Allyson Ward and her husband loaded up credit cards, borrowed from relatives, and delayed repaying student loans after the premature birth of their twins left them with $80,000 in debt. Ward, a nurse practitioner, took on extra nursing shifts, working days and nights.
“I wanted to be a mom,” she said. “But we had to have the money.”
The three are among more than 100 million people in America ― including 41% of adults ― beset by a health care system that is systematically pushing patients into debt on a mass scale, an investigation by KHN and NPR shows.
I found out recently a relative has $80k in medical debt from two pregnancies. She’s young, with no labor skills, unable to work because her pay wouldn’t even cover childcare for two kids under five. This is a debt she’s never escaping. It will limit her choices for decades. Her situation fills me with rage.
I’m on the waiting list at the library for a book called “Let This Radicalize You.”
This is my new mantra for the cruelties of our system.
Yes, I am radicalized.
We need universal health care. Her births should have been completely covered.
We need a universal basic income. Her care work is valuable to society and we should recognize her contributions as a 24/7/365 caregiver. We should also have universal childcare so she could have the option to work if she chose.
Mothers are more likely to drop out of the workforce than men for caregiving duties, even in higher income families. Until we confront the obstacle of childcare costs, we’ll never close the wage gap. I know a woman who’s getting divorced. She and her husband met in law school; she wound up staying home with the kids while his career advanced. Now she’s years behind, and she may never make up that earning gap.
If our society cares about equality for women, we must stop exploiting their unpaid labor. We should pay them for their work and give them the opportunity to have a career too.
10 replies on “Women’s equality requires society value their contributions”
Liked Not Normal by Kerri Krueger (frenetic.ink)
Speaking as though it’s too late to act on climate is a tactic intended to make you hopeless and numb. Don’t give in.
Acting as though the fascists represent the majority when they’re a small minority is meant to make you accept their rule without resistance, and cede more power than they have stolen. Don’t comply in advance.
Declaring elevated death rates and constant sickness to be normal makes it easy to dismiss those who complain as irrationally fearful. But you’re not unreasonable to want to protect your health.
Marketing AI as a fait accompli and a tool that will rewrite the world thus too important to restrict, gives corporations a reason to dismiss valid criticism and blast ahead full-steam in contradiction to their stated values. They’ve broken enough stuff already moving too fast and ignoring marginalized groups; we could impose regulation on the industry.
Rebranding failures as victories is meant to placate you with marginal substitutions. Don’t be satisfied with piddling half measures.
Lamenting there’s no viable alternative for healthcare when every other wealthy country has figured it out besides the US is gaslighting you. It isn’t normal for people in rich countries to lose everything just because they got sick or had a kid.
Dismissing legitimate requests for accountability because ethical standards don’t currently exist is a copout. It is possible to make new laws, and change the ones we have. The Constitution is meant to be a living document, not solely the brain trust of a bunch of morally corrupt slaveholders two hundred years dead. Justice should not be constrained by the failures of the past.
Know this: it’s ok to want better. To expect better. To demand better.
Let their resistance to doing what is right radicalize you. Practice solidarity. Build community. Advocate for the future you want to live in.
And don’t accept that any of this bullshit is normal.
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