Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / Unpaid, Invisible, Undervalued: The Cost of Caring in a Patriarchal World

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Unpaid, Invisible, Undervalued: The Cost of Caring in a Patriarchal World · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are again at the start of a new cycle.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels really good to drop in with you today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a while since I've recorded an episode, or at least it feels like a while, as I batched my last episodes, because I knew that once I found myself in what I'm currently navigating, that it would be challenging to find the balance of showing up for my life and my offerings and my clients and my projects and my home and my husband, my family, as well as the podcast.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So today's episode is a day or two later than I had intended on planning and recording.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: In spite of all of the challenge that can come with navigating these fuller seasons of life, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to connect with you in this way today and to invite in a topic that has been something I have been passionate about, something that I've spoken openly about for many years, off and on.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an important one, especially as we're in the times that we currently find ourselves, with health care and fundamental rights in grave danger for many people, especially those from marginalized populations.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we're also in cancer season now.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know anything about the Cancerian energy, it is a motherly, comforting, nurturing energy.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, what other um focus, what what other perfect focus, what focus could be more perfect than the focus of care?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so for the next few episodes for this cycle that we're moving through in the season of cancer, we're going to be talking a lot about care, what care means, how our society feels about care, the layers and nuances of what it means to really care for ourselves, and some of the programs and the stories and the conditioning that we might have inside of ourselves that can sometimes prevent us from caring for ourselves.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's easier to care for other people.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when we do that, it can be at the expense of ourselves.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot there.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you find yourself anywhere in that realm, whether you are a mother or a teacher or nurse, or you take care of people in your family or in your community, women are the world's caretakers, and there's something so beautiful about that, and there is also something so challenging and difficult about that as well.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll be talking a lot more about that today in our episode as we sink into this idea of care, and more specifically, sinking into the constructs and the values that our society has around care, or rather the lack of value that our society has for care.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to name the swim, uh, excuse me, my goodness, the um, the ocean that we are all swimming in, the waters that we are swimming in.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll be starting off with that today.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And over the next few episodes, I'll be going more in-depth uh into some of these other layers and nuances of care, as well as having an incredible guest for this cycle, who, oh my goodness, I cannot wait for this conversation.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited to share the conversation with you when the conversation has been had.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So for now, let's get into today's discussion.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is titled Unpaid, Invisible, Undervalued, The Cost of Caring in a Patriarchal World.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: On June 27th, 2024, the National Partnership for Women and Families released a finding that Americans' unpaid care work, two-thirds of which is done by women, is valued more than$1 trillion a year.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: The analysis found that overall each person spends an hour of 245 hours on caregiving annually.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: When valued at the low wages of paid care workforce, that equates to more than$1 trillion.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's at the low wages of paid care workforce, of the paid care workforce.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: For women, the value of unpaid care they provide, they provide is six hundred and forty-three billion dollars.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: When we say women, when I say woman, I have to acknowledge that the word woman doesn't actually represent all women because black women, Asian women, trans women, Latino women, they're not actually all the same.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: While they may share the same gender identity, they do not share the same privilege.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: The analysis also showed that Asian women and Latinas spend more time than any other group providing unpaid care and support for family, friends, and loved ones.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is at about an average of an hour a day.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Altogether, Asian women provide 3.5 billion hours of unpaid care while Latinas provide 8.4 billion.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The total value of Asian women's unpaid care work is$55 billion annually.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the total value of Latinas unpaid care work is$133 billion annually.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Black women provide$4,250 in unpaid care per capita per year, totaling$80 billion annually.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: White women provide$4,540 in unpaid care per capita each year, totaling in$476 billion annually.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it shows that as a society, we do not value care.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jocelyn C.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Fry, president of the National Partnership for Women's and Families, says this important data reveals exactly how much we undervalue care and demonstrates the enormous potential impact of compensating women for all of the unpaid caregiving they perform, even at the inadequate wage levels currently provided to members of the paid care workforce.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, can you imagine if women were paid for all of that unpaid care billions of dollars into the hands and bank accounts of women.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Catherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Fellow at the National Partnership for Women and Family, says caregiving work, both paid and unpaid, has long been viewed as women's work.