felt by people of color .
Be wary of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not helpful .
We are not dying because of lack of symbolism in this country , so question who benefits from that .
If what you think is , oh , it made me feel better , then you ’ re the one who ’ s benefiting from it .
Stay away from those things and question them , because that energy does take away .
The time we had to spend arguing about this , to spend getting the word out , all of these PSAs [ saying ] take your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real Black Lives Matter protests — that energy could have gone toward amplifying a useful message , and it ’ s a waste of time .
And when we waste time , we lose lives , so it ’ s not trivial .
Just always be aware .
I always ask myself when I ’ m trying to do solidarity work , can the people I ’ m in solidarity with actually feel this ?
Can they spend this ?
Can they eat this ?
Does this actually help them in any way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , let it go .
Once these protests slow down , do you expect white people to keep doing the work ?
I hope that they can .
I think it ’ s important to recognize that there are people out there who have been doing work for 10 , 15 , 20 years and will continue to do it even when the story is the protests are over .
The work has continued and will continue , regardless of how many people are standing next to the people doing the work .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we have to start talking about what it means to sustain .
We have to start digging into our history and figuring out how the Montgomery bus boycott lasted a year , how we had Freedom Summer .
How did we have all of these long , sustained protests and activities that brought about real change ?
What did they do ?
What tactics did they use to keep people going ?
What was the support system ?
And we need to start looking at that now while the energy ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like to hold cities accountable to keep pushing toward change , what connections we need to make , how to support people doing the work , how to rotate people in and out so that people don ’ t burn out .
We need to have those conversations now while the energy is high .
A lot of people are just assuming it will go away , and so planning to keep it going is important .
What should the work look like ?
It ’ s really important to watch what ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Los Angeles , and New York , with the defunding and the allocating of funds from the police system and into communities .
We need to invest in that and look at our own cities and towns and see what we can do right now to demilitarize our police and take some of those funds and resources and put them back into the communities that have been so harmed .
It ’ s also really important right now to see who ’ s been doing this work .
Look in your city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of color , someone has been doing that work .
Ask , “ How can I invest in that work ?
” Let ’ s not reinvent the wheel .
What we ’ re hearing right now , the changes that are being pushed , are things that activists have been asking for for a very long time .
It ’ s not new ; they ’ re not new ideas .
The plans are in place .
We just need people to put their excitement behind it .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the old head activists and ask what they ’ ve been doing , but that ’ s what we actually have to do .
The plans are already in place .
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For much of America to wake up to the realities of systemic racism and police brutality, the context had to be extreme; the violence had to be prolonged — more than eight minutes of a black man suffering, a knee on his neck, saying he can’t breathe. The cameras had to not only be rolling, but the officer had to look directly at it without caring he was being filmed, or apparently worried that he was risking his own health in the middle of a pandemic. And an audience had to be watching, pleading “to let him breathe.” All over a $20 bill.
“Violent white supremacy doesn’t rest,” says Ijeoma Oluo, speaker and author of the book So You Want to Talk About Race.
But for many white Americans, this idea of active white supremacy is not one they have ever thought about before. Amid George Floyd’s death and the protests it has inspired over the past two weeks, the country is waking up. The issues demonstrators are pushing against aren’t new — especially to black, brown, and indigenous people who have experienced them their entire lives. But the diverse and widespread outrage over them we’re seeing right now is. Polls show swift and significant shifts in attitudes about police violence toward people of color.
But the conversation about racism in America, especially for those new to it, is uneasy and imperfect. Oluo knows: She dedicates much of her time talking about how to talk about race, as the title of her book suggests.
She and I recently spoke about her views on the current moment, the Black Lives Matter movement, and what it will take to create lasting change. It’s not inevitable that the protests will fade quickly — the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott lasted for 381 days — but it’s vital to have conversations now while the energy is high about what happens next.
We also talked about what it means to get educated on racism and to do the work and what isn’t helpful when it comes to solidarity. For example, those black boxes on Instagram last week — not the best idea.
“Be wary of anything that allows you to do something that isn’t actually felt by people of color,” Oluo said. “I always ask myself when I’m trying to do solidarity work, can the people I’m in solidarity with actually feel this? Can they spend this? Can they eat this? Does this actually help them in any way? And if it doesn’t, let it go.”
And those looking to help need to focus on more than police brutality. Racism factors into so many parts of the cultural fabric — education, work, housing, and much more. That requires attention, too. “It’s not just that we deserve to not be killed,” Oluo said. “We deserve to thrive in this country, just like everyone else.”
Our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, is below.
Emily Stewart
Just to start off, how are you feeling in this moment?
Ijeoma Oluo
I’m exhausted, honestly. It’s been a lot, and I’m preparing to do more. I think that right now we are tired and scared and sad and a little excited to see some steps toward real change, and I’m kind of holding all of that in me right now. But mostly, I’m very, very exhausted.
Emily Stewart
Is this a moment in your mind? Is this something different that’s happening right now?
Ijeoma Oluo
I would say it’s definitely a moment that we have not seen in at least 30 years, as far as a nationwide movement for change, where we’re actually starting to see some cities paying attention and seeing a shift in the national conversation about racism, systemic racism, and police brutality in America. What will come? I don’t know if it will lead to something different than what we’ve seen, but it is different this time.
Emily Stewart
What’s different?
Ijeoma Oluo
Right now, it’s really been a perfect storm. We haven’t seen protests in all 50 states where you could have a day where every state, and then multiple countries around the world, are joining in to say that black lives matter, to say that enough is enough. We haven’t seen that in a very long time.
