"Moms are still in crisis"
or, an interview with Reshma Saujani, activist, CEO, and author of "Pay Up"
I am SO excited to share my interview with activist, CEO, and best-selling author Reshma Saujani. I still remember where I was when I first read Reshma’s op-ed proposing the creation of a Marshall Plan for Moms back in December 2020. For those who may not be familiar, Reshma called on President Biden to pass legislation giving mothers whose employment had been impacted by COVID monthly, means-tested payments—in addition to (finally) addressing parental leave, affordable childcare, pay equity. Clearly we are a long way from that actually happening, but Reshma remains a tireless advocate for women, and working mothers in particular.
Reshma is founder and CEO of the Marshall Plan for Moms and founder of Girls Who Code, as well as the author of PAY UP: The Future of Women and Work (And Why It’s Different Than You Think). Reshma has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and most recently advocating for policies to support moms impacted by the pandemic. Reshma is also the author of the international bestseller Brave, Not Perfect, and her influential TED talk, “Teach girls bravery, not perfection,” has more than six million views globally.
Reshma began her career as an attorney and Democratic organizer. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. Reshma lives in New York City with her husband, Nihal, their sons, Shaan and Sai, and their bulldog, Stanley.
JW: You first proposed the Marshall Plan for Moms over a year and a half ago. Tell us a bit about its history, how it's evolved, and your priorities for the future.
RS: For decades the women’s empowerment playbook has focused on fixing the woman – not the system. It was lean in, color code your calendar, get a mentor, get a sponsor. And I was an evangelist for this–- I spent 10 years telling women to barnstorm their way into the corner office. But I was wrong, because even with all of the tips and empowerment sessions out there, women are still not where we should be.
I learned the hard way that having it all was just a euphemism for doing it all. I was running Girls Who Code, with a newborn, virtual schooling a kindergartner in the middle of the pandemic, and it nearly broke me. I looked around and saw that America’s moms are in crisis. We don’t have the social support that other countries do– shamefully we’re the only industrialized nation without paid leave. Our social safety net are moms. And it made me so mad, that the government was bailing out airlines, but not moms.
So, I started Marshall Plan for Moms, as a call for the government to make direct, monthly payments to moms who had been pushed out of the workforce during the pandemic. We’ve grown from that first op-ed in the Hill, and ad in the New York Times to now a full organization fighting for a mom’s agenda: to get paid leave, affordable childcare, equal pay and shift the culture to value moms and their contributions.
We pushed the Marshall Plan for Moms resolution in Congress, and started the National Business Coalition for Child Care (NBCC) in May of this year with companies like Archewell, Etsy, Patagonia and Synchrony, to support businesses in taking actions that increase the number of American workers with access to new or expanded child care benefits. Companies in the NBCC work together to identify solutions to equitably provide child care solutions for employees, share information, data and lessons, and speak out to elevate child care as an essential business issue. We’re working to bring about the solutions moms and their families need-- affordable childcare, paid leave, and equal pay, among so many others--not just to survive, but to thrive.
JW: Your major argument in Pay Up is that we need to fundamentally shift how we value unpaid, caregiving work. What are some tangible steps--on the individual, corporate, and policy levels--that bring us closer to actualizing this?
RS: To quote the brilliant Ai-Jen Poo “care work, like domestic work, makes all other work possible”. But the child care industry in the U.S. is a disaster, and too many people and organizations consider child care a personal problem, rather than the economic issue that it is. To shift this thinking, companies and the government need to come together to pass policies that support working moms, value our contributions and root out the persistent gender inequity that plagues us at home and at work. They need to provide child care benefits to all employees, regardless of whether they are hourly or salary; pass universal, gender neutral parental leave and end the motherhood penalty that accounts for the gender wage gap at work, and costs moms thousands of dollars per child, compared to dads, while expecting them to do the majority of the unpaid labor at work and at home.
JW: Perhaps because some of the immediate crises of the pandemic have passed (for example, schools and daycares have reopened and all kids have access to Covid vaccines), I worry that concern for working parents has receded from the national discourse. How can we keep the needs of working parents forefront in the minds of politicians, the media and the general public?
Well, as I pointed out, moms are still in crisis. Women still do ⅔ of unpaid house/care work at home. And we are living in very scary times. Thanks to the Supreme Court, we are now forcing birth in a country that doesn’t offer any of the things women would need to actually be able to work and raise kids, such as paid leave or affordable child care, or housing or sensible gun legislation to guarantee the safety of our kids in schools, or even formula to feed our children. Instead, nationwide ‘parents’ rights’ groups like Moms for Liberty are using our schools to drive an extremist far-right agenda – and it’s ultimately about controlling women and sending us back to the Dark Ages.
They started with our bodies, attacking our reproductive rights, and now they are coming for our children, through book bans, and bullying LGBTQ students from playing sports and even using bathrooms. We have to join together to fight for a mom’s agenda, to fight this hypocritical bigotry, to defend our children's rights to learn and think for themselves, and get moms what they ACTUALLY need – affordable child care, paid leave, and equal pay.
JW: You're the mom of two young boys. What suggestions do you have for raising civically engaged kids?
RS: It’s very important to me that my kids are engaged. I take them to protests, to marches, to vote with me. They’re front row for the talks that I give, from commencements, and even my TedTalk. We talk about my work and the issues their father and I work on, and how important and necessary it is that we stay informed and involved.
I will end this newsletter with a reminder to US-based readers that midterm elections are in less than two weeks. The stakes are high. Vote like a mother. 💪
Well done, Jessica!
What a great interview, Jessica — and thanks to Reshma for her incredible ideas!