What can you do for women?
At Our Repro Rights Community, we advocate for greater reproductive health access for every body. It’s not easy and we have had missteps, but that has only made us better advocates. Feminism and allyship are just words. Instead, we need to actively check our privilege, preconceived notions, and unconscious biases.
International Women’s Day (IWD) is dominated by ideas like #girlbosses, leaning in, and asking for a raise. We don’t strike. We “celebrate” by going to IWD panels, film screenings, networking events, and happy hours.
Mainstream feminism doesn’t typically acknowledge that women perpetuate the labor struggle and social inequality between classes. Here’s what you can do with your privilege to even the playing field and stand for women workers:
Hire women who are overlooked in competitive hiring. Women do tend to hire more women and they’re also more aware of Diversity & Inclusion practices. If you are an emerging manager or have some say in your company’s hiring, don’t just look at traditional signifiers of success like fancy degrees or continuous work history that comes easier for white, upper and middle class people. Look at skills, languages, and diversity of perspective.
Protest businesses that exploit workers. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, there’s no ethical consumption. But we can boycott fast food, fast fashion, fast anything! Be sustainable. There are earthly costs and human costs to your convenience. Again, this comes from a place of privilege--some of us can afford pricier options, but it’s also a state of mind. Amazon makes its workers wear monitoring devices and alerts them when they’re not working fast enough. Do you really need to buy stuff from Amazon? Can’t you buy it locally, especially in NYC?
Speak up to your boss when you see your colleagues being oppressed. Being overworked and underpaid is unacceptable. Having no time for vacation or raising a child is unacceptable. You have rights. Strikers have died for your breaks, vacations, paid leave, and health care. What can you actually do? Ask for more when you start a new job. Help your colleague advocate for a raise. When you see someone make inappropriate comments or witness microaggressions, tell them it makes you uncomfortable or go to HR. Take your vacation. Don’t answer emails or feel bad about it.
Elevate the women you supervise and work with. Share your knowledge and don’t put others down. Men aren’t always the enemy. Let’s be real: we are sometimes our worst enemy. We have many stories and you probably do too. We can only speak for ourselves. We often uplift the young women who report to us--offer direction on a daily basis, provide career advice, and advocate for their raises--but we do not receive the same support from our female superiors. Are you undercutting your female colleagues or lifting them up?
This International Women’s Day, do some of these things in your everyday life. To us, reproductive freedom is tied to labor and class-- also, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexual identity, and more. We cannot address one problem--repro rights--and not think of all the other areas that affect our livelihoods.
In solidarity,
Jen & Sam