The 50s have a foot in the door 👀
Hi friend,
we are about two months into the panny-d in my corner of the world and the thundering wave of panic and non-stop news alerts of the first weeks has turned into a constant drizzle of silent despair. Time to start taking a closer look at the debris which this panic wave has washed upon our shores.
You're reading the Verve Letter, so you won't be surprised that out of all the collateral damage, I have chosen to examine the big, banged up box labeled "gender equality".
Tl;dr: Corona is a disaster for feminism, but it could make women angry enough to rise up for another revolution – if they ever get to leave the house again.
It was an insta story which sent me down the research rabbithole. An insta story of a man I know, in which he complained about his wife becoming increasingly irritable because the school was not providing enough homeschooling support. Yes, online education for children is pretty shit in Germany, no doubt. But it's 2020, why don't YOU provide some support? Last I checked you were not an essential worker?
And this is precisely why gender equality has taken a big hit over the last two months. Because women are expected to pick up the care work. I know that there are couples out there who are doing a great job of juggling child care and work equally and that's fab! However, a recent study by German sociologist Jutta Allmendinger has shown that it is, in fact, mostly women doing the (unpaid) care work.
I found the explanation for this quite remarkable. Modern couples have been outsourcing care work so that both partners can have jobs. Or, put more extremely: Women have learned to pay other women for child care and cleaning in order to work. What women haven't learned is to demand from their partners that they take on half of what it takes to run a household and raise kids. Hence, it is no surprise that women are doing the larger share of care work now that external help is not available.
Julia Jäkel, CEO of one of the biggest publishing houses in Germany, wrote about the phenomenon of women having disappeared from professional life within the past two months. In her opinion piece for Zeit, she writes that the corona crisis "has revealed who actually calls the shots" in our society. Whose voices are heard and whose are not. She observes in her own company, that for mothers "home office" means mostly "home" and very little "office".
It's annoying to see how quickly we tumbled back into 1950s family models and corona shows us how fragile the gender equality movement still is. But it is more than annoying, because what is happening right now will have lasting, negative consequences for women.
As Julia Jäkel points out, now is the time for making careers, now is the time for showing that you are capable of managing a global crisis. And women are not there to prove themselves. Which is a tragedy, because it can be argued that a lot of women are much better at crisis management than men (enter Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern).
Also, Helen Lewis predicts in The Atlantic that some women's lifetime earnings will never recover from this. Lewis also examines how other pandemics like Ebola or Zika have more severe long and short term effects on women than on men. Some of them include men's salaries returning to normal more quickly and a significant rise in maternal mortality and domestic violence.
Lewis writes "a pandemic magnifies all existing inequalites", which is where German author Margarete Stockowski jumps in and argues that this can also be a chance for real, structural change. The clearer we see gender-based discrimination, the more likely we are to fight it, she claims in Spiegel. I hope she's right. She also proposes a divorce premium for women who just now realize that they're doing 100 per cent of the care work and really don't need that guy around. Angela, you on board with that?
🎧 Alright, let's slowy transition into the pop culture part of this show, shall we? First up, I would like to, once again, gently nudge you towards The Guilty Feminist podcast. It will make you laugh out loud, it will make you go "huh?" and it will relentlessly, but never condescendingly, explain why we all are still complicit in holding up patriarchic structures.
The latest episode revolves around the topic of "likeability", which is also a recurring theme in this newsletter. Host Deborah Frances-White and british actress Susie Wokoma unpick this loaded topic far more brilliantly than I ever could, so I urge you to listen to it. Bonus: Their special guest is Claire! And by Claire I mean the phenomenal Sian Clifford.
⭐️ More things I have enjoyed recently:
Holly Bourne's recent novel Pretending: It's part funny rom-com and part guide to dating after having experienced rape – and that, my friends, I didn't think could be woven into one story. Turns it, it can. Will definitely re-read this one.
Lauren Bravo has given a name to the emotional state I have found myself in over the past few weeks: PMS – Pandemic Mardiness Syndrome. And god, do I hope that I can dig myself out of it soon.
Adriene Mishler is the only person who can get me out of my constant PMS state once a day, which is why I enjoyed this Vox long read about how she built the "Yoga with Adriene" empire and how she is helping millions of people all over the world to stay sane during this crisis. I have found lots of comfort and joy in her Youtube yoga videos over the past seven years and I think she deserves all the success in the world.
Speaking of Adriene: Her "Yoga for text neck" is the most amazing treat after a loong day at the desk. Essentially, it's a wonderful 30 minute heart opening practice.
Caroline O'Donoghue and Ella Risbridger discuss the novel American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld on the Sentimental Garbage podcast. I read the book over ten years ago and could only vaguely remember that it really intrigued me back then. I now remember why!
Thus, would also recommend reading American Wife, if you haven't yet.
This man is eating pancakes for breakfast every single day and claims to have never felt better. This is the inspirational content I need right now!
I found this content in Anna Myer's newsletter which is a recent, much cherished addition to my inbox.
You can watch PWB perform the original Fleabag one-woman-show for four pounds on the Soho Theatre website and it's so worth the money.
🇩🇪 In der aktuellen Folge von Feuer und Brot geht es um Frauen und Geld und warum es uns so verdammt schwer fällt, uns damit auseinanderzusetzen. Habe mich sehr ertappt gefühlt.
In eigener Sache: Ich durfte den großartigen Mojib Latif für unseren Podcast Coronaland interviewen und musste mich stark zusammenreißen, um nicht dauerhaft das Fangirl raushängen zu lassen.
Außerdem geht's in dieser Woche beim ende gut. Podcast darum, wie man Kindern erklärt, was sterben heißt. Eine meiner absoluten Lieblingsfolgen dieser Staffel.
❤️ That's it for now! Take good care of yourself.
Until next time,
Anna