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: The gap between women's and men's unpaid caregiving reflects these gender stereotypes, stereotypes that harm everyone, both at home and at work, by increasing women's economic inequality and impacting men's ability to care for their loved ones.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Caregiving is the most valuable industry in the world.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is essential to everyone's well-being.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: It includes looking after children, the elderly, and those with physical and mental illnesses and disabilities, as well as daily domestic work like cooking, cleaning, washing, mending, and fetching water and firewood.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Without someone investing time, effort and resources into these essential daily tasks, communities, workplaces, families, whole economies, schools, it would all grind to a halt.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: It would all grind to a halt.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Across the world, care work is disproportionately falling on women and girls.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Especially women and girls living in poverty and from marginalized groups.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: While much of this work is done for free at home or in the community, women and girls working as cleaners or in care services like healthcare or child care often do so for poverty wages.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Our caregiving infrastructure is highly reliant on women, and not just because we often play the role of mother.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: However, across the globe, 42% of women cannot get jobs because they are responsible for all of the caregiving.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is compared to just 6% of men.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: 80% of the world's 67 million domestic workers are women.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And yet 90% of them don't have access to Social Security, and more than half of them have no limits on their weekly working hours.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And even when caregiving work is paid, it's often underpaid for positions like teachers and in-home care providers and child care workers.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was looking for some part-time work at the beginning of this year, I had an interview with a local nonprofit working with foster children.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: The position required home visits, evaluations, traveling in a rural area where homes are very spread out.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And not only were you supporting the child, you would also be supporting the foster parents with tools and emotional support.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was shocked when I learned that the position paid$20 an hour.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Even at 40 hours a week, there that is nowhere near enough in the state of California to cover rent and living expenses.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I typically don't work 40 hours a week, but right now I am, which is also why this episode is a little late.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: While I am doing work that is deeply fulfilling, working with children at a performing arts summer camp here where I live in Sacramento, California, with a nonprofit who I am just so honored and privileged to be able to work for.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So technically, it is a care-giving position.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And overall, I feel pretty good about what I get paid for the work that I do there.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, through the year, I'm a teaching artist in public schools, and I usually only work about 10 hours a week, starting in the fall, I'll maybe be working up to 16.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so 40 hours a week is it's a lot for me.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say that I'm able to not work 40 hours a week most of the time because I am married and my husband is the breadwinner, and he is a white male who is generally potentially more um more likely to get opportunity and more likely to receive higher paying positions.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so that does afford me the privilege to be more selective about how much I do work.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when I do work this summer program, this is my second year in this full-time role.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it is um it's it's helpful for me to get a sense of what it really feels like to work 40 hours a week.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you, I don't know how people do it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I really don't.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I find it incredibly challenging when I'm working 40 hours a week to get the right nourishment for my body, to get the right amount of sleep, to get in my movement, to have some free time, to devote some time and energy into my other interests and passions.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I find myself at the end of the day with very little energy um for any of that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is doing work that is deeply fulfilling for me.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I can only imagine for a single mother or even a mother who does have the support of a partner how incredibly difficult um that must be to take care of yourself when you're expected to take care of everything and everyone else.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Society really puts a lot on women.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what the answer is because on the other hand, I do find that women have this magical power living inside of them to mother and to create life and to I believe to to change the world.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've had breath work sessions where I've I've received a message women will change the world, and I truly believe that, but we have to ask ourselves at at what expense?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: At what expense are we taking care of everyone else?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nancy Fulb Fulbray, uh feminist economist, argues that care work has been historically undervalued because it has been historically provided by women at low or no low or no cost.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, our patriarchal systems uphold this devaluation.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So just taking a moment here to pause and just let all of that land.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're dropping into this theme of care, I'll offer some reflection questions as you're digesting the things that have been shared.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see the caretaking work you do as valuable?