2020

This tumultuous year has brought attention to and amplified many inequities in our society. It is also the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment when women won the right to vote and with it, the prospect of gender equality.

Gender norms are changing but women still spend significantly more time on parenting and housework than men do. The pandemic lockdown has exacerbated this bias where work, school and childcare are confined to the home – especially for the 72% of moms with paying jobs; this figure is markedly higher for women of color.

Women represent 57% of the U.S. workforce, but of the Fortune 500 CEOs, 7% are held by women. For the past 4 decades, more women than men have attained college degrees (including associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees); women outpaced men earning PhD’s for the past 12 years. Despite higher education achievements and workforce participation, women earn an average of 80 cents for every dollar paid to a man; women of color earn less.

Moreover, the United States is the only advanced nation that does not guarantee women the right to paid maternity leave. The lack of work-family policies and affordable childcare continue to be barriers to women achieving equity in the workplace.

In this abstracted image, devalued “women’s work” – cooking (represented by a pot), cleaning (vacuum), laundry (iron), child rearing (baby bottle) – disappears into the background (the home).

55”h x 36”w

Machine-pieced, hand-quilted; found fabric, cotton, thread, batting

5.02.2022 — Contract signed to lend Women’s Work Then and Now to Arts in Embassies of the U.S. Department of State for a 3-year exhibition in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Exhibit to be installed later this summer.