Posts Tagged Caretaking

The Feministing Five: Sarita Gupta

A remarkably talented organizer, Sarita Gupta spearheads massive national campaigns, but the core of her work remains deep understanding of the joys and struggles of everyday life. While transforming conversations into action, Sarita has cultivated a creative and interdisciplinary style of activism for nearly 20 years. Today, as the executive director for Jobs with Justice, she leads an organization with offices across the country, as she brings together student, community, religious, and worker voices to advocate for improved worker rights.

This hybrid approach is also exemplified in her work as co-director of Caring Across Generations, mobilizing aging Americans, people with disabilities, workers, and their families to support to live lives ...

A remarkably talented organizer, Sarita Gupta spearheads massive national campaigns, but the core of her work remains deep understanding of the joys and struggles of everyday life. While transforming conversations into action, Sarita has cultivated a ...

Can the Nanny Speak?

An article in this month’s Essence (available only in print, not online) gives me pause. Veronica Chambers’ “I’m Her Mother, Not Her Nanny” tells a Black Latina’s testimony about the frustration of being misidentified as the nanny of her biracial child.
Veronica explains her experiences of racism:

I have to deal with strangers who treat me as if I were a hired hand. It angers me because when someone asks something so ignorant, I’m reminded that even under the leadership of this historic Obama administration, there are many people who only see me as a dark-skinned woman in a position of servitude.

Veronica has every right to be properly identified as the mother of a child she helped bring into the world. ...

An article in this month’s Essence (available only in print, not online) gives me pause. Veronica Chambers’ “I’m Her Mother, Not Her Nanny” tells a Black Latina’s testimony about the frustration of being misidentified as the nanny ...

Caregiving from a male perspective

Sometimes the lack of female bylines in the Atlantic Monthly, or the tendency to publish sexist fear-mongering, annoy me. But I have to give it up to the Atlantic for last month’s compelling portrait of caregiving and its discontents by contributing editor Jonathan Rauch. Rauch writes about his incredibly painful and confusing experience of taking care of his father as he struggled with the indignities of deteriorating and dying. It’s totally honest and very moving. An excerpt:

My professional work all but stopped. Finding doctors for him and getting him to appointments and coordinating escalating medical needs swallowed entire days. I managed until one hot July afternoon. I was at my desk closing a column when Michael called ...

Sometimes the lack of female bylines in the Atlantic Monthly, or the tendency to publish sexist fear-mongering, annoy me. But I have to give it up to the Atlantic for last month’s compelling portrait ...

Paternity Coverage and Race Stereotypes

This article had the potential to be my song.
The writer should certainly be commended. She penned a fact driven, well-written article that grappled with some of the complex issues that surround paternity. But some things about this piece, and the pictures that complemented the coverage, utterly disappointed me. The root of the problem was the racial stereotypes of black fatherhood that were reinforced.
I knew something was up when I did a mouse-scroll over the pictures of the Dads involved in paternity disputes. I was greeted with white father after white father clutching some paraphernalia that attested to his involvement in his child’s life. Then the lone black man appeared, head facing down, sans stuffed animal. It is ...

This article had the potential to be my song.
The writer should certainly be commended. She penned a fact driven, well-written article that grappled with some of the complex issues that surround paternity. But some things ...

Debunking Racist and Classist Myths about Teen Pregnancy.

A study put out by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy has found evidence that the majority of teens at risk of unwanted pregnancy are not from low income and/or single parent families.
via Susan Reimer for the Baltimore Sun.

According to research conducted for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, only 28 percent of those who report having given birth or fathered a child as a teen lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line.
And just 30 percent of those who report having given birth to or fathered a child as a teen say they were living with a single parent.
We are not only wrong – and ...

A study put out by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy has found evidence that the majority of teens at risk of unwanted pregnancy are not from low income and/or single parent families.

What About Our Military Mothers?

Lately I have been mulling over military moms who, upon notification of deployment, scramble to find childcare for their children. I can’t help but wring my hands and ask: where are all the fathers? And I am not talking marriage here or even money. I am talking about mutual parental involvement. Women are expected to step up when their husbands go off to war. We should expect the same of men whose wives are deployed.

My heart goes out to army moms, women who are practically invisible in war coverage. This piece stumbles on so many kernels of truth about the societal discrimination women face. For me, this narrative is particularly revealing:

Sergeant McFadden, who holds only an associate’s degree, wanted ...

Lately I have been mulling over military moms who, upon notification of deployment, scramble to find childcare for their children. I can’t help but wring my hands and ask: where are all the fathers? And I ...

Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business–24 of them are Female

I really like Fast Company’s coverage–they manage to produce a lot of fresh, interesting material that isn’t just about fuddy duddy notions of business, but the intersections of sustainability, design, creativity, leadership, innovation etc. (Full disclosure: I’m one of those nerds who likes futurist talk about where the world is headed culturally, technologically, sociologically etc.).
That’s why I was purdy disappointed to find that only 24 of the top 100 of their “Most Creative People in Business” list were women. Really Fast Company? Women are launching businesses at twice the rate of men. Super innovative microlending businesses are taking the world by storm, largely led by the efforts of women. Between 1997 and 2006, the number of majority women-owned ...

I really like Fast Company’s coverage–they manage to produce a lot of fresh, interesting material that isn’t just about fuddy duddy notions of business, but the intersections of sustainability, design, creativity, leadership, innovation etc. (Full disclosure: I’m ...

The Pandora’s Box of Cohabitation

So remember awhile back when I asked for your advice on sharing space with a partner and not losing your mind? Well, I’m happy to report that it’s been about three months of cohab-ing and things seem to be going along swimmingly. I think in my effort to make sure that my body wasn’t invaded by sexist body snatchers (laundry, dishes, dinner oh my!) the second he moved in, I forgot how much fun he is, how much I adore watching TV with him, and telling one another jokes while we try to fall asleep. We just make a lot of sense, which, it turns out, is one major protection against stupid gender role defaults.
Having said that, I ...

So remember awhile back when I asked for your advice on sharing space with a partner and not losing your mind? Well, I’m happy to report that it’s been about three months of cohab-ing and things ...

Load More