When the subject of paid leave comes up, someone will say: “Oh, no, we could never pay for that, it would be too expensive!!” It’s the Voice of Doom, and I hear it frequently. So often repeated, I know it by heart. It will destroy small businesses. It would push taxes over the cliff. The [...]
Archive | November, 2009
Cleopatra Isn’t the Only Queen of Denial
While you’re lying there, semi-conscious, a human petri dish of contagion, consider this: There’s nothing like a pandemic to highlight the holes in a nation’s public health policy.I am committed to getting women, family careworkers, and paid careworkers the credit they deserve. It didn’t happen during the mythic time when women were idolized for their [...]
The Senate, the Swine Flu, and Sick Days
The President, the Center for Disease Control, your doctor, and your child’s teacher are telling you to stay home, or keep your child home, when the body aches, the head pounds, and the fever rages. Fine. But how can you do that if you don’t have any paid sick days? This was the question at [...]
Unmarried Women and Predatory Lending
Remember back when the economy was beginning its head-first pitch over the cliff and everyone was talking about subprime mortgages? As policy makers slowly get their heads around preventing such a devastating re-occurrence, they should keep in mind who got taken the worst. Unmarried women, typically the most economically vulnerable group, were most often the [...]
Paycheck Feminism
Karen Kornbluh, long a hero of mine, has written an article for the current issue of Ms. Magazine. She notes the 50% workforce participation rate for women, and hails this moment as a critical opportunity to update our infrastructure, i.e. employment benefits, child care accessibility, income tax policy, and the Social Security system. Just as [...]
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