What is The Women’s Economy? What does it consist of? What does it involve? How can we begin to think about it not as a derivative of what works for men but as its own model?

Here’s the Big Truth: if you are a woman or identify as a woman, you are the object of scorn, contempt, dislike, disregard, prejudice, and yes, even hatred. That’s especially true if you are a woman living in poverty or a woman of color.

Enough is enough, ladies. When it comes to equal pay, you know what I want for you? I want you to get pissed. I want you to demand more. And I want you to get paid.

All people suffer in war but to deny the unique and extreme suffering of women is itself a threat to human dignity, extending the harm we cause them and doubling down on their suffering.

When we see women’s experiences as the same as men we do not serve women. We fail to create systems of support for them and we fail to recognize their lived experiences.

Women are 51% of the population, 51% of the professional workforce, and 47% of the total workforce. Women are pivotal yet we continuously fail to recognize their labor. For years, I thought it would take some large, daunting, external force to bring our society face-to-face with the work women do. You know, something like a global pandemic. Turns out, I underestimated our national collective power to dismiss the contributions women make and didn’t fathom we’d respond instead by brazenly doubling down–again–on the work we expect women to perform.

Our current economic system was not designed for women’s success. In many ways, it’s been built on the backs of women, especially women of color, for centuries.

How can it be, when it comes to data on women — how they go about the business of their lives, their spending power, the routes they travel, their health and safety — we know next to nothing?