Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of a column posted on Medium. To read the entire column, go here.
We have some monumental “firsts” to celebrate this Women’s History Month. Sarah McBride, a new state senator from Delaware, is the highest-ranking openly transgender elected official in American history. Kim Ng of the Miami Marlins broke a glass ceiling in becoming Major League Baseball’s first woman general manager. And, of course, Kamala Harris is the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States.
But another “first” from the past year is nothing to celebrate: the first female recession.
The pandemic has triggered a so-called “she-cession” that has wreaked havoc in women’s lives. More than 2.3 million women have left the workforce between February 2020 and February 2021, compared to about 1.8 million men.
As a union that represents tens of thousands of family child care providers who are predominantly women of color, we can tell you that child care is the “women’s work” that undergirds all women’s work – and that it is a structure in danger of collapse.