Pacific Standard: Five Studies: The Price of Emotional Labor
This is a great little explainer about emotional labour – the work of having a job where employees are required to display specific emotions toward customers or others. For example, staying cheerful and smiling in retail, when you’re actually exhausted and sad, or faced with unpleasant customers.
One of the biggest critiques of our emotional labor economy is that it requires more of women than of men. Not only are women more likely to work in service jobs (manicurists, waitresses, etc.) that demand this kind of emotional engagement—they are also centrally responsible for emotional work within all kinds of relationships.
Fusion: Female scientists asked how they will cope without men or makeup in space
Uh-huh. Six scientists are going into an experimental capsule Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems. For eight days, they will live together as though they were on the International Space Station. Oh, also, these scientists are women, so the press conference questions went all the way up the asinine scale and crashed into the bell on the end.
During a press conference prior to the start of the ground mission, the crew members answered questions on their mission. Questions like: How will you deal with being without makeup for eight days? How will you cope with not being around men? These are very bad questions.
Yes. Yes they are.
Madame Noire: watch Issa Rae tackle the gender pay gap with a little help from 4 adorable kids and Anika Noni Rose
Short background article on the fabulous short film by Issa Rae and Make It Work. If you haven’t seen the YouTube film (embedded in the article) about the gender pay gap, and the associated wider gaps for women of colour in America (as relevant to Australians as it is to Americans), do take the time to check it out. Beautifully executed depiction of how and why women are paid less than men and the various ways we are told to keep quiet about it.
In 2015, the average working woman is paid just 79 cents for every dollar that a man is paid. Even worse, Black women are paid only 60 cents for every dollar that a White man is paid, and Latina women, only 55 cents. This disgusting and disproportionate pay scale results in an average loss of $22,000 per year for Black women.
SMH: We need to see more women on film and behind the camera
The movie industry, like most other industries, has a gender problem. And, again, like most other industries, it is in their best interest to address this.
The leaders and decision makers in this landscape – the exhibitors, distributors, sales agents, investors, producers, directors and writers – are overwhelmingly male. These are the people who shape what appears on our screens. They also care passionately about making good films that make a good return on investment, either commercially or culturally.
Most films require a high level of risk to be taken at every stage of the value chain. It’s a miracle that any film gets made – it is just that hard!
It is basic psychology that male decision makers in a high-risk business environment feel more comfortable backing people they have affinity with – that is, other men – on stories and genres they understand. We need to show these leaders that there is talent currently being overlooked and there is potential for market growth by making more films that appeal to women.
Fortune: Lena Dunham: Actor turned media mogul signs deal with Hearst
Short piece on Lena Dunham’s deal with Hearst for publication and advertising on her newsletter The Lenny Letter
Under the terms of the deal with Hearst, the media company will publish content from the Lenny Letter on its sites a day after email subscribers get access to it, and Hearst will sell advertising around the content and share the revenue with Dunham and her co-founder Jenni Konner. The media company said it will promote the Letter across sites ike Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, and Marie Claire. Dunham also recently signed a partnership deal for a podcast called Women of the Hour that will be produced by BuzzFeed.
NYMag: The World Needs This Maya Angelou Documentary
Quick read about is about the upcoming documentary on Dr Maya Angelou. Angelou was a writer, poet, civil rights activist and feminist. She wrote seven autobiographies, as well as plays, tv shows and movies. Some of her books were banned in schools, but many others use them as teaching tools. She was an amazing woman who lived an extraordinary life and this documentary is definitely something we need.
“The wound of her leaving is still fresh. It’s a hole in our culture. When she was a young person, she was a young voice. She was a protester when it was time to protest. She was an artist when we needed it. A feminist when we needed her in the women’s movement. Her voice, it became a grandmother’s voice, wisdom’s voice. Everybody feels like she belongs to them, like they know her because of her work. And we do know a lot about her because she left no stone unturned in her writing, but you know, she had to keep some to herself.”