mntleo2
mntleo2's JournalYou don't understand the point of the post ...
If you are a woman and are not comprehensive of the extra burdens you have been carrying well, it is understandable because we older women bought the crap like idiots. We thought that paid work "did something" and all the other work we have been doing unpaid "did nothing" (one of these idiots being me).
1. As a boomer myself who "blazed the trail" for younger women, the following generations still continue having to make those choices as to whether or not to work for a wage because we are burdened with the extra 24/7 work of care giving and it is not just children.
2. Why not allow women the choice to do that work as it was in the past, knowing they will be supported instead of calling it "doing nothing"? Ridiculous as it is, we live in Lala Land by pretending that some fairies magically come in and performs that work because well, paid work is "more responsible". Get it? Whether or not you work for a wage, YOU are doing a huge amount of unpaid work that contributes greatly and then you are told that you "do nothing" important. Do not believe that bunk!
3. As was said in the post, according to the AARP this unpaid labor if, replaced with paid institutions would cost over $450 BILLION A YEAR so women can go out there to make rich men richer saying, "Do you want fries with that?" Additionally creating more institutions so women can work for a wage is simply more corporation subsidies so they can exploit women working for $0.75 for every man's dollar. Again, according to labor statistics and backed up by the AARP report quoted above, women also lose lose over $450,000 over a work lifetime because of the unpaid work of care giving
As a former feminist, you need to understand the "new" feminists of my generation were upper income women. They did not understand lower income women's burdens, especially women of color had always been forced into low waged labor at exploitative slave labor. These bourgeois women did not consider the burdens of lower class women ~ except whenever it was convenient to use us to make political points for themselves.
NOW supported Welfare Reform, applauding as wildly as all the other upper income WHITE men of privilege who created it (I can write about this sometime, believe me the story about how Welfare Reform came about is disgusting). Because well, doncha know raising children, especially POOR children, to grow up to fight in our wars, run our infrastructure, pay our Social Security, and take care of us when we can nop longer care for ourselves, well that work was just "not doing anything". Welfare Reform has caused more abject poverty for women, including middle class women who are now forced to ignore their families and go out there making a buck.
Let me tell you a story of my mother a WWII bride who worked inside the home supporting my father so he could work for their blue collar wages and was treated all her life as if she "did nothing" for our community. She not only raised three children, she sang like a bird and belted out the National Anthem at every community gathering, volunteered in her community, and when she died doctors came to me and told me how blessed they had been for knowing my mother and how much she had taught them, a woman who had a high school education.
As her daughter and young women in the 1970s I became enamored with feminism. One day while having coffee with Mom, I was spouting out about how we women had no choice for a career, how we should be able to go out there and work for the same wages as a man, blah, blah, blah. My mother quietly listened to me and then she said, "Cat, if your generation has their way and expect women to work for a wage that any corporation will pay you the same wages as a man you are wrong. If all you go out there, corporations will simply lower the wages for a man to your wages. If you think you are going to get any help or support with the unpaid work you do, forget it, they already believe you are "not working". No, if you get your way, BOTH men and women will have to work for a wage and women will be stuck with TWO jobs, the job I do AND the job your father does!"
Indeed she was right, that was exactly what happened and is the way it is today.
I realize this is the way it is now, I get that. But what is important for younger women to know is that, it was not always that way and it was not that long ago. My mother felt privileged to be able to raise her kids as her main jobs because her unpaid work was FAR MORE SUPPORTED. Women actually got Social Security to raise their kids when there was no other wage earner in the home.
Just sayin'...
Cat in Seattle
Caregiving = Zero Years for Social Security
Meaning by the subject line that Social Security calls any unpaid care giving a woman does as not deserving of performing any "work" or any consideration while calculating if she will receive Social Security. If she has worked for a wage in her life, it is often WAY less than men because men usually leave that unpaid work to women and do not take as much time off in their work life, continuing to receive wages while their women perform this unpaid labor. This enables men to collect more Social Security than their women do. As a matter of fact according to labor studies, women lose over $400,000 over a work lifetime in paid wages after they have been performing all this unpaid labor ~ and never forget that the loss of those wages are calulated as about $.75 for every man's dollar! Medicare refuses to support relative care givers and often simply dump all the work on women while expecting her to either perform two jobs both paid and unpaid, or to make the sacrifice her loved one needs to do this work for no pay.
Thanks to Welfare Reform, which as well considers this unpaid work as "doing nothing", we often consider that this unpaid care giving "does nothing" for our communities. We often think this care giving tasks for women only is about child rearing. But this is not so. Women are often faced with more than 3 X in their lives where they must make the agonizing choice of caring for a loved one or working for a wage. This is because they also face these choices with their elders and their spouses as well. They are often forced to live off the income of their loved one in order to perform this care and then after this care is done, the kid grows up, the loved one dies, they are left with nothing.
You would be amazed at how many older women live in their cars simply because after this care, there is nothing left for them, because it often uses up the all the accumulated "wealth" and resources of the person for whom they cared. She gets little or no community or government support for the 24/7 care that has no sick leave, no medical benefits, no rest and often goes on for years and years. But her husband and her relatives and the community think she "does nothing" all day while care giving and even call her "lazy".
