Working Women
It was this historian’s pleasure to follow Jill Lepore as she showed how the meaning of work has changed over time (A Critic at Large, January 18th). She notes that feminists in the nineteen-seventies called for the recognition of housework as work. In fact, there was considerable debate within the women’s movement about demanding wages for housework. While we acknowledged the value of housework, many of us worried that getting paid for it would lock women into domestic labor, instead of expanding our access to all forms of paid work.
Although wages for housework did not become widely adopted, fears about the siloing of women’s labor have been borne out. The paid labor force has become more gender-diverse, but women still perform the bulk of housework, whether unpaid in their own homes or as the majority of the “eighty per cent of U.S. employment . . . in the service sector” that Lepore mentions. Many of these women hold jobs as cleaners, cooks, and food-service workers, and increasingly as caregivers. This work is among the lowest paid in the U.S., and, because it often entails proximity to other people, it puts millions at increased risk of contracting covid-19. Let us hope that caregiving and service work will lose their historically close association with women and that continued awareness and activism will bring recognition, as well as wage equality, to workers in this sector.
Sonya Michel
Professor Emerita of History
University of Maryland, College Park
Silver Spring, Md.
Wilderness Protection
Nick Paumgarten, in his profile of the sportswear maker and “Rocky Mountain pariah” David Lesh, portrays Lesh as an outlaw freestyle skier whose antics have led to personal legal troubles (“Bad Influencer,” January 18th). The article doesn’t reckon as fully as I would have hoped with the harm that Lesh’s brand of toxic masculinity inflicts upon outdoor winter recreation and on federally protected lands. As a former ski patroller in South Lake Tahoe, in California, I have seen firsthand the damage wrought by people who seek to imitate characters such as Lesh. This season alone, thousands have visited our local backcountry ski area, mimicking the daredevil behavior that they have seen online. This often results in dangerous rescue missions, which put first responders, ski patrols, other outdoor enthusiasts, and the ecosystem itself at risk. It also drains financial resources from our rural community, which is already at a breaking point because of covid-19. I worry that this article, by focussing primarily on the story of an irreverent bad boy, only gives Lesh more of the attention he craves, without delving into safety issues and environmental concerns.
Christina Cataldo
New York City
Begin Again
I was struck by Margaret Talbot’s piece about learning new skills as an adult (Books, January 18th). After signing up, on a whim, for an art class at the age of sixty-seven, I was astonished to discover that I have some artistic aptitude. More important, as I pursued art classes and started learning the body-movement practice of Qigong, I found that my attitude toward learning was very different from what it had been when I was young. I am much more patient, fortified by the knowledge that struggling to learn new things is just what my senior brain needs to remain fit. But, to be perfectly honest, learning to read music was too much—I gave that up after my four-month clarinet rental ended.
Gail Cooper
Oakland, Calif.
•
Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
No comments:
Post a Comment