What’s happening right now — when you have people who are already tired and scared and worried about the pandemic that we’ve been in — is that not only did it hit the black community especially hard to see that violence in the midst of this pandemic that’s coming for us, but to also see that violent white supremacy doesn’t rest. Police will still take the time and risk their own health to take the life of a black person.
It also shocked the rest of the country to realize this is how ingrained it is. It is this ingrained, when everyone is supposed to be staying home, when we should all have bigger things to worry about, that a supposedly fraudulent $20 bill will cost a black person their life.
I think that we were all feeling raw. We all had less reserves, and it was just a collective “enough.” It’s been enough for a lot of us for a very long time, but I’m still glad to see so many people coming out in solidarity.
Emily Stewart
How is the conversation about race different from in the past? Ten years, five years, even two years ago?
Ijeoma Oluo
When I started writing, “Black Lives Matter” wasn’t a phrase that was even said. I remember desperately getting people to just recognize why they should care about this. And Black Lives Matter itself was a movement just trying to say that we deserve to live. And a large segment of the American population that was still struggling with, “Is Black Lives Matter the thing to say?” have set that aside now. They’re saying okay, there is a problem, we’re not going to argue whether this is something we should be saying. We’re moving past that. And that is new. There are, of course, still some people who love to shout, “All lives matter.” But I used to run into well-meaning people asking, why do I have to say this? They’re not asking that question anymore.
That’s new, because it allows us to start talking strategy.
When I wrote my book, I remember talking in a chapter about police brutality and reform. My book is kind of an introduction to race, and I am so encouraged to see people move so far past that to be talking about what it means to defund, to completely restructure how we keep communities safe and healthy. I love seeing people who maybe a year ago thought reform was the way ago now saying, wait a minute, what if we imagine a whole system that doesn’t rely on criminalization, that doesn’t have a certain amount of brutality built into it as the thing we put up with to feel safe?
That is what is encouraging to me, seeing people move past, “Is this a big deal?” to “What is the best way to tackle it?”
“Violent white supremacy doesn’t rest”
Emily Stewart
A lot of white people seem to have been caught by surprise by the realities of police brutality and racism. Why do you think that is?
Ijeoma Oluo
Our culture still frames racism as something that lies fully within the hearts and minds of racist white people. It’s racism if you hate, and therefore if we can just find the few people who hate people of color, who hate black people, then we could solve racism if we could just solve them. What that means is that the everyday fear and heartbreak and stigmatization that we deal with in this country is largely ignored.
You don’t see after-school specials on racism that talk about the ways in which teachers don’t think you wrote your paper because you did really well on it, or how people with their hair in braids are seen as less professional. These are not issues that people think of when they think racism. When I give talks, when I say someone’s a racist, what do you think? And people say, “The Klan.”
For people to realize that it had to be so bad in our police forces, it wasn’t just the act. It wasn’t just the fact that the way George Floyd was killed was so shocking. It was the fact that things had to be so bad that all four of those officers knew that they would be completely fine to murder someone long and painfully in front of cameras, in front of a live audience. What it spoke to was not just those officers, it spoke to an entire culture. You can’t say it’s a few bad apples at that point. That’s where a lot of that shock is coming from.
It’s frustrating. I know that I’m frustrated, and I’m hearing from so many other black people who are so frustrated at getting phone calls from white people they’ve known for a long time saying they had no idea. And you think, “Why weren’t you listening to me? I’ve been saying this the whole time. I’m a human being with words who can say that this is what’s happening.”
Had it just been one officer, it wouldn’t have been as shocking. But to see four officers participate in this, in front of an audience, knowing they were being recorded, was really what showed that this goes deep. This is a systemic issue in a way that people who don’t have to worry about the system of policing had [not seen].
Emily Stewart
So when we see white people rallying en masse against racism now and in support of Black Lives Matter, do you think it really is just seeing George Floyd’s murder? Or what do you think is happening, that these protests are now finally very diverse?
Ijeoma Oluo
I think that’s part of it. It really did shock the conscience of people in ways it hasn’t before.
It’s important to note for the black community, for the indigenous community, it was not just George Floyd. It was the accumulation of Breonna Taylor and all these other beautiful black and indigenous lives that have been taken.
It’s also white people are seeing other people say something, speaking out, protesting. And they’re saying, “I can do it, too.” And it’s contagious. People forget that this sort of resistance is a social activity — it’s not a fun social activity, but it is a social activity. It is a collective movement, and it does cause more people to come out.
I do think people have more time. We can’t overestimate the impact of a lot of people being out of work, having time to get out there with protests and talk about this.
Our social connections to people via the internet are sustaining us in a way that hasn’t happened in the past, because we can’t see people in person. Therefore, we’re talking about these things in a way that we weren’t before. We’re not going out to a bar; we’re talking about the social issues of the day on social media. And I think that’s also contributing to it. I hate to use the phrase perfect storm, but it took a perfect storm of events to really engage white America in a way that hasn’t happened before.
Emily Stewart
So what is your advice to those white people who want to talk about race right now?
Ijeoma Oluo
Right now, you need to be running two tracks at the same time.
You have to be running your track of education, asking why didn’t I know about this? Why wasn’t I doing something sooner? Where am I lacking? What words are confusing me? Start reading up and start learning.
At the same time, look at being of use. Look at what your local protest leaders and resistance leaders are doing. Do they need donations? Do they need masks? Do people need certain messages amplified? Start looking at conversations you can be having in your cities, your towns, your school districts, in your offices to bring those issues forward.
It’s not just that we deserve to not be killed. We deserve to thrive in this country, just like everyone else.
