Reworking Parents

“I’m not interested in how people move but what moves them.” -Pina Bausch

“The U.S. is the only high-income nation not to have paid maternity leave, while almost all middle- and low-income countries offer it, too,” says Jody Heymann, founding director of McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy and author of Raising the Global Floor: Dismantling the Myth That We Can’t Afford Good Working Conditions for Everyone. The exceptions include Swaziland, Papua New Guinea—and us.

-Carol Evans, Working Mother Magazine 

good:

Recently, a female GOOD staffer was commiserating with a male journalist about the dearth of female bylines in major American magazines. She suggested a solution: He should speak to the editors of these magazines—people he knows personally—about how awesome she is. She was on the phone with a highly regarded editor within a week, discussing the possibilities for freelance work.

Reading big statistics, it’s easy to place yourself in a bystander role. You acknowledge that women are underrepresented in your industry—particularly if you work in media, design, or tech. You know that they are far less visible, and probably paid less, than men of equal experience. You’re frustrated at how difficult it sometimes seems to fill your workplace or panel discussion with enough women. But what have you ever done about it? 

PROMOTE WOMEN. It’s time to stop lamenting and start doing. Here’s how:

1   Think of three women in your industry who are underpaid, underemployed, or under-noticed. Women who are rising through the ranks more slowly than their male peers. Women who are really great at what they do but haven’t been recognized as up-and-comers yet.

2   Think of three powerful people (of any gender) in your industry who you know personally and who are in a position to hire or assign to women.

3   Compose an email to each of those powerful people individually and recommend a specific woman they should meet, hire, or otherwise work with.

4   Email those women and tell them you’ve recommended them. We haven’t provided a form email by design—a genuine, original email is what counts.

Put your email where your mouth is. Use your network. Endorse women today. Then boost the signal. Women, share your stories about infiltrating male professional networks. Facilitators, submit your own accounts of giving women a leg up. Submit your stories here on GOOD’s Tumblr, on Twitter with the #promotewomen hashtag, or in the comments on our site. We’ll compile your stories and publish them as inspiration.

We have the power to end the gender gap. Take five minutes and send three emails to do something about it.

The phrase “working mother” is redundant.  ~Jane Sellman

Sometimes we all need this.

Has motherhood affected your creativity?

“It’s such a hard question. But there’s something about having a child that changes you completely. It’s not theoretical anymore. You can think all you want about what having a child is like, but until you do, you don’t know how it will change you. So as far as being an artist, I think it made me freer and not as concerned with what other people were saying about me. Not as worried about what critics or fans thought of me. That was probably the biggest change.”

from “Rockermoms”, Salon 2008

Take a leap forward and make it count.