Tag Archive for "Class"

Posts Tagged Class

Infographic: 60 percent of women’s job gains in the recovery are in low-wage jobs

Today is the four-year anniversary of the last time the minimum wage was increased.

I’ve written before about why everyone but especially women–who make up two-thirds of minimum wage workers–need a raise. Today, the National Women’s Law Center is out with a new analysis showing that 60 percent of the jobs women have gained in the economic recovery have been concentrated in the 10 largest low-wage occupations–ones that typically pay less than $10.10 per hour, which it should be noted is considerably higher than minimum wage and still totally insufficient. Just 20 percent of men’s job gains have been in these low-wage jobs.

As NWLC explains, women have always been overrepresented in these sectors: More than 75 ...

Today is the four-year anniversary of the last time the minimum wage was increased.

I’ve written before about why everyone but especially women–who make up two-thirds of minimum wage workers–need ...

By Syreeta McFadden • 10 years ago

What we don’t talk about when we talk about Mommy Wars

I should begin by saying that I’m not a mother. I was raised by a single black mother; and our narrative isn’t unlike the stories of working class single mothers nationwide. One of struggle, sacrifices, and compromise. A complex and harrowing navigation of the public safety net and stone-faced determination in defiance to shaming by our culture of women, children and families in need. These sacrifices sent me to college.

When I consider how class-conscious discussions of work/life balance operates in our spaces online and television, it is often to the absence of including voices of working class women. For some reason over the last decade or so, I thought perhaps things would’ve balanced out already, that we’d reach equilibrium in ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 10 years ago

Quick Hit: Juanita Diaz-Cotto on women of color and the prison-industrial military complex

Check out this great interview with academic-activist Juanita Diaz-Cotto at Guernica.

Juanita Diaz-Cotto knows she’s seen as radical. The activist academic blurs the lines that often delineate two clear, if not antagonistic, camps: scholarship and social justice. An expert on Latina and Chicana women’s experiences in the U.S. prison system, she’s been one among just a precious few voices in academia calling attention to the devastation the criminal justice system wreaks on women of color.

Her work deals with a crisis hidden in plain sight. While Latinos made up just 16 percent of the total U.S. population in 2011, they were the majority of all those sentenced for federal offenses. Women of color, meanwhile, comprise the fastest-growing sector of the prison ...

Check out this great interview with academic-activist Juanita Diaz-Cotto at Guernica.

Juanita Diaz-Cotto knows she’s seen as radical. The activist academic blurs the lines that often delineate two clear, if not antagonistic, camps: scholarship and social justice. ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 10 years ago

Chart of the Day: Mothers are the sole or primary breadwinner in 40 percent of US households

According to a new Pew Research Center report, a record 40 percent of households now have a mother who is the sole or primary source of income for their families.

This figure includes two very different groups of women: 63 percent are single mothers and 37 percent are women who are married and have a higher income than their spouses. As Bryce Covert notes at Think Progress, the former group is sitting pretty–at nearly $80,000 in 2011, their family income tends to be much higher than the national median. The single mothers, on the other hand, are earning just $23,000.

And, as a recent Legal Momentum report shows, the US is the worst place–no really, the actual worst ...

According to a new Pew Research Center report, a record 40 percent of households now have a mother who is the sole or primary source of income for their families.

This figure includes two very ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 11 years ago

What happens when women are “illegal”?

Ed. note: This is a guest post by Juliana Britto Schwartz. By day, Juliana is a student at University of California, Santa Cruz. By night, she is a Latina feminist blogger at Julianabritto.com, where she writes about reproductive health justice, immigration, and feminist movements in Latin America.

Earlier this week, the Associated Press made the decision to drop the term “illegal immigrant” from its style guide. This is a huge step forward for immigrant rights, but the fact that such a small act is such a huge victory says a lot about how much further our country has to go to achieve even basic human rights for undocumented people. The AP may have dropped the I-Word, but plenty of major ...

By Sesali B. • 11 years ago

Let’s get ratchet! Check your privilege at the door

A few days ago I had the, ahem, pleasure? of seeing the video of Miley Cyrus twerking. I was a little put off by it but couldn’t immediately identify why. There was the obvious discomfort at the fact that she wasn’t really good at twerking in the first place, but there was something else that I just couldn’t get jiggy with. Then I saw her post this picture and it clicked…

Via @mileycyrus on Twitter

Her skin and class privilege overfloweth in this poorly executed commodification of twerking and subsequently “ratchet culture.” In an interview following the twerk video Miley said:

“You can’t really explain [twerking]… It’s something that comes naturally. It’s a lot of booty action… I haven’t really ...

A few days ago I had the, ahem, pleasure? of seeing the video of Miley Cyrus twerking. I was a little put off by it but couldn’t immediately identify why. There was the obvious discomfort ...

By Lori Adelman • 11 years ago

The Wednesday Weigh-In: White working class masculinities

Joseph Osmundson, a scientist and activist based in New York City, has penned an important and deeply personal piece for the Feminist Wire discussing the ways in which “working-class white men live their masculinities”. After sharing a story about trying out for the middle school basketball team in 7th grade and then crying when he saw his name on the cut list, he writes:

“These were not things that boys back home were supposed to do, and yes, I took shit for it later that day. Boys weren’t supposed to cry (men are strong, not weak), we’re not supposed to need support from anyone, in particular not our mothers (men are providers, supporters, not those in need of support). And on ...

By Sesali B. • 11 years ago

How inner city gun violence is a gendered issue

2013, following the trend set in the latter half of last year, has been the year of the glock. Everybody, and their mama, is talking about gun violence and gun control laws. Guns, guns, guns. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve been hearing about gun violence in two extremely different contexts. On the one hand, there are the isolated, mass shootings like the Colorado theater and Sandy Hook school incidents. And on the other hand, there are the shootings in inner cities, mostly communities of color. I want to clarify now that I am talking about the latter. I do not think that the deaths of shooting victims in either kind of shooting are more ...

2013, following the trend set in the latter half of last year, has been the year of the glock. Everybody, and their mama, is talking about gun violence and gun control laws. Guns, guns, ...