Look how you can be of use to the people who have been struggling for justice and for black, indigenous, and people of color to really thrive in this country. Ask how you can help make sure that it’s something people actually want and can feel.
It’s not just money, but if you can, give money to causes. But give your time. Amplify voices. Open doors. If someone’s saying they’re having trouble at your office talking about the issue of race, can you add your voice to back that person up? If your school board is not talking about the ways in which their disciplinary systems are set up, or talking about getting police out of schools, that is something that you can bring up. And you can bring your friends in. Start looking at how you can be of use, and then also, at the same time, keep your personal education going.
“It’s important to note for the black community, for the indigenous community, it was not just George Floyd. It was the accumulation of Breonna Taylor and all these other beautiful black and indigenous lives that have been taken.”
Emily Stewart
What should people avoid when talking about race?
Ijeoma Oluo
If you are a white person, right now is not the time to go seek out the most racist person and try to tell them they’re an awful person and argue with them — not because they don’t need to know that, because I think that open racism should always be met with resistance and pushback, but because our time is precious and you need to be doing actions.
There’s something really performative about saying, “I spent all my day today arguing with my Trump-loving uncle.” I, as a black person, don’t know your Trump-loving uncle. I don’t feel that — the only reason why I know is because you posted that you did it. It does not help my life.
I hear from a lot of people saying, “I’ve never been black, but this happened to me, so I know what it’s like.” Don’t minimize the experiences of black and indigenous people with state violence by comparing it to the time that someone didn’t like you or you were accused of doing something you didn’t do. Recognize that you will never fully know what it’s like to live under white supremacy as a black and indigenous person in this country. You will just have to believe us, and you just have to take us at our word and fight with us. Don’t try to make it about you. Don’t try to make it about your pain and your journey, and keep your energies focused on where you can be of use to the struggle and to the movement that’s happening right now.
Emily Stewart
When you talk about the question of being performative on social media, I’m curious about your thoughts on Blackout Tuesday, when people were posting black boxes on social media to show solidarity. Is that helpful?
Ijeoma Oluo
It’s not helpful; it actually harms things. And I think it’s an important conversation to have.
This is very similar to me to the whole safety pin debacle after Trump’s election [where people put a safety pin on their clothes to signify they opposed acts of religious and racist violence and abuse in the wake of his victory]. What it is is people who are looking for something quick that they can do to feel like they’ve done something.
These are not things that black people come up with. When I’m thinking, what would help me feel safe in this country? It’s not “I wish everyone’s Instagram squares were black.” I can’t feel that. Especially when coupled with the disengagement — people do this performative gesture and then disengage. People aren’t even open to the feedback of why that’s not helpful or what they could be doing to be helpful.
Be wary of anything that allows you to do something that isn’t actually felt by people of color. Be wary of things that are purely symbolic; they are not helpful. We are not dying because of lack of symbolism in this country, so question who benefits from that. If what you think is, oh, it made me feel better, then you’re the one who’s benefiting from it.
Stay away from those things and question them, because that energy does take away. The time we had to spend arguing about this, to spend getting the word out, all of these PSAs [saying] take your squares down because nobody can actually see real Black Lives Matter protests — that energy could have gone toward amplifying a useful message, and it’s a waste of time. And when we waste time, we lose lives, so it’s not trivial.
Just always be aware. I always ask myself when I’m trying to do solidarity work, can the people I’m in solidarity with actually feel this? Can they spend this? Can they eat this? Does this actually help them in any way? And if it doesn’t, let it go.
Emily Stewart
Once these protests slow down, do you expect white people to keep doing the work?
Ijeoma Oluo
I hope that they can. I think it’s important to recognize that there are people out there who have been doing work for 10, 15, 20 years and will continue to do it even when the story is the protests are over. The work has continued and will continue, regardless of how many people are standing next to the people doing the work.
If we are going to sustain this, we have to start talking about what it means to sustain. We have to start digging into our history and figuring out how the Montgomery bus boycott lasted a year, how we had Freedom Summer. How did we have all of these long, sustained protests and activities that brought about real change? What did they do? What tactics did they use to keep people going? What was the support system?
And we need to start looking at that now while the energy’s high and ask what it would look like to hold cities accountable to keep pushing toward change, what connections we need to make, how to support people doing the work, how to rotate people in and out so that people don’t burn out. We need to have those conversations now while the energy is high. A lot of people are just assuming it will go away, and so planning to keep it going is important.
Emily Stewart
What should the work look like?
Ijeoma Oluo
It’s really important to watch what’s happening in Minneapolis right now, and Los Angeles, and New York, with the defunding and the allocating of funds from the police system and into communities. We need to invest in that and look at our own cities and towns and see what we can do right now to demilitarize our police and take some of those funds and resources and put them back into the communities that have been so harmed.
It’s also really important right now to see who’s been doing this work. Look in your city, in town — anywhere you have people of color, someone has been doing that work. Ask, “How can I invest in that work?” Let’s not reinvent the wheel.
What we’re hearing right now, the changes that are being pushed, are things that activists have been asking for for a very long time. It’s not new; they’re not new ideas. The plans are in place. We just need people to put their excitement behind it. It’s a little less sexy to go to the old head activists and ask what they’ve been doing, but that’s what we actually have to do. The plans are already in place.


vox--2020-06-10--The Great Recession was called a “mancession.” This one could be devastating for women.

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” This one could be devastating for women .
Before the coronavirus pandemic , Eleanore Fernandez worked as an executive assistant at a company that catered healthy snacks for Silicon Valley offices .