But the AARP has done some very detailed studies showing that this unpaid work actually saves this country over 450 billion a year! . Why is this? Because it would cost that much to build and maintain institutions to replace this unpaid work so that women can go out there making rich men richer saying, "Do you want fries with that?" You can read about this study here: http://www.aarp.org/home-family/caregiving/info-10-2012/home-alone-family-caregivers-providing-complex-chronic-care.html
Americans in general think care giving is "doing nothing" and this suffering is our fault. They are so focused on how much more valued paid work is that they think that their own mothers who cared for them "did nothing" while performing this work. They stay silent about what could be done to value this work more. They will not even consider the $Billions these women saved themselves so they do not have to pay more taxes to create institutions which would in fact be more subsidies for corporations, not their families.
Other developed and undeveloped countries value this work and support it with such things as paid wages while they are performing this unpaid care giving, medical care, and old age pensions because they consider this work as "counting", it is "doing something" so that women do not suffer in their old age as American women do. They are not like Americans who will say without thinking that anyone performing this unpaid care giving, "Does not work..." They will not even change their way of thinking enough to pay respect and homage to this hard work by simply saying instead, "she works inside the home..."
So while we wring our hands about this report, well we cause this suffering for our own older female loved ones (though I often wonder how "loved" they are).
If there could be anything done about this it would be to change our attitudes about what is "work" as far as what unpaid labor contribute toward their communities. But Americans won't. All we hear is the wild cheering of creating 'jobs, jobs, jobs' as *only* extending to paid labor and not only ignore unpaid care as "doing anything" but actually denigrate and punish older women after they have done this work. They prefer to allow their own mothers to live in a car because see, she "did not work".
Believe me I could write a book about this as I have been advocating for low income people who mostly constitute women for over 30 years. I wish I had the humor of Michael Moore or John Fugelsang to write it or produce a movie, but I am too angry ...
My 2 cents
Cat in Seattle
Sometimes the caseworker is WORSE ...
I am an advocate for people who apply for benefits, and let me tell you the people who get their jobs from being the 'gatekeepers" are just as bad as this other customer.
Recently another advocate was with a person who had been "sanctioned" because she was a disabled mother. She was so sick that had gotten out of the hospital the day before she was supposed to have her "fair hearing" where she could protest the decision. The person who is in charge of setting up these hearings belittled the woman from even applying to be heard. Despondent, the woman decided not to have the hearing. When my advocate friend heard how badly the recipient felt so much that she decided not to go through it, the advocate encouraged her to go ahead anyway. She said, "I cannot guarantee you will not face the same deplorable treatment and belittling or that you will not be told the same things you were told today, but I can guarantee that you will not be alone I will go with you, if you face these people down or you will never get the assistance you need." So the recipient decided to go through the hearing as long as she did not have to face those horrible people alone.
My advocate friend was so angry about the treatment that she called up this person (the woman is called a Fair Hearing Coordinator) and told her, "You are supposed to arrange hearings, you had no right to belittle this woman who has legitimate reasons for her condition. She just got out of the hospital for crying out loud!" The Coordinator was incensed and said, "Are you telling me how to do my job?" My advocate friend said, "Yes indeed Ma'am, that is exactly what I am telling you. I pay taxes and you work for me..." The coordinator said, "Well if I just wanted some time off, I could go to the doctor and get two weeks off if I told them I was depressed or something lame like that. These people just use lame excuses so they don't have to work..."
My advocate friend was beyond angry. She said, "You have decent health care, you have a doctor that has been denied to your client. Your doctor knows you and knows the insurance you have that would cover you for the tests or whatever procedure you need to prove you are too sick or injured enough not to work. If your client were to try to go to a doctor who did not know her since she has to go to a different one every time,they would not give her permission because they do not even have the money to test her or whatever they would need to do. Furthermore you would not even have a damn doctor if it were not for this woman and the others you are paid to serve. THEY are the reason you even have a job!"
The coordinator hung up. This is because she does not want to admit that she lives off the backs of the poor. All this is fine if you have one sprig of heart and know how important your work is for your community. When these workers look down their noses at their clients they seem to forget that they would not even be there if it weren't for the people they hate. If you tell them to get another job if they hate doing it so much, they whine they can't because there are no other jobs that have the pay and benefits, blah,blah,blah.
Well welcome to the club of the people they serve. Because while these case managers would refuse these very same jobs because they will not pay the bills they expect their clients to take them. Then, rather than admit they like to force this kind of work on others just so long as it is not themselves, they wonder why it is that their clients are sick, disabled and unable to work after working those jobs and they like to pretend these people are avoiding working for a McWage. The twisted and selfish attitude is that their clients are "using excuses" not to work those low wage jobs, but of course people like this coordinator's refusal to do them is simply because they "deserve" better pay and conditions and that their client do not deserve the same. In short they are simply promoting those horrible conditions on others so they can keep in their nice cushy positions.
Poverty is an institution it is *not* a "choice" as the upper classes like to believe. Institutions remain in place because they benefit some people in spite of the terrible conditions it imposes on others. Like the Institution of slavery benefited Americans for over 300 years before it was abolished, the Poverty Institution benefits people like this coordinator and thousands of other Americans, not just in their own employment because of the poor, but their dependence on cheap labor, cheap taxes (the poor pay the highest rate of taxes in every state), tax deductions from non-profits for the rich, the extra fees imposed on the poor for not being able to afford "required" things like making a payment on time, the list goes on and on.
It should be admitted and never forgotten that the rest of society depends upon the poor to maintain their own classes. These case managers should be reminded that as is the case in their class and pretty much any upper class, they themselves would not have a job and they depend on the Institution of Poverty for their own benefit.
My 2 cents
Cat in Seattle
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