Documentary #10: Feminism for the 99 Percent

There are many ways women across the world have been disproportionately impacted by COVID. The pandemic has simultaneously increased the demand for unpaid labor from women, including childcare and homeschooling, while decimating industries like retail, leisure, hospitality, education and entertainment which are their main employers. So many of the jobs lost during the pandemic were held by women, that the resulting economic recession has been called a “she­cession” — or even an example of “disaster patriarchy.” But our current economic system has always had a history of harming women disproportionately — in fact, in many ways, COVID has simply revealed and exacerbated already existing inequalities. But where there is a crisis, there is also opportunity. And in this space, some are asking what a feminist response to COVID could look like? But, of course, there are multiple kinds of feminism. In this episode, we explore what kind of feminism could not only lead us beyond this present crisis, but also offer us a vision of a more just world where equality and liberation are premises, not aspirations: a feminism for the 99%. Featuring: Khara Jabola-Carolus — Executive Director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women Tiek Johnson — Reproductive Justice Advocate and Doula Sarah Jaffe — Type Media Center reporting fellow and an independent journalist and author of Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone Tithi Bhattacharya — Associate Professor of History and the Director of Global Studies at Purdue University and author of Feminism for the 99 Percent: A Manifesto Nicole Aschoff — Editor at large at Jacobin Magazine, senior editor at Verso Books, and author of the book, The New Prophets of Capital Music by: Thank you to Thao and the Get Down Stay Down Marissa Kay Kohala Chris Zabriskie And thank you to Chiara Francesca for the cover art and to our Upstream correspondents Elle Bisgard Church and Noah Gabor for their research and support on this episode. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert. We just launched our fall season‘s crowdfunding campaign! We hope to produce at least three documentaries, including episodes on Defunding the Police and the Sharing Economy, Pt. 2, looking at the gig-economy landscape five years after our very first documentary. We also plan on releasing dozens of interviews for our In Conversation series. Please consider chipping in any amount that you can — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of folks like you. Visit upstreampodcast.org/support to contribute. Thank you! Also, if your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship. For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast Instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast and Spotify: Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upst…am/id1082594532 Spotify: spoti.fi/2AryXHs