The company “ was about to ramp up and go bigger , ” Fernandez said , but in March , all the offices in the area closed .
No one was buying snacks .
So the founder decided to lay off 400 employees , Fernandez included .
Now , she spends her days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 12-year-old daughter , whose school closed a week before others in California because a student there tested positive for Covid-19 .
“ I had to rush home to go get her , ” Fernandez said .
“ Ever since , it ’ s just crazy hectic , ” she said .
Home-schooling is a challenge because her daughter gets bored and “ wants to go out , like everyone , ” Fernandez said .
And even small errands have become so much more difficult now .
Recently , she needed to go to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some supplies for a school project .
She waited outside for 15 minutes because the store was limiting customers , then had to carry around a balloon so the staff could see where she was at all times .
“ There ’ s a lot of thinking prior to what you have to do , ” Fernandez said .
“ It ’ s very emotionally exhausting.
” Fernandez is stressed about keeping her family safe and about paying the bills .
Her husband , who does audiovisual work for events , is out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filed for unemployment in March , she still hasn ’ t gotten any money .
But , she says , “ I ’ m trying to meditate and pray a lot , ” and “ be positive , too , for my family.
” In many ways , someone like Fernandez — a woman laid off from a job in the food industry , home-schooling a child while trying to make ends meet — is the face of the coronavirus economic crisis .
Compare that to the stereotype of the last recession , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a manufacturing job , suddenly directionless , spending his days playing video games or hanging out with friends .
That stereotype was always an oversimplification of reality .
But it ’ s true that while a majority of jobs lost in the Great Recession were held by men , this crisis has fallen hardest on women , and specifically women of color .
According to the Institute for Women ’ s Policy Research , nearly 60 percent of the jobs lost in March , and 55 percent of those lost in April @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 13.9 percent of women are unemployed , compared with 11.6 percent of men .
And though overall employment has improved somewhat since April , those gains largely haven ’ t been felt by black and Latina women , who face 16.5 percent and 19 percent unemployment , respectively .
At the end of 2019 , women made up a majority of the workforce for the first time in a decade .
But the pandemic has “ chipped away at those gains , ” Nicole Mason , president of the Institute for Women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The fact that this crisis is disproportionately hurting women impacts the way the media and the public talk about it .
Experts called the downturn that began in 2007 a “ mancession , ” and much media coverage focused on questions of how joblessness would affect men ’ s identities as providers .
The recession even helped inspire journalist Hanna Rosin to write a much-talked-about Atlantic cover story — and subsequent book — called “ The End of Men.
” Today , no one is talking about the “ end of women.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ because Americans still don ’ t view women ’ s jobs as core to who they are .
“ Couples tend to see men ’ s unemployment as a problem , ” Joanna Pepin , a sociologist who studies inequality in families , told Vox .
But “ couples reframe women ’ s unemployment as an acceptable way for women to take care of their family.
” That may be doubly true now that the pandemic has closed schools and day cares , leaving parents to provide full-time child care and home-schooling — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ falling disproportionately to mothers .
But regardless of care responsibilities , women ’ s unemployment is a big problem for many families — especially the millions where women are primary breadwinners — and for women themselves .
And without policy solutions like affordable child care , the new demands imposed by the pandemic could make it even harder for women to recover from this recession than it would be otherwise .
“ Women are the economy , ” Mason said .
“ We need to put supports and policies in place to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the workforce , but they can stay there.
” The economic crisis caused by the pandemic has impacted women of color the most The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered bars , restaurants , day care centers , and other businesses around the country , leading to levels of unemployment not seen since the Great Depression .
But not all workers have been affected equally .
Certain sectors of the economy , like retail , hospitality , and child care , have been hit especially hard — and in many of those areas , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ example , women make up 94 percent of child care workers , 73.2 percent of workers in clothing stores , and 51.2 percent of workers in the leisure and hospitality industry — all of which have been severely affected by the crisis .
Today , no one is talking about the “ end of women.
” In part , that ’ s because Americans still don ’ t view women ’ s jobs as core to who they are .
And since women of color are disproportionately likely to work in the service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ biggest impact , Mason said .
For example , women of color make up 61.2 percent of manicurists and pedicurists , 60.3 percent of maids and housekeepers , and 57.2 percent of skin care specialists , many of whom have seen their jobs evaporate thanks to Covid-19 .
Even as some sectors of the economy have shown signs of bouncing back , with 2.5 million total jobs added in May , many women of color aren ’ t seeing the benefits .
Unemployment for black women actually ticked up slightly in May while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the National Women ’ s Law Center .
Meanwhile , Latina workers , the group most impacted by pandemic-related layoffs , continue to face record unemployment , as Alexia Fernández Campbell reports at the Center for Public Integrity .
Women of color already made lower wages than white men before the pandemic hit .
While white women earn 79 cents for every dollar made by white men , black women make 62 cents , Native women make 57 cents , and Latina women make just 54 cents .
Asian American women make 90 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but some subgroups make much less , as Jocelyn Frye writes at the Center for American Progress .
Moreover , women of color also experience gender and racial wealth gaps , as Frye notes .
As of 2015 , the median wealth for a single white man was $ 28,900 .
For a single white woman , it was $ 15,640 .
But the median single black woman had just $ 200 in wealth , while the median Latina woman had $ 100 .
On top of these inequities , the jobs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic tended not just to pay low wages , but also to lack benefits like paid sick leave and health insurance , making workers in those jobs less able to weather any kind of health crisis .
That means that women of color “ were already economically vulnerable before the pandemic , and the pandemic has only exacerbated that , ” Mason said .
