A Celebration of Unpaid Laborers

Today I stand in solidarity with my sisters organizing and participating in A Day Without a Woman. 

At the same time, I feel conflicted about my own ability to be a part of this strike. One of the ways we can participate is by taking the day off from paid and unpaid labor. As a mother, this feels impossible to me. Am I to let my kids go hungry today? Choose not to pick them up from school? Or should I leave it to someone else to do this work for me today? My husband, who already contributes mightily to the full range of labor that supports our family? My sitter, another hard-working woman, for whom income from her labor is not optional? None of these options feel appropriate, and in fact I think in my situation they could potentially be counter-productive. 

I do, however, deeply appreciate that A Day Without a Woman is making me – feminist to my very core – continue the examination of the structure and nature of women's unpaid labor. Within our culture, our unpaid work is the most essential and also the least appreciated. We would be nowhere without women’s paid and unpaid work – that’s the whole point of A Day Without a Woman. But that’s also what is so difficult about it. This work is critical to the well-being of our families, and there are many women who are not able to do without it, even for a day.

Toni Morrison said, "I get angry about things, then go on and work." That's the nature of women’s unpaid labor – it just has to go on and get done. Our work doesn't define us, but it is a hallmark of what it means to be a woman in our society. We work. We work hard. And then we work some more.

So today I honor hard working women around the world by maintaining an awareness of every unit of work I do today -- paid and unpaid. It's noon as I write this, and my labor today has included six hours of tasks that demand a breathtaking array of skills and abilities. And this is a light day, and I am a woman of privilege living a relatively comfortable life. The range of tasks related to my unpaid labor is extraordinarily broad, and yet it's not extraordinary at all. In fact it’s downright quotidian, and that’s one of many reasons why it’s not valued in our society. 

In the spirit of celebrating the hard-working woman I’m sharing this photograph of my Grandmom, Louise Holliday, who to my knowledge never received any kind of monetary compensation for a lifetime of hard work. I like this image of her sitting down on the porch, as I imagine that she rarely actually had time to do so. 

Grandmom Holliday