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel obligated to care for others at the expense of yourself?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find it easy to care for others and not so easy to care for yourself?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Those are some reflection questions to maybe sit with the cycle as we continue this discussion around care.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, one of the biggest shifts of unraveling myself from the societal expectations and also honoring the mother in me that truly does want to care and help was embracing this idea of taking care of myself first, filling my cup first, and then taking care of my students, my clients, my family, my community, my home from that place.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I used to literally leave myself at the bottom of the to-do list.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Had everything else come before me.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as I continued with that, it only led to more distress and pain and suffering and burnout.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't tell you if there was a a book that I read or a talk that I listened to.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that that opened this idea up in me to take care of myself first.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's made a huge difference in the way that I care for others.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And with time and with practice, it has become easier to put myself at the top of my list.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you have your small child sitting next to you and you haven't taken the time to put your mask on, and then you pass out because you don't have oxygen, there's no one actually there to put the oxygen mask on for your child.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so while it seems counterintuitive, it's actually the biggest form of service that we can do for our families, for our children, for our communities, is to take care of ourselves first.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we've put on that oxygen mask, now we're getting air.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And now we can help that little one sitting next to us.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that might look like what I did these past couple of days, as I've been really trying to care for myself, as I have been caring so much for little ones over the last couple of weeks.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of pushing myself to get this episode done and release it on the day that I planned for it to come out, I had to say no.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna wait.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna care for myself first.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: the podcast police are not going to hunt me down and and really for me to be in integrity with this work and with what I'm sharing in today's episode.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I need to take care of myself first.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me that looked like taking some long walks over by the river.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't had time to get down to the river these past couple of weeks as much as I would like.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: That looked like taking a long bath a Yoga Nidra nap a snack and just giving myself space to not be doing or working on something.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually tried to record this episode yesterday as I was kind of falling into that trap.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And something happened with the audio and I had to pause it and everything that I had recorded sounded quite strange.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was like recorded in a chipmunk voice and I took that as my sign to you know what now is not uh not the time.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is my little invitation to pause and go care for myself and come back to this episode when my cup has been more full so that I can pour from the overflow versus tipping my cup over to to fill.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's going to be it for today's episode.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to drop us into this focus of care over the next uh few episodes we'll be talking about some of the other nuances of care.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that I'm really looking forward to discussing more is self-care versus community care and also superficial care versus radical care.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for our guest episode we're going to be really diving into the mother wound and the mother archetype as this can be a shadow of the mother archetype and this can also be a shadow of the season of summer because the season of summer is associated with the mother archetype and at the time that this is being recorded we are um in the season of summer.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting how all of these cycles weave in with each other and support one another and can really support us to to do this deep work of becoming and unlearning and and relearning and and remembering so this conversation is very intentional and the opportunities to make some changes if that's what you'd like to do are are here for you and in our guest episode we'll be talking a lot more in depth into what that might look like and I'm also really excited to be offering something at the end of the summer an online weekend immersion called mending the mother wound and I'll be sharing more about that in the next episode but for now I'd like to plant the seed under this last little sliver of the Cancer New Moon.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: So for now if you're interested you can click the link in the show notes to learn a little bit more and in Friday's episode this week I promise it'll be out Friday I've got a couple weeks off from summer camp I'll be sharing more about the mending the mother um mending the mother wound weekend immersion.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So stay tuned for that we'll also have our cycle check-in coming out tomorrow I'm going to be recording that uh right now as soon as I'm done and yeah I'm really looking forward to to diving into these topics with you over the next few weeks.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: So uh thanks for being here.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for your presence and your time and your energy I do not take this time for granted.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: It truly means a lot to me that you're you're here and that you're you're listening and there's there's something in you that is is calling you to this work and I believe when we show up to do this work we aren't just doing it for ourselves yes we are doing it for ourselves and we are doing it for our families for our communities because when we create that that shift and that healing inside of ourselves we can ripple that out into the world and wow do we really need it we really need it so thanks so much for being here and tuning in I very much look for forward to continuing this conversation in Friday's episode.