Re: Fwd: In Her Words: 'Shecession'

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

Smash the patriarchy!  Let's have a shevolution!

 > From: "Heather L. Howard" <http://www.stanford.edu/~hlhoward>
 > Date: Sat, 9 May 2020 19:40:04 +0000
 >
 > Not a � shecession � �no!
 > 
 > ________________________________
 > From: The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/~nytdirect>
 > Sent: Saturday, May 9, 2020 11:00:02 AM
 > 
 > More women than men lost jobs.
 > 
 > May 9, 2020
 > 
 > People wait in line for help with unemployment benefits at the One-Stop Career 
 > Center in Las Vegas in March.John Locher/Associated Press
 > 
 > By Alisha Haridasani Gupta
 > 
 > Gender Reporter
 > 
 > �We should go ahead and call this a �shecession.��
 > 
 > � C. Nicole Mason, president and chief executive of the Institute for Women�s 
 > Policy Research
 > 
 > The unemployment numbers released on Friday confirmed what we had all 
 > anticipated: The economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic is 
 > staggering, or as one research analyst at Bank of America put it to The Times, �
 > literally off the charts.�
 > 
 > The scale of the crisis is unlike anything since the Great Depression. And for 
 > the first time in decades, this crisis has a predominantly nonwhite, female 
 > face.
 > 
 > �I think we should go ahead and call this a �shecession�,� said C. Nicole Mason,
 >  president and chief executive of the Institute for Women�s Policy Research, in 
 > a nod to the 2008 recession that came to be known as the �mancession�
 > because 
 > more men were affected.
 > 
 > Women accounted for 55 percent of the 20.5 million jobs lost in April, 
 > according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics
 > raising the unemployment rate for adult women to about 15 percent from 3.1 
 > percent in February. By comparison, the unemployment rate for adult men was 13 
 > percent.
 > 
 > Women of color fared worse, with unemployment rates for black women at 16.4 
 > percent and Hispanic women at 20.2 percent.
 > 
 > According to an analysis by the National Women�s Law Center
 > this is 
 > the first time since 1948 that the female unemployment rate has reached double 
 > digits.
 > 
 > The April jobs represent an abrupt, disappointing reversal from a major 
 > milestone in December, when women held more payroll jobs than men
 > for the 
 > first time in about a decade.
 > 
 > The biggest reason for these losses is that the industries hardest hit by the 
 > pandemic � leisure, hospitality, education and even some parts of health care � 
 > are �disproportionately nonwhite and female,� said Diane Lim, senior adviser 
 > for the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan research initiative.
 > 
 > For years, those industries had been the fastest growing parts of the American 
 > economy, Lim noted, driving the strong job numbers and growth. At the same time,
 >  male-dominated industries, like manufacturing, were shrinking.
 > 
 > Kimberly Ireland, left, helps her daughter Kyla Ireland, with Kyla�s 
 > three-week-old baby in Las Vegas. Kimberly Ireland was laid off from her job as 
 > a bell desk dispatcher at the Mirage casino-resort, where she worked for a 
 > decade.John Locher/Associated Press
 > 
 > As a result, women were doing better in the labor market before the pandemic.
 > 
 > Women �were making some real gains,� Jasmine Tucker, a researcher at the law 
 > center, said. �Now there�s this huge step back.� According to the N.W.L.C. 
 > analysis, this crisis has in one month wiped out all of the job gains that 
 > women had made in the past decade.
 > 
 > But female-dominated jobs, like hospitality or child care, tend to also be 
 > underpaid and undervalued, which means that many of the newly unemployed women 
 > now have less of a financial cushion to fall back on, said Mason, of the 
 > Institute for Women�s Policy Research. The problem is compounded for single 
 > mothers
 > a third of single mothers 
 > were already living below the poverty line
 > and, since February, a 
 > million of them have lost their jobs.
 > 
 > Experts say it�s unlikely that those jobs will snap right back when states 
 > reopen, because much of the recovery will depend on consumers who are already 
 > skittish and financially struggling. With no vaccine or cure yet, �we just don�
 > t know how people are going to feel about going back to their favorite 
 > restaurants,� Lim, the senior adviser, said. �How many people are going to take 
 > cruises from now on? How many people are going to jump on flights and take 
 > vacations?�
 > 
 > All of the uncertainty only reinforces the need for more support and 
 > protections for women and families, Mason said, adding that she is somewhat 
 > encouraged by the action in Congress so far.
 > 
 > �Just a couple months ago, the things that we all said were impossible, we�re 
 > now doing, like basic income and paid sick leave,� she explained.
 > 
 > Readers: Have you lost a job in the past few weeks? What was your job, and how 
 > are you coping? Email us at http://www.nytimes.com/~inherwords<mailto:
 > http://www.nytimes.com/~inherwords>.
 > 
 > What else is happening
 > 
 > This weekend we�re celebrating Mother�s Day in the U.S. To mark the occasion, 
 > our colleagues at NYT Parenting took a look at the whole messy, glorious, 
 > complicated story of identity and motherhood
 > Here are a few of the stories. 
 > Enjoy.
 > 
 > [
 > �We can do this on our own. You can�t wait for a man to come in and make your 
 > dreams come true,� said Sarah McKnight, a pilot, who decided to have a child on 
 > her own.Jackie Molloy for The New York Times
 > 
 >   *   �We can do this on our own.� A photojournalist captured the lives of four 
 >   women who chose to become mothers on their own. [Read the story
 >   *   �How motherhood changed my �� Sixteen women on how having children 
 >   altered their resolve, fears, body image, ambition and more. [Read the story<
 >   *   �I�ve never seen anything like these changes.� The science behind �mommy 
 >   brain� shows that pregnancy and parenthood kick neurological development into 
 >   high gear. [Read the story]<
 > 
 > In Her Words is written by Alisha Haridasani Gupta and edited by Francesca 
 > Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is 
 > Sandra Stevenson.