FRIDAY,MARCH6,2020 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO A
M
y daughter arrived home from her first
term at university, armed with a new
awareness of gender politics. Although
well meaning, her orientation sessions in
equity and inclusivity revealed an unseemly side to
education that she must have thought belonged to
another era or culture. She sat at the end of the
couch one afternoon, scrolling through personal ac-
counts of sexual harassment on university campus-
es, then clicking on links that detailed each testimo-
nial. I pretended to be immersed in my own reading,
avoiding eye contact and silently formulating re-
sponses to questions that I knew were forthcoming.
I could start with my mother, who dreamed of go-
ing to university but knew the money her parents
were saving was reserved for her brother’s educa-
tion. Or my grandmother, an astute and savvy busi-
nesswoman, who watched everything transfer to
her less capable husband when they were married.
My great grandmother’s story is the
reason we both are here. She was left
on the birthing bed to die when the
doctor, understandably, focused on
saving her twin brother. The midwife
stepped in, giving my great grand-
mother the opportunity to outlive her
brother by decades, and for her
descendants to outnumber his proge-
ny by dozens.
My own experiences pale in com-
parison. An elementary teacher who
assured me that my success in math
was fleeting: The boys would soon
catch up and, by implication, surpass
me. A summer job denied, despite acknowledge-
ment that my qualifications were superior, because
“we need a boy in case something goes wrong.” The
pattern became familiar when I assembled a bike in
half the time it took three male applicants, then
fumed as they were offered higher-paying jobs in re-
pairs, while I was assigned to selling clothes. Eventu-
ally, I supported my studies serving liquid lunches to
businessmen. That deserves another story. At grad-
uate school I wondered, but dared not ask, why so
few female professors had children. I was outraged
when a biotechnology company invited all the male
students for a lavish recruiting dinner and didn’t in-
clude me. And once, at a conference, I thought I was
getting a great job offer from an international re-
searcher until I realized that he wanted to discuss
the final details in his hotel room. Most memorably,
only three months into graduate school, I trudged
over the mountain on a snowy morning in Montreal,
then stood in the cold for hours, honouring the 14
students who were killed, just because they were
women.
Even as these stories ran through my mind, I
knew they were incomplete. I also wanted my
daughter to hear the smaller details, the ones that
will give her a broader perspective and help her to
navigate a future that is likely to wind through these
paths.
She should know about my male friends at uni-
versity who willingly sought my advice on statistics
(they still hadn’t caught up) or my undergraduate
adviser who never lost an opportunity to promotemy career, even a decade into his retirement. My
graduate supervisor modelled an idyllic work/life
balance with his extraordinary devotion to his chil-
dren and repeated insistence that a PhD schedule
was flexible enough to accommodate my long-dis-
tance relationship. My grad-student colleagues
made long hours in the lab feel like home, even as
they adjusted to a different type of family member.
They gave up coveted space in a shared office so I
had privacy to change after running workouts. They
regularly moved my lab equipment, without com-
ment, knowing that I couldn’t lift it. As I joined them
for lunches, they ventured to new cafés with
vegetarian options. When I realized I was being fol-
lowed home after late nights in the lab, they mod-
ified their work schedules so I wasn’t walking alone.
I knew intuitively that these gestures were not dri-
ven by chivalry or political correctness. They were
simple acts by decent people who cared about their
friend.
My postdoc lab was full of women
and run by men. They took us to meet
their wives, also scientists, and their
daughters, future scientists. In groom-
ing us for job interviews, these men-
tors assured us that no one had the
right to ask questions about our per-
sonal lives, then prompted us with
answers, knowing we would get asked
anyway.
New challenges arose for me as a
young faculty member, but it was my
male colleague who stood up to the
administration, refusing to accept a
teaching schedule that would have put me in an im-
possible situation after a maternity leave. When I
wanted room for a playpen at work, a senior profes-
sor insisted that I switch into his larger office. Anoth-
er, long retired but still on campus, spent hours with
a baby sleeping in his office or bouncing on his knee
while I worked frantically to submit grants or mark
papers.
Maybe I could remind my daughter about the first
man in her life, although she has heard the details
many times. Having never touched a baby until the
midwife placed one in his arms, her father stepped
up to parental leave and quickly became the pri-
mary caretaker in our house. Against all odds, we
adapted to a new normal, learning that babies can
live for days with mushed banana in their hair, that
napping is sleeping regardless of where it occurs and
that it is virtually impossible for children to over-
dose on pasta.
As I sensed my daughter’s growing agitation, I
shifted position on the couch, purposefully invading
her personal space until she was forced to look up. In
that instant, I was reminded of the years of parenting
when my primary goal was to convince her that the
world is magical, with new wonders and opportuni-
ties behind every door. I still see hints of that child-
hood joy in her adult eyes, so I jump in before she has
the opportunity to ask the first question.