It ’ s the reverse of what happened in the Great Recession , when men were more likely to lose their jobs While the current economic crisis has had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involve a lot of contact with customers , the Great Recession that began in 2007 disproportionately affected manufacturing jobs — which were more likely to be held by men .
The result was that men ’ s employment fell by about 6 percent between December 2007 and June 2009 , while women ’ s employment fell by just 2.4 percent .
This “ mancession ” ( a term coined by economist Mark Perry ) led to widespread fear not just about people ’ s ability to pay their bills but about whether men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether masculinity itself was doomed .
“ As the usual path to the middle class disappears , what ’ s emerging in its place is a nascent middle-class matriarchy , ” in which women “ pay the mortgage and the cable bills while the men try to find their place , ” Rosin wrote in a 2012 New York Times Magazine story adapted from her book The End of Men .
Rosin spoke with men and women in Alexander City , Alabama , where the largest employer , the athletic-wear manufacturer Russell , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She painted a picture of men adrift , sometimes with little to do .
“ The former Russell men are sometimes categorized by people in town as one of three types , ” Rosin wrote : “ the ‘ transients , ’ who drive about an hour to Montgomery for work and never make it home for dinner ; the ‘ domestics , ’ who idle at the house during the day , looking for work ; and the ‘ gophers , ’ who drive their wives to and from work , spending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The economic crisis triggered by the pandemic has only been going on a few months , perhaps not long enough for the kind of cultural analysis Rosin was performing .
Still , it ’ s hard to imagine anyone talking about unemployed women trying “ to find their place ” — or hunting or fishing , for that matter .
In part , that ’ s because the pandemic hasn ’ t just devastated the economy — it ’ s also transformed family life , thanks to day care and school closures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for their children 24 hours a day , seven days a week .
In some cases , parents are sharing those new responsibilities equitably .
Fernandez says her husband has been a stay-at-home dad in the past , and they ’ re splitting the work of handling their daughter ’ s schooling .
“ I ’ m lucky to have a husband who shares , ” she said .
But not everyone is so lucky .
In an April poll conducted by Morning Consult for the New York Times , 80 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were spending more time than their partners on kids ’ distance learning ; just 45 percent of men said they were spending more time .
Child care isn ’ t the only added responsibility of the pandemic .
Quarantine living may also increase the time people need to spend on food purchasing and preparation ( since they have to contend with food shortages and recommendations to avoid shopping too frequently ) and on cleaning ( since they ’ re suddenly spending nearly all their time at home ) .
And in the Morning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said they were doing all or most of the housework during lockdown , while just 21 percent of men said the same .
For heterosexual couples , the pandemic may be intensifying patterns that already existed , Pepin , the sociologist , said .
In a survey of 1,060 opposite-sex parents in the US that she and colleagues conducted in late April , couples who split domestic labor somewhat equally before the pandemic moved even closer to parity , while those in which the woman already did more housework and child care had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of labor during the pandemic .
“ For moms who were already doing most of the domestic work , they ’ re doing even more of it , ” Pepin said .
And that effect might be magnified if women lose their jobs .
In general , women who leave the labor force tend to spend more time on child care and housework , Pepin said .
Unemployed men , however , don ’ t increase their domestic work to the same degree .
In America , “ men ’ s employment still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ If women are not employed , many people will still talk about homemaking as an equally acceptable contribution to the family , ” she explained .
“ But when men stay at home , that ’ s often framed as a problem.
” That means we may not see as much talk about women losing their identities in this recession .
We probably won ’ t hear about a lot of unemployed women “ idling around the house ” — because more so than men , they ’ re often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care of kids .
And we may not hear about women left directionless , wondering what their purpose is — because many women still get the message , both from the media and their own families , that their purpose is at home , not at work .
Despite the persistence of this message , many women across income levels and industries do derive a sense of meaning from their work .
Fernandez , for example , has worked since she was 16 .
“ This is the first time in a long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a job to define my role , ” she said .
“ I ’ ve always been the working mom.
” On top of that , unemployment comes at a different cost for women than men .
Women who lose their jobs and become economically dependent on a male partner may be in a risky position , Pepin said .
“ If a relationship ends , they ’ re more likely to be in poverty.
” Meanwhile , when women who are the primary breadwinners — something that ’ s disproportionately true for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs , it is “ devastating in a different way , ” Mason said , because families lose income they need to live .
But the pandemic has made it difficult for breadwinner women to take new jobs because “ the care networks that they had pre-Covid , whether it ’ s family networks or a family day care center , those options have also disappeared , ” she said .
Many women face the prospect of “ having to choose between making a living and taking care of their families , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and employers , women can ’ t get back to work That means the solutions needed to address this recession will be different from those needed in the last one .
It ’ s not just about getting people back to work ; it ’ s also about changing the division of labor in families and the available options for child care so that getting back to work is even an option for many women .
To shift social expectations of who does child care , it could help to start early .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ men take paternity leave early on , they ’ re more likely to stay involved in household labor and raising children throughout their life , ” Pepin said .
That means better access to paternity leave could shift the US toward more equitable gender roles over time .
It ’ s also possible that , at least in some cases , the pandemic could lead to greater gender equality .
The crisis has “ broken the barrier down between work and family for everybody , and that ’ s typically been an issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Pepin said .
“ We ’ ve hardly ever seen a time in the past where those competing time demands are affecting such a large swath of the public all at the same time .
That may help women because it may be altering that stigma of employees needing to take time for child care.
” But to really address the inequalities in employment that the pandemic has laid bare , structural changes are necessary , experts say .
