The COVID-19 pandemic has driven up unemployment among women, and the situation is even worse for women of color. Between a lack of affordable childcare, women's caregiving roles in the home, and the fact that women disproportionately work in sectors negatively impacted by the pandemic, the short-term and long-term implications of the pandemic's effect on women's employment cannot be understated. The impact that women's drop in workforce participation has on our economy as whole, and for women (and ergo families') lives, careers, and financial health overall, will impact the United States for decades to come. Because what impacts women impacts everyone.
Here to discuss this crisis and the policy solutions that can solve it is President of the National Partnership for Women and Families, Jocelyn Frye. The National Partnership is a national, non-profit, non-partisan org that works to achieve equality for all women by changing culture and policy. They have been fighting for family leave for decades (hint: they helped pass the federal FMLA law in the '90s), and this tirelessness and deep expertise has made them the go-to organization when it comes to understanding why we must push for paid family leave and economic justice for women.
Note: This interview was recorded on December 17, 2021. Two days after the interview, Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), whom Democrats needed a key 50th vote from to pass the Build Back Better Act, announced that he would not support the package - leaving its fate undetermined. Read more from the New York Times here.
LINKS:
- National Partnership for Women and Families website
- Article: How to Have a Productive Phone Call with your Legislator's Office
- Build Back Better was supposed to help fix U.S. health care after COVID. What happens if it's dead? (Vox)
- Transcript of this episode (please note that transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U1jYchPNNGMH-wGLE8olmrsBuxg0RweQ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105281143452743222220&rtpof=true&sd=true
As the topic of abortion rights is in the courts and in the press lately, one thing that we often miss is the question of what it actually means to have the choice of whether to obtain an abortion.
Aside from whether abortion is actually legal where you live, what other barriers may exist that may prevent someone from being able to choose abortion in the first place? What obstacles, such as cost, ability to physically get to a clinic, and social stigma, make it so that abortion is not a viable option for someone, even if they may want one? What if the reality is that many people do not have a real choice?
Today on the podcast is Dr. Katrina Kimport, an associate professor at University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF) Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH). Her book, No Real Choice, looks at how abortion restrictions, class and racial disparities, cultural pressure, and other issues can make abortion impossible to choose - from the perspective of people who considered, but did not obtain an abortion.
On the podcast, Kimport will discuss the structural and social obstacles to abortion, as well as the cultural influences that try to dissuade people from choosing abortion. She discusses the often-overlooked experiences of people who make abortion-related decisions, and highlights who is denied reproductive choice and how.
LINKS:
No Real Choice: How Culture and Politics Matter for Reproductive Autonomy