In the early years In the 1960s, a British woman named Stephanie “Steve” Shirley founded a software startup called Freelance Programmers. Shirley’s company allows its employees to program from home (as long as they have a phone to stay in touch) and her self-described feminist business model is designed to hire women who are pushed out workforce due to the requirements of marriage and motherhood. A few years earlier, across the pond, a woman named Elsie Shutt had started a company called Computations, Incorporated (CompInc) on a very similar model.
Working for Freelance Programmers allows women, especially women who meet patterns of heterosexual relationships, to continue working and use their technical skills to advance career in the computer field. Among the company’s many successes — including eventually making Shirley a millionaire and creating at least nine female millionaires from its original staff — is running a series of significant technology projects. , such as the Black Box flight recorder for Concorde (so far the only supersonic aircraft regularly deployed for civil use and a landmark of 20th century technological achievement). One reason Freelance Programmers get this contract is because, ironically, a lot of talented women are left out. was kicked out of the program. At a time when the programming industry is still heavily involved with women, their disappearance from the traditional workforce is causing a major programmer labor shortage. These innovative, women-centric work-from-home models provide a way for struggling professionals in the field to prove their worth.
But despite those advantages, this early work-from-home case predicted a less than ideal situation: For many women with young children, if they want to program, they need to be willing to do the work. extra job taking care of their children. and household chores, and also do it for a lower salary. While both Shirley and Shutt pay their employees well, sometimes they also have to pay lower prices to get the contract. Sixty years later, women are still required to work more for lower wages.
In the age of Covid, working from home has undeniable benefits. It has saved many lives, especially immunocompromised workers, and it has provided many disabled workers with remote accommodation that before the pandemic was often denied or arbitrarily denied. But it also creates a conundrum: For many women with children, handling two or more types of work side-by-side is very different. It has turned unpaid work, such as childcare, household chores and educational support that often belongs to women, into hours that look like paid work. Women in jobs that allow work from home are having the unsettled things — and relatively privileged as workers. But they also have to work the second shift in parallel with the first shift, both taking care of the children and meeting the requirements of a paid job.
This affects their ability to function. The rising rate of women leaving the workforce as the pandemic drags on is an important indicator of the unsustainability of multitasking. Majority of women surveyed in 2021 report from Deloitte stated that increased workload at their workplace, increased responsibilities at home, and “a lack of work-life balance” were important determinants of their leaving their jobs in the short term. during the pandemic. Follow Pew Research, also reported that Black and Latina women accounted for a disproportionate share of those leaving. Recent research also shows that the pandemic has significantly hindered the advancement of the female workforce, in terms of labor market presence as well as in terms of pay and advancement. McKinsey report that “working mothers, women in senior management positions, and Black women” have been hardest hit.
Joy Rankin, a computer historian with the AI Now Institute, said: “The biggest trick capitalism has ever played is to convince the world that what women do in the house is not work. job. Rankin, herself a mom who has worked from home during the pandemic, notes that “women have worked from home for themselves — and for others — for centuries, but this labor is not recognized, appreciated or even uncompensated”. Amid a global pandemic, much of this is forgotten, or engulfed, as people struggle to keep their jobs.