Paid sick and family leave are crucial , Rebecca Dixon , executive director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told Vox .
In the service sector , “ We often have women in these jobs facing , ‘ Do I go to work sick or am I going to just be without income ?
’ ” she explained .
Meanwhile , women won ’ t be able to get back to work without affordable child care , which was out of reach for many even before the pandemic hit , Mason noted .
“ We have a responsibility not only at the federal level to make sure that families have high-quality child @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a role to play too.
” During World War II , factories needed female workers so badly that they set up onsite day care centers for their children , she said .
It ’ s hard to imagine something like that today , when “ we can ’ t even get federal maternity leave.
” But support for child care and other policies that help women are good for everyone .
“ When you pay women more , when you give them adequate and decent child care , when they have access to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paternity leave , those are not women ’ s issues , those are family issues , and those are issues that are good for the economy , ” Mason said .
Fernandez , too , says affordable child care is important .
She remembers the chunk of her paycheck that went to day care when her daughter was younger .
“ We have to all change the ways that the system works , ” she said .
Right now , “ women are really heroes at the backbone of a lot of families @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I feel like we take a lot of weight.
” Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
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Before the coronavirus pandemic, Eleanore Fernandez worked as an executive assistant at a company that catered healthy snacks for Silicon Valley offices.
The company “was about to ramp up and go bigger,” Fernandez said, but in March, all the offices in the area closed. No one was buying snacks. So the founder decided to lay off 400 employees, Fernandez included.
Now, she spends her days applying to new jobs while home-schooling her 12-year-old daughter, whose school closed a week before others in California because a student there tested positive for Covid-19. “I had to rush home to go get her,” Fernandez said.
“Ever since, it’s just crazy hectic,” she said.
Home-schooling is a challenge because her daughter gets bored and “wants to go out, like everyone,” Fernandez said. And even small errands have become so much more difficult now. Recently, she needed to go to a Dollar Store to get her daughter some supplies for a school project. She waited outside for 15 minutes because the store was limiting customers, then had to carry around a balloon so the staff could see where she was at all times.
“There’s a lot of thinking prior to what you have to do,” Fernandez said. “It’s very emotionally exhausting.”
Fernandez is stressed about keeping her family safe and about paying the bills. Her husband, who does audiovisual work for events, is out of work too, and although she filed for unemployment in March, she still hasn’t gotten any money. But, she says, “I’m trying to meditate and pray a lot,” and “be positive, too, for my family.”
In many ways, someone like Fernandez — a woman laid off from a job in the food industry, home-schooling a child while trying to make ends meet — is the face of the coronavirus economic crisis. Compare that to the stereotype of the last recession, in 2008: a man laid off from a manufacturing job, suddenly directionless, spending his days playing video games or hanging out with friends.
That stereotype was always an oversimplification of reality. But it’s true that while a majority of jobs lost in the Great Recession were held by men, this crisis has fallen hardest on women, and specifically women of color. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, nearly 60 percent of the jobs lost in March, and 55 percent of those lost in April, were held by women. Nationwide, 13.9 percent of women are unemployed, compared with 11.6 percent of men. And though overall employment has improved somewhat since April, those gains largely haven’t been felt by black and Latina women, who face 16.5 percent and 19 percent unemployment, respectively.
At the end of 2019, women made up a majority of the workforce for the first time in a decade. But the pandemic has “chipped away at those gains,” Nicole Mason, president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, told Vox.
The fact that this crisis is disproportionately hurting women impacts the way the media and the public talk about it. Experts called the downturn that began in 2007 a “mancession,” and much media coverage focused on questions of how joblessness would affect men’s identities as providers. The recession even helped inspire journalist Hanna Rosin to write a much-talked-about Atlantic cover story — and subsequent book — called “The End of Men.”
Today, no one is talking about the “end of women.” In part, that’s because Americans still don’t view women’s jobs as core to who they are.
“Couples tend to see men’s unemployment as a problem,” Joanna Pepin, a sociologist who studies inequality in families, told Vox. But “couples reframe women’s unemployment as an acceptable way for women to take care of their family.”
That may be doubly true now that the pandemic has closed schools and day cares, leaving parents to provide full-time child care and home-schooling — a responsibility that already seems to be falling disproportionately to mothers.
But regardless of care responsibilities, women’s unemployment is a big problem for many families — especially the millions where women are primary breadwinners — and for women themselves. And without policy solutions like affordable child care, the new demands imposed by the pandemic could make it even harder for women to recover from this recession than it would be otherwise.
“Women are the economy,” Mason said. “We need to put supports and policies in place to make sure that not only can women enter the workforce, but they can stay there.”
The economic crisis caused by the pandemic has impacted women of color the most
The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered bars, restaurants, day care centers, and other businesses around the country, leading to levels of unemployment not seen since the Great Depression. But not all workers have been affected equally. Certain sectors of the economy, like retail, hospitality, and child care, have been hit especially hard — and in many of those areas, the majority of workers are women.
For example, women make up 94 percent of child care workers, 73.2 percent of workers in clothing stores, and 51.2 percent of workers in the leisure and hospitality industry — all of which have been severely affected by the crisis.
Today, no one is talking about the “end of women.” In part, that’s because Americans still don’t view women’s jobs as core to who they are.
And since women of color are disproportionately likely to work in the service sector, they’ve seen the biggest impact, Mason said. For example, women of color make up 61.2 percent of manicurists and pedicurists, 60.3 percent of maids and housekeepers, and 57.2 percent of skin care specialists, many of whom have seen their jobs evaporate thanks to Covid-19.
