New York Magazine - USA (2021-02-01)

20 newyork| february1–14, 2021

s i waswritingthis,my virtualkindergartnerflungopen

thedoortomy “office”withoutknocking.“I’mona break,” she

declared,thefirstoffiveinherschoolday. I knew sheexpected

metonavigateawayfrommy GoogledocandovertoYouTube,

whereI’d opena videoofDaddyYankee’s“ConCalma”sowe

coulddancealong.We followthechoreographyofananimated

mooseandpandaboogyingamidneonfruitsonmost morn-

ings,buttoday my planhadbeentogetsomeworkdone.

I cuedupthevideoandstoodupfrommy chairwithout

protest.I’velearnedthehardway that gettingmadat her

makeseverythingworse,that gettingmadat my spousemakes

hat I willgetmadat myselfforgettingmadat them,andthat my

illvanishina mushroomcloudoffrustrationthat ultimatelyhas

nothingtodowiththismomentandeverythingtodowiththeforcespummeling

womenandworkrightnow.

Whatis my work?I continuetocallmyselfa writer, thoughI dovery littlewriting.

Lastyear, I pushedmy secondbook’s deadlinebacka fewmonths,thena fullyear.

I feelmy chancesofmakingmoney, stayingrelevant,orcompletinga project evaporate

likesanitizerfrommy chappedhands.I haveessentiallydroppedoutoftheworkforce

andbeenabsorbedintohouseworkandcaringformy children,wherethereareno

wages,noprotections,noupwardpath,just a repetitivecircle.I ambynomeansalone.

“Canwe unionizemothers?”I ask

myhusband,a labororganizerwho

helpsridesharedriversfightfor

basicworkers’rights.“Howabout

women?”I amonlyhalfjoking.

Helooksat meoverhisreading

glasses.“Whowouldyoubringyour

demandsto?”

everymonthushersinanother

re portfromtheBureauof LaborStatisticsdetailinghowthepandemicis pushing

people—womenoverwhelmingly,mostof themBlackandbrown,millionsof them

mothers—outof theworkforce.Therecessionhasdecimatedjobsin sectorsdomi-

natedbyfemaleworkersof color:serviceandhospitality.Eachreporttriggersan

avalancheof storieswithheadlinessuchas “WomenAreNotOkay.”Readingthem

fe elstorturousbut necessary.

AccordingtotheNationalWomen’sLawCenter, womenhavelost 5.4 millionjobs

sincethepandemicbegan.Notonlyaretheirjobsvanishing,butwomen,facedwith

adding caretaking and virtual-schooling

duties to their professional responsibili-

ties, are quitting. Nearly 2.1 million women

have left the labor force entirely since Feb-

ruary, meaning they are no longer looking

for employment and no longer counted in

unemployment statistics. Those women

may seem as if they’re making a choice to

step back, but as often as not, the choice

isn’t really one. It’s not a choice to care for

your children when schools are closed and

child care costs as much as your take-home

pay. Experts call that kind of rock-and-a-

hard-place calculus “constrained choice”

even as they acknowledge that the term is

inadequate.

The pandemic has revealed how vulner-

able we all are—just one errant droplet away

from illness and disability. But just as Black

and brown people are more threatened by

the virus, they are also more threatened by a

scarcity of work. Black women and Latinas

had higher rates of unemployment before

the pandemic; in February 2020, 2.8 per-

cent of white women were unemployed,

compared with nearly 5 percent of Latinas

and Black women. In December, those rates

nearly doubled, but the impact of unem-

ployment isn’t always equally felt. Black

women, for instance, are more than two

times as likely as white women to be the

breadwinners of their families. What do you

do when work is impossible but the loss of

work is catastrophic?

The reports and articles undo me. Not

because the numbers are surprising but

because they don’t even begin to tell the

whole story.

in pushing my book back, I delayed a

payment of close to $30,000—what would

have been the bulk of my income for 2020.

I take freelance assignments to make up for

lost earnings, but the work is piecemeal and

won’t come close to the amount

I expected. I have far less time to

work, and the time I put into

freelance is time I cannot put

into writing the book.

I don’t need to look beyond

my own circle to find women in

similar predicaments: a small

business of custom leather bags

put on hold in order to home-

school,a mother laid off during maternity

leavefromher job as the finance director of

a large restaurant group, an online

elementary-school teacher who wants

nothingmore than to sit next to her stu-

dentsandread.

What we’ve lost—and all the accompa-

nyinggrief—can’t be captured by numbers:

t w en o

u

Don’t Tell

th e h

Stor y

The Numbers