Dear John,
As we celebrate Labor Day this weekend, and many enjoy some much-needed rest, I’m thinking about the women who can’t take the day off—whether they’re service workers and domestic workers who need to support their families and can’t afford to take a day off work, or women doing the unpaid domestic labor in their own homes. On this Labor Day, we stand for the freedom of these women—whether that means fighting for equal wages, for domestic labor to be paid, or for the right to simply take a day of rest.
Labor issues are inseparable from women’s issues—and Ms. has been spreading the word about both since day one. In fact, our very first cover story—”Click! The Housewife’s Moment of Truth,” written by Jane O’Reilly for the Spring 1972 issue—called out the unpaid labor expected of housewives at the time. “No, the question of housework is not a trivial matter to be worked out the day before we go on to greater things,” she wrote. “Men do not want equality at home. A strong woman is a threat, someone to be jealous of.” (Read more in our forthcoming book 50 Years of Ms.: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution—out Sept. 19).
In some ways, we’ve come a long way since O’Reilly wrote those words in 1972. But in other ways, we haven’t. Women’s labor continues to be unpaid or underpaid and often unrecognized in a number of ways. These inequities follow them their whole lives: for example, women are often prevented from reaping the full benefits of Social Security if they spend years out of the workforce raising children, caring for elderly parents, or doing other unpaid care work—something they are far more likely to do than men. This results in what’s known as the “motherhood penalty”—according to the Brookings Institution, having a first child reduces women’s social security benefits by 16 percent on average.
Over the years we have covered a number of other women’s issues beyond unpaid labor and care work—from the Fight for $15 and pay gaps, to domestic workers’ organizing and workplace sexual harassment—and how women are fighting back to confront these issues.
As long as these fights continue, you can count on Ms. to be in the trenches with you—just as we have been for the past fifty years.
Onward,
