P is for Please, Pay Up.

Today’s rant is brought to you by the letter P.

P is for Pay Day. Today is “Women’s Equal Pay Day (if the data is not disaggregated by race)…It’s not, as I understood it to be, white women’s Equal Pay Day.

Today is just women’s equal pay day. Evidently (or so I read today) women is default, the one to include all, and white Women are included in the default. But they don’t have their own.

The “average woman would have to work till March 15th to make what a white man did December 31st of last year…except in this case average also means “typical” and typical includes white womxn…here are groups and identities that have Equal Pay Day’s of their own:
Black
Indigenous
Latina
Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander
LGBTQ
Moms (who have jobs other than mom.)

Women with disabilities are left out. The numbers are not even reflective of the real gaps we face…and so today is kind of one of those head scratchers—Really, we need to do better.

Are these other women not “women”? What about non-binary? When we try to account for diverse experiences of all people but fail like this, what progress have we made?

I thought I was doing good by acknowledging today was white womens day, but ironically and not a shock, it’s more white supremacy hiding in plain sight.

You cannot take any data for granted, especially when it appears intersectional. You cannot assume the patriarchy is being dismantled when white supremacy and capitalism all work as a team to keep power structures as is. Be wary of anyone doing the work, even yourself. Question everything, even yourself.

[Edited: Several women rightfully and kindly detailed how the original quote from Forbes in the image I posted on LinkedIn was problematic in itself because "vulnerable" in this context implies white women are victim, as if being racist is accidental and happening to them. A better word as Leah pointed out in comments is "prone" or likely. The quote would read:
"If our [white] girls aren't taught to see the intersections of oppression, they will be *prone* to oppressing others, even as they focus on their freedom and power." The work continues.]

This is what we mean when we say the work is NEVER done.

P is also for Prejudice.
Patriarchy.
Power.
Purpose.
Protection.
Privilege.
Possibility.
Promise.
Promotion.
Proof.
Profit.
Poverty.
Passion.
Passing.
Passive.
Pandemic.
Parenting.
Panic.
Patience.
Philanthropy.
Practice.
Perfectionism.
“Professional.”
Protest.
Parity.
Profanity.
Police.
Policy.
Pain.
Performative.
Problematic.
Potential.
Politics.
Pride.
Progress.

And P is for
People, Please, Cut the Crap. Stop Patronizing us. Pay us.