“I have something to tell you,” I begin. “It’s about
simple acts by decent people.”CellaOlmsteadlivesinKingston.SHINING
ALIGHT
ILLUSTRATIONBYRACHELWADAMydaughter’sawakeningtogenderpoliticsrecalledmyownexperiences
withinequalityandtoxicmen,CellaOlmsteadwrites.Butsheneeded
toknowthatmenarejustascapableofdecencyastheyaredisappointmentFIRSTPERSONIknewintuitively
thatthesegestures
werenotdrivenby
chivalryorpolitical
correctness.They
weresimpleactsby
decentpeoplewho
caredabouttheir
friend.Haveastorytotell?Pleaseseetheguidelinesonourwebsitetgam.ca/essayguide,
[email protected]FirstPersonisadailypersonalpiecesubmittedbyreadersNEWS |TODAY’SSUDOKUSOLUTION TODAY’SKENKENSOLUTIONN
othing appeals to people
more than wanting to be
their own boss. I know this,
because as a freelance writer (I
don’t have a full-time job in my
field, and likely never will), it’s the
No. 1 comment that I get when ex-
plaining my daily life. Only, the re-
ality of self-employment is far
from how it’s dreamed when it’s
not out of choice, but despera-
tion.
Sorry We Missed Youexamines
the world of predatory zero-hour
contracts, and how the new nor-
mal of precarious employment
through the gig economy can de-
stroy an otherwise solid family.
Frequent collaborators screen-
writer Paul Laverty and director
Ken Loach follow up their 2016
Palme d’Or winnerI, Daniel Blake
with a story that is so of the mo-
ment, it will be looked back on as
the first of its kind to tackle the
dangers of how the gig economy
preys upon society’s most vulner-
able.
Sorry We Missed Youfollows the
Murphy family as they try to re-
build their life in Britain after the
2008 recession. Patriarch Ricky
finds the opportunity to become a
self-employed delivery driver –
which is when everything goes
downhill. His wife, Abbie, a home-
care nurse, sells their family car to
afford Ricky’s van rental. With the
promise that this is all necessary
for Ricky to rake in cash and dig
the family out of debt, it’s a sacri-
fice that Abbie is willing to make –
even if it means taking buses
across town, which will mean
longer days. Both parents work-
ing as hard as they can, their chil-
dren, a teen son Seb and tween
daughter Liza Jane, fall to the way-
side. Seb pushes his parents
through rebelling the way many
teens do, but without parental su-
pervision the problems and con-
sequences become more severe
than they should.
We see both Ricky and Abbie
work until they can barely stay
awake, or see each other, to make
ends meet and the toll it takes on
their otherwise loving marriage.
Both their jobs become increas-
ingly taxing, and the family runs
into problems they’ve never en-
countered and are not equipped
to deal with.Sorry We Missed Youis
not an easy movie to sit through.
Much like its predecessorI, Daniel
Blake, the entire film is deeply af-
fecting – I watched most of it
through tears. We see this family
sink further into despair and fall
apart, not because of a lack of
love, understanding or communi-
cation – but because of a system
that disenfranchises the poor and
destroys their lives. Because this
film is so rooted in real experienc-
es of delivery drivers and gig
workers (and because it’s made
by Loach) you know to not expect
much joy at all. But because the
director weaves in enough scenes
to show how deeply this family
cares for one another, it never
feels voyeuristic in its sadness but
true to reality. This isn’t about
emotional manipulation or pov-
erty porn, it’s about showing a
family as a whole.
Loach, now 83, has been mak-
ing political films since 1967. It
would be easy to assume he might
lose his touch over the course of
50 years, or not understand the
everyday life of the working class,
butSorry We Missed Youalmost
feels too real. If you’ve shopped
online and have opted for same-
day delivery or if you’ve used a
ride-sharing app, it’s almost im-
possible to watch the film and not
feel a veil lifting, even though the
evil of these companies is no se-
cret. The viewer has little choice
but to reckon with how they par-
ticipate in a system that only
works for the customer through
the exploitation of someone else.
Sorry We Missed Youis enough
to radicalize anyone into ques-
tioning and understanding the
toll the gig economy takes – and
how the myth of bootstrapping
traps so many into thinking that
working as hard as you can is
enough to overcome the worst of
capitalism.
SpecialtoTheGlobeandMail
SorryWeMissedYouopensMarch6.
Miseryloves
company,
andcompanies
lovemisery
SARAHHAGI
REVIEWSorryWeMissedYou
CLASSIFICATION:14A;101MINUTES
DirectedbyKenLoach
WrittenbyPaulLaverty
StarringKrisHitchen,Debbie
HoneywoodandRhysStone
★★★★