Even as some sectors of the economy have shown signs of bouncing back, with 2.5 million total jobs added in May, many women of color aren’t seeing the benefits. Unemployment for black women actually ticked up slightly in May while falling for other groups, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Meanwhile, Latina workers, the group most impacted by pandemic-related layoffs, continue to face record unemployment, as Alexia Fernández Campbell reports at the Center for Public Integrity.
Women of color already made lower wages than white men before the pandemic hit. While white women earn 79 cents for every dollar made by white men, black women make 62 cents, Native women make 57 cents, and Latina women make just 54 cents. Asian American women make 90 cents to white men’s dollar, but some subgroups make much less, as Jocelyn Frye writes at the Center for American Progress.
Moreover, women of color also experience gender and racial wealth gaps, as Frye notes. As of 2015, the median wealth for a single white man was $28,900. For a single white woman, it was $15,640. But the median single black woman had just $200 in wealth, while the median Latina woman had $100.
On top of these inequities, the jobs lost by women of color in the pandemic tended not just to pay low wages, but also to lack benefits like paid sick leave and health insurance, making workers in those jobs less able to weather any kind of health crisis. That means that women of color “were already economically vulnerable before the pandemic, and the pandemic has only exacerbated that,” Mason said.
It’s the reverse of what happened in the Great Recession, when men were more likely to lose their jobs
While the current economic crisis has had its biggest impact on service jobs that involve a lot of contact with customers, the Great Recession that began in 2007 disproportionately affected manufacturing jobs — which were more likely to be held by men. The result was that men’s employment fell by about 6 percent between December 2007 and June 2009, while women’s employment fell by just 2.4 percent.
This “mancession” (a term coined by economist Mark Perry) led to widespread fear not just about people’s ability to pay their bills but about whether men would lose their sense of purpose and whether masculinity itself was doomed.
“As the usual path to the middle class disappears, what’s emerging in its place is a nascent middle-class matriarchy,” in which women “pay the mortgage and the cable bills while the men try to find their place,” Rosin wrote in a 2012 New York Times Magazine story adapted from her book The End of Men.
Rosin spoke with men and women in Alexander City, Alabama, where the largest employer, the athletic-wear manufacturer Russell, had downsized dramatically in recent years. She painted a picture of men adrift, sometimes with little to do.
“The former Russell men are sometimes categorized by people in town as one of three types,” Rosin wrote: “the ‘transients,’ who drive about an hour to Montgomery for work and never make it home for dinner; the ‘domestics,’ who idle at the house during the day, looking for work; and the ‘gophers,’ who drive their wives to and from work, spending the hours in between hunting or fishing.”
The economic crisis triggered by the pandemic has only been going on a few months, perhaps not long enough for the kind of cultural analysis Rosin was performing. Still, it’s hard to imagine anyone talking about unemployed women trying “to find their place” — or hunting or fishing, for that matter.
In part, that’s because the pandemic hasn’t just devastated the economy — it’s also transformed family life, thanks to day care and school closures that make millions of parents newly responsible for their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In some cases, parents are sharing those new responsibilities equitably. Fernandez says her husband has been a stay-at-home dad in the past, and they’re splitting the work of handling their daughter’s schooling. “I’m lucky to have a husband who shares,” she said.
But not everyone is so lucky. In an April poll conducted by Morning Consult for the New York Times, 80 percent of women with children under 12 said they were spending more time than their partners on kids’ distance learning; just 45 percent of men said they were spending more time.
Child care isn’t the only added responsibility of the pandemic. Quarantine living may also increase the time people need to spend on food purchasing and preparation (since they have to contend with food shortages and recommendations to avoid shopping too frequently) and on cleaning (since they’re suddenly spending nearly all their time at home). And in the Morning Consult poll, 70 percent of women said they were doing all or most of the housework during lockdown, while just 21 percent of men said the same.
For heterosexual couples, the pandemic may be intensifying patterns that already existed, Pepin, the sociologist, said. In a survey of 1,060 opposite-sex parents in the US that she and colleagues conducted in late April, couples who split domestic labor somewhat equally before the pandemic moved even closer to parity, while those in which the woman already did more housework and child care had become even more unequal in their division of labor during the pandemic. “For moms who were already doing most of the domestic work, they’re doing even more of it,” Pepin said.
And that effect might be magnified if women lose their jobs. In general, women who leave the labor force tend to spend more time on child care and housework, Pepin said. Unemployed men, however, don’t increase their domestic work to the same degree.
In America, “men’s employment still continues to be prioritized,” Pepin said. “If women are not employed, many people will still talk about homemaking as an equally acceptable contribution to the family,” she explained. “But when men stay at home, that’s often framed as a problem.”
That means we may not see as much talk about women losing their identities in this recession. We probably won’t hear about a lot of unemployed women “idling around the house” — because more so than men, they’re often busy cooking, cleaning, or taking care of kids. And we may not hear about women left directionless, wondering what their purpose is — because many women still get the message, both from the media and their own families, that their purpose is at home, not at work.
Despite the persistence of this message, many women across income levels and industries do derive a sense of meaning from their work. Fernandez, for example, has worked since she was 16. “This is the first time in a long time where I’ve not had a job to define my role,” she said. “I’ve always been the working mom.”
On top of that, unemployment comes at a different cost for women than men. Women who lose their jobs and become economically dependent on a male partner may be in a risky position, Pepin said. “If a relationship ends, they’re more likely to be in poverty.”
