celebrating women
invisible women + essay on feminine sacrifices [6]:
Hi friends,
In light of the International Women’s Day week, I want to shift the focus to discussing gender inequity and revolve the conversation around being a woman in the 21st century.
We are discussing the phenomenal book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez that has single handedly changed the way I view the world. I will also share a past essay, originally published on my Wordpress blog here, on the unpaid work and sacrifices the women in my life (and in general) go through.
Quick Life Hits:
What I’m reading:
boring: 21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari.
fun: this sweet sweet, warm and beautiful words by Caroline Cala Donofrino,
this piece on making decisions too.
What I’m learning:
Storing ideas on Notion. I have implemented a note-taking system, courtesy of David Perrell to collect my notes, ideas and inspiration for future writings. Perrell followed the two note-taking system:
Hot notebooks include ideas for stand-alone projects, essays or pieces.
Cold notebooks include tidbits and notes for any future writing.
Visual learners, please see below:
Accountability Ask:
Getting my first essay published, I’m pitching my essays to a couple of publication. I have been writing independently for a while now and would like to move things up a notch. Ask me how I’m working on it :)
Invisible Women
What We Learn About a World filled with (Women) Data Gaps
This book, single-handedly changed the way I think about gender inequity, the big gap we have to close between where we are now and the ultimate reality where women can be on the leveled playing field as men, both in the family and out in the world, in every sense you can possibly imagine.
It’s not a matter of equality but equity because men and women are built differently, with different needs, preferences and accommodation. Men may never understand what it’s like to give birth to a child and take on the burden of managing an entire family along with a full time job. They may never understand what it’s like having men catcalled or jested at on the streets and having to shut up for fear of being physically harassed. They may never understand being passed over for a promotion because your co-workers say that you’re too bossy or annoying.
Seeing men as the human default is the norm of society and has a long history. From our language use, using man pronouns to speak about both genders, public space and transportation planning that completely disregard safety needs for women to even healthcare and safety research that almost exclusively uses male as the default figures. Thank your car manufacturers and safety boards for that because women are at higher risk of injury in cars for that matter :/
Globally, women do 75% of the unpaid work: cooking, feeding families members, driving kids to and from school, taking old relatives to hospitals, and so on. Women spend on average 3 - 6 hours/day on unpaid work while men on average spend 30 minutes to 2 hours.
A statistic that intrigues me is how women and men share of housework is equal until they move in together or start a family. Then, women’s time for housework rises while men’s time goes down and this applies for all employment statuses of both people.
In the workplace, it’s not much better. Industries that attract a high number of women have lower pay and lose prestige: administrative jobs, human resources, etc. Ironically, women are better off working in male-dominated field because the pay is higher and is considered more ‘prestigious’, which include the likes of tech and finance. In the start-up scene, female business owners receive less than half of the investment that their male counterparts receive, then consecutively make twice more the revenue.
I adore this book and has gone back to underline every chapter, let me know if you want a copy and I can send it for your next birthday if your library doesn’t carry it!
Essay:
*This was originally published on my Wordpress Blog in December 2021
On Feminine Sacrifices
Saturday night, our extended family gathered together for a Christmas dinner, huddled around two steaming pots of salmon hotpot. While the men’s side of the table drank, rambled endlessly on politics and business, the moms, aunts and grandma kept standing up, fidgeting, dropping new veggies stalks, pieces of salmon and tofu into the boiling pot, occasionally putting food into everyone’s bowls.
That is, a standard norm, in most Vietnamese households. If you are a man, you go to work, go home, and put your feet up. If you are a woman, you go to work, go home and serve your immediate and extended family. No questions asked.
A few days prior, during one of my mother’s and I kitchen sink conversations (me realizing the irony of this while editing), my mom talked about her hobbies. How they have gradually faded into the background as soon as she started a family. I flinched internally, and broke a bit inside.
She used to love reading she said, pulling blankets up until her chin and curled up in bed. Read and read, book after book. My mom loved painting, she even loved singing, all the things I had never been aware of. I realized, my sister and I, we consumed close to entirety of mom’s life and headspace for close to twenty years (not that she doesn’t think much about us now but significantly less than when we were smaller.) I was certain she did everything so we didn’t end up under our optimum state, ill or under-educated. So much so that she left her younger, personal self aside, plunging headfirst into motherhood.
If you are a man, you go to work, go home and put your feet up. If you are a woman, you go to work, go home and serve your family.
I don’t know if she ever looks back. There must be some moments where moms mourn for their old selves, lost in the child rearing process, having to sacrifice so much time, attention, and their physical bodies to the younger generation.
At home, our mother and daughter relationships went from hand in hand, me orbiting her until I was in early middle school, to “Mom, get away from me!!” teenage years and slowly unraveled into “We can be best friends now.” and I can finally see her as a woman, an individual with unique interests and dreams, and not merely a mom, MY MOM.
Post graduate, we can may be for the first time discuss books, relationships, what my dad did to infuriate her, where my sister might be going to college, her frustration with non-sensical time she had to dedicate to entertain people we barely know.
Thinking about all this, I realize there is so much inequality for women – not least the things I mentioned here. I don’t know how to solve all of them. But I urge you, to do the a smallest act that one can do – to listen.
Listen to the female figures in your life: your mom, your sister, your aunt. Listen to your grandmother, your daughter, your friend. Listen to their deepest desire and childlike passion, what makes their eyes twinkle, their younger selves – the wild, selfish, unrestrained identities.
Listen and encourage their aspirations, dreams and hopes. Open the space for the women in your life for they are more than the meals they make, the chores they do and all the familial obligations they have to abide by just to be deservedly called a “woman”.
Thank you for reading until the end :)
I appreciate your time and would love if you can hit the heart button, that would really help support my page and share this newsletter with a friend if this piece has made you think.
I love feedbacks, the more honest the better. Do you like shorter, paragraph based writings or long-form essays, please message or email me back on your thoughts.
I sense that my writings in the past two weeks have become less personal and more reporting/journalistic-like, which is not exactly what makes me feel best when writing. I will steer it back to regular programming with more vulnerable words next week.