News

"The Devil Ties My Tongue" SKETCH Series 2013 | photo: David DeSilva

DDP will cover stories from the corporate, for profit world regarding issues surrounding pay equity and transparency where relevant, such as other industries with low representation of women: tech, the sciences, venture capital, the entertainment industry, etc. to examine parallels between these male dominated spheres where informal hiring and word of mouth is the norm.

The Lily: ‘I had to choose being a mother’: With no child care or summer camps, women are being edged out of the workforce

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22 May 2020

By Caroline Kitchener

If day cares closed because of the novel coronavirus, Aimee expected her family to fare better than most. She worked full time as the chief executive of a tech company while her husband stayed home. He’d been taking some time off from his own tech career, managing a rental property while considering his options. He could look after their 3-year-old son, she thought — at least for a while.

“That lasted a grand total of three days,” Aimee said. (We have withheld Aimee’s last name and her husband’s name because of threats made against their family.)

Once her son was home full time, she realized they’d need a different solution. She was holed up in the guest room, wielding dual-monitors at her desk. Her husband was exhausted. “I can’t do it,” she remembers him saying: “I can’t watch him for this long.”

Aimee, 46, had been logging 70-hour weeks for years — and she was proud of the work she’d done. When she started her career in San Francisco, she was one of two women at a video game company, buying nondescript jeans and hoodies so she could be “one of the guys.” Eventually she came to run a company she co-founded, building open-source websites for clients like Stanford University. Aimee, who oversaw software development, co-led a diverse team of 13 employees. She was intentional about hiring women, minorities and others who challenged the stereotypes about Silicon Valley.

Read the full article.

Women’s Media Center: Women academics are falling behind in lockdown

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By Lauren Wolfe

A lament about a lack of productivity runs through social media these days. Coronavirus lockdowns have created a kind of ennui and exhaustion, resulting in people slowing down in general. But in one field—academia—the drop-off for women in particular is measurable. As men have increased their research while home these past couple months, women have lowered their submissions to academic journals, indicating that women are less able to do their research while in stuck in the house.

The speculation began in April. “Negligible number of submissions to the journal from women in the last month,” Elizabeth Hannon, deputy editor of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, tweeted on April 18. “Never seen anything like it.”

Women on the thread heartily agreed, offering explanations for what’s going on. “My experience exactly,” replied Columbia University volcanologist Einat Lev. “I just received an email from a male colleague of my same rank and family status (young kids). Except, he has a full-time stay at home wife. His email read ‘this is a strange time but at least now, away from teaching, I can focus on writing.’ Sigh & Scream.”

It’s a stereotypically gendered reality. While stuck at home, mothers in the UK are providing at least 50 percent more childcare overall and spending 10-30 percent more time than fathers home-schooling their children, The Guardian reported in early May—leaving little time for academic research. At the same time, submissions from men to the Comparative Political Studies journal were up almost 50 percent in April, according to its co-editor David Samuels.

Read the full article on Women’s Media Center.

New York Times | Opinion: This Mother’s Day, Forget the Pancakes. Pay Mothers.

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By Kim Brooks

8 May 2020

In our country, staying home to raise children is one of the most devastating financial decisions a woman can make. And without any sort of child care system in place, it’s often not a choice at all. All but the wealthiest mothers face what I’ve come to think of as the Cinderella paradox. Of course Cinderella can go the ball, just as soon as she’s finished her chores.

This goes a long way to explain the feminization of poverty. Jenny Brown, the author of “Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women’s Work,” writes, “Parents, particularly mothers, become poorer because they are not properly compensated for the contribution they’re making to the continuation of society by bearing and raising children.”

What exactly is the value of this contribution? The birthrate in the United States has fallen to a record low of 1.73. People who complain that other people’s children shouldn’t be their concern will still have to deal with the economic catastrophe of an aging population and a shortage of young, healthy workers. If raising these future citizens isn’t socially necessary labor, I’m not sure what is.

And yet our entire economic system hinges on the willingness of women to do this work for free. Caretakers who work outside the home are poorly paid, but those who care for their own kin, in their own homes, aren’t paid at all. They receive a wage of zero dollars and zero cents, no health insurance, no sick leave, no paid time off, no 401(k).

For a long time, I tried not to think about it. One of the ways I was able to not think about it was because I could pay other women to lighten my load. For the time being, those days are over.

Maybe that’s for the best.

Read the full article in the New York Times.

LA Dance Chronicle: TAKE A LOOK AT DANCE DATA PROJECT’S NEW FEATURE TO HELP CHOREOGRAPHERS LOCATE FINANCIAL SUPPORT

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By Nancy Dobbs Owen

5 May 2020

Dance Data Project® has an amazing new feature on their website to help both established and aspiring choreographers, particularly particularly those who identify as female, navigate the world of fellowships, scholarships and grants.

President & Founder of the Dance Data Project®, Elizabeth (Liza) Yntema says that the study and subsequent addition to the website was “done in response to talking to female choreographers.”  Navigating the world of funding is, according to those she interviewed (and in this writer’s opinion, everyone else) “overwhelming.”  “Dance Data Project® promotes equity in all aspects of classical ballet by providing a metrics based analysis through our data base while showcasing women led companies, festivals, competitions, venues, special programs and initiatives.”  Yntema emphasized the importance of helping these particular artists, especially in this incredibly challenging time, where entire seasons as well as countless festivals and intensives have been canceled. Choreographers, especially those who identify as female, are going to struggle. “You have to look at where the resources are going. Big companies will get bailed out. Smaller companies and individual artists will struggle. Some consideration must be paid to who will go without.” The feature is not limited to female identifying artists, but Yntema emphasizes that these will help them in particular. In addition to the listings, a downloadable report and updates on changing deadlines, a ticker tape now runs at the top of the website to alert visitors to upcoming deadlines. For example, as of this writing, the top of the website flashes deadlines of May 4 for the New York Choreographic Institute Commission Initiative and of May 16 for A&A Ballet: DIVE Award Competition.

The entire feature is meant to be easy to navigate and to return to. The spreadsheet on the site lists name, opportunity type, compensation, due date, and number of recipients, as well as a description of the opportunities and any relevant restrictions.  You can also download the entire guide. The website has the most up-to-date information.

Read the full article in LA Dance Chronicle.

Ellevest: How Healthy Will Women Be Financially After All This?

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By Sallie Krawcheck

28 April 2020

Can I fret for a minute?

I’m worried sick about the financial health of women coming out of this pandemic.

Women went into the downturn with fewer financial resources than men. The “gender wealth gap” is just 32 cents to a man’s dollar, much worse — and frankly, much more meaningful — than the more commonly cited 82-cents-to-the-dollar gender pay gap.

It may be early days, but women are losing jobs at a greater rate than men during this pandemic, even though women (particularly women of color) make up a greater percentage of essential workers who are on the front lines.

For those women who are able to work from home, there is some indication that women’s productivity is being hit harder than men’s: In academia, men are submitting 50% more scholarly papers than before quarantine, while women are submitting fewer. Looks like traditional gender roles may be following families into quarantine.

I’m also worried about women entrepreneurs.

Before the pandemic, one could make the argument that women business owners weren’t making enough progress on starting companies and getting them funded, but we were making progress nonetheless. Women-owned businesses have been on the rise for years. Last year saw more $1 billion “unicorn” start-ups led by women than ever before. There was a mini-boom in women entrepreneurs on magazine covers.

Read the full article on Ellevest.

StarTribune: Minnesota’s dance community needs to confront sexual consent, say former TU Dance dancers

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By Kelly Smith

25 April 2020

The resignation of a renowned Twin Cities dance leader following sexual misconduct allegations has raised a call for greater protections and dialogue in the industry.

At TU Dance, a prestigious dance company in St. Paul, co-founder Uri Sands resigned at the end of December, nearly two months before the company reached an undisclosed settlement with a former dancer. Five former dancers told the Star Tribune they experienced years of misconduct from Sands. But through an attorney, Sands, 46, who started the St. Paul company with his wife, denied any misconduct, saying he “believed that he had consensual, adult relationships with those individuals.”

Now, some dancers are pushing the community to confront consent issues in the wake of the MeToo movement — like other industries, from yoga to gymnastics, have done.

“Definitely [what happened at TU Dance] has repercussions,” said Sally Rousse, a veteran ballet dancer, choreographer and co-founder of James Sewell Ballet in Minneapolis. “We need to talk about it. We could lead the work in the country in exemplifying appropriate touch, appropriate behavior. … Dancers are held up to [a] highly sexualized, objectified place. It would be great if we could reclaim the appropriate behavior.”

Read the full article in the StarTribune.

Marie Claire: The Worst Thing That Ever Happened to Me Is Now an Episode of ‘SVU’

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By Alexandra Waterbury as told to Chloe Angyal

A week or two before the episode was meant to come out, a stranger direct-messaged me on Instagram with a link to a Law & Order: SVU trailer: “I think this is about you.”

As I watched the trailer, I thought, That literally looks like us. There were two blonde people kissing, wearing dance clothes. It was so obviously cast to look just like me and my ex-boyfriend Chase Finlay, the man who shared revenge porn of me with his friends, who were also principal dancers at New York City Ballet.

I felt weird about it, and then I felt anxious. You never know how the media is going to portray you, and this was a TV show taking what happened to me and making it their own; they could do anything that they wanted with my story.

And then I felt angry, which is how I feel about a lot of things these days. No one at SVU talked to me about my story, or told me that they were making an episode that was so clearly based on what happened to me. The disclaimer at the start of the show states that the episode is fiction, but everyone knows that Law & Order is “ripped from the headlines.” Over the summer, one of the show’s writers had followed me on Instagram. Now I understood why.

Read the full story in Marie Claire.

Women’s Media Center: Federal COVID-19 relief policies failed women workers — and now feminists are fighting for them

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By Carmen Rios

9 April 2020

The COVID-19 numbers have led to widespread alarm: 16 million workers have filed for unemployment, and 100,000 to 250,000 lives are at risk. “This is a public health crisis,” Senator Kamala Harris told viewers during a tele-town hall organized by nonprofit One Fair Wage on Tuesday, “that has resulted in an economic crisis.” For women workers, who make up a disproportionate number of the low-wage workers providing essential services during the novel coronavirus’s outbreak in the U.S., that crisis is both political and personal.

“The coronavirus catastrophe has exposed what has always been a devastating reality for millions of low-paid women workers across the country: Despite working hard and providing essential services that we depend on, they are paid rock-bottom wages that devalue the work they do and put them at high risk of living in or near poverty, even when they work full time,” Julie Vogtman, National Women’s Law Center director of job quality and lead author of the organization’s recent report, When Hard Work Is Not Enough: Women in Low-Paid Jobs, said in a statement. “As thousands of restaurant servers, hotel clerks, waitresses, and fast food workers are losing their jobs every day due to the pandemic, their economic security and that of their families have become even more tenuous. Let this be a wake-up call to policymakers to increase the federal minimum wage, expand paid sick and family and medical leave, strengthen unemployment benefits, and shrink the gender wage gap that shortchanges them.”

These recommendations echo the demands of groups like Justice for Migrant Women, which in March launched an Emergency Pandemic Fund for Farmworkers with Hispanics In Philanthropy to advocate for the 2 to 3 million farmworkers, an estimated 900,000 of whom are women, who continue to plant, pick, and pack the food we’re all rushing to pick up at stores or order to our doorsteps.

Read the full article on Women’s Media Center.

Women’s Media Center: Women hardest hit as U.S. unemployment soars

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By Lauren Wolfe

8 April 2020

As the economy continued to tank amid the coronavirus pandemic, job losses rose to more than 700,000 in the month of March—and women were disproportionately affected.

Out of every 10 jobs cut in March, women lost six of them, reported the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Hispanic women in particular are suffering; their unemployment rate rose to 6 percent, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics.

Across almost all sectors, but particularly leisure and hospitality—in which women hold the majority of jobs—women are feeling the brunt of the hit. With a nearly countrywide lockdown, people aren’t taking trips or going out to eat: Women’s jobs in restaurants, bars, and hotels dropped by 261,000, while men lost 181,000. The sector accounted for more than half of all jobs lost in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The industry had employed nearly 17 million people by the end of 2019. About 30 percent of hotel workers were Hispanic, CNN reported.

Unlike now, men were laid off first during the 2008 recession because of cuts to production sectors (including manufacturing and construction), said C. Nicole Mason, president and CEO of IWPR.

“This time around, because women are over-represented in the service sector, they will experience disproportionately higher unemployment and job loss compared to men,” Mason said. Service-sector jobs generally offer lower wages and fewer benefits, “which makes women more economically vulnerable.”

Read the full article here.

New York Times: A Ballet Scandal Gets the ‘Special Victims Unit’ Treatment

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By Gia Kourlas

27 March 2020

In a recent Instagram story, the dancer and model Alexandra Waterbury posted that she had just seen the preview for the latest “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” on television. She wrote, “I’ll be watching the ‘Kardashians’ instead.”

The “SVU” episode, “Dance, Lies and Videotape,” shown Thursday night, seemed to be loosely modeled on an incident at New York City Ballet. In 2018, two principal male dancers were fired after they were accused of sharing texts of sexually explicit photos of women, including of Ms. Waterbury. (An arbitrator ordered the company to reinstate them.) A third, Chase Finlay, resigned before he could be fired. Ms. Waterbury filed a lawsuit against the company, the affiliated School of American Ballet and Mr. Finlay, her ex-boyfriend.

In the end, Ms. Waterbury watched “SVU” and wrote a response in her Instagram stories. The episode, which takes her story to a darker place, is unflagging in its attempt to include every ballet stereotype, most predominantly, that all the women in ballet are victims. One character, naturally the gay male friend, sums up their world: “Straight male can’t fail. Gay men, it depends. But girls in ballet? Do what we say.”

It’s telling that the word is girls, not women. Infantilizing ballet dancers is a real thing. In bringing it out into the open, both on television and in life, progress is being made to give women more empowerment.

Read the full article in the New York Times.

See DDP’s related Instagram post here.