‘Beaten, worn down, just done:’ Working mothers have hit a breaking point

This is Working Together, a weekly series on equity in the workplace. Have ideas about what we should discuss next week? Let me know in the comments using #WorkingTogether or email me at [email protected]. 

In January 2020, Reshma Saujani started the new year with a newborn baby. The mother of two and founder of Girls Who Code, Saujani planned to take her very first maternity leave. Then the pandemic hit. 

Her plan to take time off from her nonprofit became impossible. She felt like she had to work even harder just to keep the business afloat. And it didn’t take long for her to realize that she wasn’t the only one who was struggling. 

“I would look on my Zoom screen and I would see other women who looked exactly how I looked: beaten, worn down and just done,” she said. “And in September when the schools didn't open, I think we went from grinning and bearing it to feeling out of control and barely hanging on.”

A year into a pandemic that has transformed the global economy and had an outsize impact on working women, mothers are still squinting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Last week, President Joe Biden announced an expansive COVID-19 relief bill that includes a $3,000 tax credit to help pay for childcare and billions of dollars for schools to help students return to the classroom. 

Despite these stalled efforts from the public sector, working mothers struggle to get the support they need from their companies: A recent LinkedIn survey found that 62% of working moms have lied about or downplayed their stress around balancing kids and work and more than one third have experienced backlash as a result of interruptions or conflicts due to parenting responsibilities. 

This troubles Saujani, and it spurred her to write an op-ed calling for a “Marshall Plan For Working Mothers” that later turned into a full-page ad in The New York Times. To Saujani, mothers are at war right now. She argues there needs to be a comprehensive response from both the private and public sector to bring back the 5.4 million women who have lost their jobs in this pandemic, bringing women’s participation in the workforce to a 33-year low.

“I just don't believe that now that you've seen my life on my Zoom screen — with my five-year-old asking me for my chocolate chip muffin, with my baby crying in the back, with my husband asking me if I bought the bananas — that you're going to look at me and say, ‘Gosh, I got to hire a mom,’” she said. 

With each stage of the pandemic, mothers’ needs have changed. Ann Shoket — the founder and CEO of New Power Media and owner of women’s network TheLi.st — witnessed this evolution while working on a cover story for Parents Magazine throughout the crisis. But one thing has remained consistent through it all: Decades of progress for working women have been put in jeopardy, and no amount of “leaning in” will reverse this trend.

“Women are like looking at each other beaten, unseen and unheard, we think it's our fault,” Shoket said. “We think if we just work harder, lean in more toward a job, we can magically make hours in the day. We can’t pretend that things haven't changed, and that [realization] could really open the door for us to see significant change for women.”

Tina Tchen — a longtime advocate for women and the CEO of charity Time’s Up — says that this significant change may be near. The former head of President Barack Obama’s White House Council on Women and Girls, Tchen is encouraged by Biden’s relief bill as well as his announcement of a Gender Policy Council that requires involvement from every member of his cabinet. But she looks at the millions of women leaving the workforce and believes that nothing will change unless America invests in a caregiving infrastructure.

A study by Time’s Up found that an investment of $77 billion a year to national caregiving could create 2 million new jobs every year and generate $220 billion of new economic activity. Policies that support working women — combined with private sector improvements like universal paid leave, flexible schedules, and on-site childcare — could be a boon for women and mothers who are now just hanging on at work.

Tchen is optimistic that this change, which has been decades in the making, may be around the corner because of one universal truth: Everyone has been affected by this pandemic. And sometimes it takes a crisis for real change to take shape. 

“I think we're on the verge of being able to have ... a transformational moment,” she said. “We have the moment right now to come out of this pandemic and recession and transform for the 21st century the way our economy and our workplaces work.”

You can see our full interview with Saujani and Shoket here and Tchen here. 

What’s Working

$10 billion over 10 years. Through its One Million Black Women initiative, Goldman Sachs is planning to invest $10 billion in support of Black women over the next 10 years. The program aims to have a meaningful impact on the lives of 1 million Black women by 2030. Today, Black women make 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. [Essence] 

‘Civil Rights 3.0.’ As Mellody Hobson assumes her new role as Starbucks chairwoman — making her the first and only Black female chairwoman of an S&P 500 company — she says she is seeing real change across corporate America. “The broader society is keeping score…. It’s going to be super hard to be a Fortune 500 company without a diverse person on your board,” she said. [WSJ]

Pandemic rage. A year into the pandemic, working mothers and women are tapping into a new emotion: Anger. “The coronavirus has been a disaster for feminism — and a huge setback for the gains of the past 50 years,” writes author Helen Lewis. Many women are now turning that anger into civil and political action. [The Atlantic]

What’s Not

Significant side effects. Women are reporting serious side effects from all the coronavirus vaccinations at a much higher rate than their male peers. While clinical trials included women, it’s possible side effects were not “sufficiently separated and analyzed by sex.” [NYTimes]

The all-male board lives on. A shakeup in the S&P 500 — with Monolithic Power Systems Inc. entering the cohort — brings the first all-male board on the list in roughly two-and-a-half years. The company says they have acquired an executive search firm and are actively looking for a female director. [Bloomberg] 

The crunch on female SMBs. 31% of women business owners have school-aged children at home, making operating during a pandemic more than challenging. A survey of female small-business owners found that 41% said they have female workers who have reduced their hours, and 21% said that they lost female workers due to childcare needs. [Gusto]

Who’s Pushing Us Forward 

Shaking up an institution. After a tumultuous summer at Bon Appetit that forced their longtime Editor in Chief to resign over accusations of racist behavior, Dawn Davis took over the publication. In a wide-ranging and candid interview, Davis shared with me how she is thinking about making the 64-year-old food brand more inclusive, while also paying deference to the history behind it. And as the first Black woman to lead the magazine, she spoke with me about the pressure — as well as the joy — of being the "first" to do something. Check out the full interview here.

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