Meanwhile, when women who are the primary breadwinners — something that’s disproportionately true for black and Latina women — lose their jobs, it is “devastating in a different way,” Mason said, because families lose income they need to live. But the pandemic has made it difficult for breadwinner women to take new jobs because “the care networks that they had pre-Covid, whether it’s family networks or a family day care center, those options have also disappeared,” she said.
Many women face the prospect of “having to choose between making a living and taking care of their families,” Mason said.
Without help from policymakers and employers, women can’t get back to work
That means the solutions needed to address this recession will be different from those needed in the last one. It’s not just about getting people back to work; it’s also about changing the division of labor in families and the available options for child care so that getting back to work is even an option for many women.
To shift social expectations of who does child care, it could help to start early. Research across countries shows that “when men take paternity leave early on, they’re more likely to stay involved in household labor and raising children throughout their life,” Pepin said. That means better access to paternity leave could shift the US toward more equitable gender roles over time.
It’s also possible that, at least in some cases, the pandemic could lead to greater gender equality. The crisis has “broken the barrier down between work and family for everybody, and that’s typically been an issue that women talk about a lot,” Pepin said. “We’ve hardly ever seen a time in the past where those competing time demands are affecting such a large swath of the public all at the same time. That may help women because it may be altering that stigma of employees needing to take time for child care.”
But to really address the inequalities in employment that the pandemic has laid bare, structural changes are necessary, experts say. Paid sick and family leave are crucial, Rebecca Dixon, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, told Vox. In the service sector, “We often have women in these jobs facing, ‘Do I go to work sick or am I going to just be without income?’” she explained.
Meanwhile, women won’t be able to get back to work without affordable child care, which was out of reach for many even before the pandemic hit, Mason noted. “We have a responsibility not only at the federal level to make sure that families have high-quality child care, but I think employers have a role to play too.”
During World War II, factories needed female workers so badly that they set up onsite day care centers for their children, she said. It’s hard to imagine something like that today, when “we can’t even get federal maternity leave.” But support for child care and other policies that help women are good for everyone. “When you pay women more, when you give them adequate and decent child care, when they have access to maternity leave and fathers have access to paternity leave, those are not women’s issues, those are family issues, and those are issues that are good for the economy,” Mason said.
Fernandez, too, says affordable child care is important. She remembers the chunk of her paycheck that went to day care when her daughter was younger. “We have to all change the ways that the system works,” she said.
Right now, “women are really heroes at the backbone of a lot of families,” she continued. “Sometimes I feel like we take a lot of weight.”


vox--2020-06-10--Why it’s so hard to get unemployment benefits

Although many states are allowing businesses to reopen , hundreds of thousands of people in the US are still out of work .
But whether they can get the unemployment benefits they deserve depends on where they live .
In some states , more than two-thirds of jobless people have received unemployment benefits .
In other states , like Florida , that number is less than one in 10 .
What accounts for the difference ?
A big part of it is Florida ’ s notoriously hard-to-use online system for unemployment insurance applications .
But this problem isn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to issue benefits .
It ’ s about the ideology that drives that technology .
Check out the video above to find out more .
Ain ’ t No Sunshine : Fewer than One in Eight Unemployed Workers In Florida Is Receiving Unemployment Insurance ( National Employment Law Project , September 2015 ) Long Lines for Unemployment : How Did We Get Here and What Do We Do Now ?
( National Employment Law Project , April 2020 ) Chasing the American Dream : Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes ( Oxford University Press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that millions of jobless were unable to file an unemployment insurance claim ” ( Economic Policy Institute , April 28 , 2020 ) “ Florida blames troubled unemployment website entirely on vendor ; feds heading here to help ” ( Tampa Bay Times , January 15 , 2014 ) “ Not all unemployed people get unemployment benefits ; in some states , very few do ” ( Pew Research Center , April 24 , 2020 ) You can find this video and all of Vox ’ s videos on YouTube .
And if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ video journalism , you can become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
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Although many states are allowing businesses to reopen, hundreds of thousands of people in the US are still out of work. But whether they can get the unemployment benefits they deserve depends on where they live. In some states, more than two-thirds of jobless people have received unemployment benefits. In other states, like Florida, that number is less than one in 10.
What accounts for the difference? A big part of it is Florida’s notoriously hard-to-use online system for unemployment insurance applications. But this problem isn’t just about the technology that states use to issue benefits. It’s about the ideology that drives that technology.
Check out the video above to find out more.
Sources and further reading:
Ain’t No Sunshine: Fewer than One in Eight Unemployed Workers In Florida Is Receiving Unemployment Insurance (National Employment Law Project, September 2015)
Long Lines for Unemployment: How Did We Get Here and What Do We Do Now? (National Employment Law Project, April 2020)
Chasing the American Dream: Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes (Oxford University Press, 2014)
“How budget cuts and restrictive policies hobbled the unemployment insurance system” (Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2020)
Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America (Center for American Progress, June 16, 2016)
“Many states are ill-prepared for unemployment benefits surge” (Politico, March 19, 2020)
“New survey confirms that millions of jobless were unable to file an unemployment insurance claim” (Economic Policy Institute, April 28, 2020)
Reemployment Assistance Claims and Benefits Information System (State of Florida auditor general, March 2019)
The Automation of State Unemployment Systems (Corporate Cost Control, 2014)
“Florida blames troubled unemployment website entirely on vendor; feds heading here to help” (Tampa Bay Times, January 15, 2014)
“Not all unemployed people get unemployment benefits; in some states, very few do” (Pew Research Center, April 24, 2020)
You can find this video and all of Vox’s videos on YouTube. And if you’re interested in supporting our video journalism, you can become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube.