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Industries invest less in women's health. Companies invest less in female employees and pay gaps and unpaid maternity leaves are just tools to discriminate.
Rihanna has stunned everyone with her Super Bowl performance. What her fans got very excited to see, and was later confirmed by her rep, was that she is pregnant.
She performed on hits like “We Found Love,” “Where Have You Been,” “Work”, and “Diamonds”.
An old clip is now doing rounds on social media where she expressed how she overcame doubts to finally be inspired to perform.
When the interviewer asked Rihanna about the significance of this performance in her life and career, she explains that this event could have only been possible now. When she first got the call to perform for this event, she was three months postpartum.
She was not sure if she was ready to make major life decisions at this point. She was also afraid of regrets. But there was one thing that she was sure about that was that becoming a mother can make a person feel that they have the strength to take on the world. It was this strength that made her feel that there s nothing that she cannot do.
She said that there was something exhilarating about the challenge of it all, and that it is important for her son to see that. Performing on the Super Bowl stage was like performing on one of the biggest stages in the world. As scary as it was because she had not stepped on stage in the last 7 years, Rihanna took this chance, and aren’t we glad that she did?
Paulette Light wrote in 2013 for The Atlantic that 43% of highly qualified women with children are leaving careers or off-ramping for a period of time. While I am not here to judge those women who decide to never go back to working again (because let’s accept it, it takes superpowers to be a mother), we cannot ignore the fact that our system makes it more difficult for women to return to work after they have given birth.
In the United States, many women have to go back to work because there are no paid leaves. For women who have to choose between a career or child, they are forced to choose their career because they need to raise a child. In other parts of the world, culture and traditions attach guilt and shame to any woman who wants to leave their child under someone else’s care and go back to work. Hell, so many women in India do not have any choice and have to carry their children to work, most often in a dangerous place. Many female construction workers do that to date. From family responsibilities, cooking, cleaning the house, and keeping everyone fed, to taking kids to work, most of these women are underpaid and forced to face economic and environmental hardships.
Most women in this world do not have control over their bodies or careers. There is no choice that would keep them safe. Some laws do not get implemented, and some societal notions never change. We would like to believe that situation is better for well-off and economically secure women, but no.
Industries invest less in women’s health. Companies invest less in female employees and pay gaps and unpaid maternity leaves are just tools to discriminate. There are no provisions for child care, and even if they are, many women are called selfish to use them. Child care is more expensive and it is the career of these mothers that faces the brunt. Single mothers are forced to depend on friends and family to raise their kids. Remote work opportunities allow limited career options with some flexibility. The “choice” to stay at home is a privilege that most women do not have just as the is the “choice” to go out and work knowing that your child is in safe and trusted hands.
Mostly writing, other times painting. Here to celebrate little wins. I am on the same page as you, just a different book - you read mine, I'll read yours. read more...
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Dear Women’s Web Community Member,
You may have wondered at our being on the quieter side during the last couple of months. Thank you for your patience, and we wanted to come back to you with a detailed note on what’s been happening at our end of things.
When we first began Women’s Web, as a blog from one woman’s desk along with a few like-minded souls, little could we have imagined the heights that it would soar to. Over the years, Women’s Web has published over 20000 stories (almost all by women), empowered countless women with the ideas, community and resources to chase their dreams, employed hundreds of women in core and project-based roles, and in the process, emerged as the OG women’s community in India. It has also inspired many others to build communities of a similar nature, all enabling women (and other-underrepresented groups) in their own ways.
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