Working Mothers don’t need your fucking surveys. We need change.

(My story told with GIFS from Schitt’s Creek)

Social-distancing, new-normal, unprecedented times, the bubble, flatten the curve, super-spreader. This pandemic has brought about a plethora of words and phrases that seem to be infecting our vocabulary. Now we have one for the current economic situation. Canada’s first “she-session”.

That is the term coined by Armine Yalnizyan, a fellow with the Atkinson Foundation who advises the Trudeau government on economic matters. The she-session. Everywhere we look — people are talking about how this pandemic has disproportionately affected women.

It is a cute term that encapsulates the disproportionate and devastating impact this pandemic has had on working mothers and highlights our existing failure as a society to support mothers in the workplace. A term so simple we may be distracted from the fact that if our path to economic recovery is not done right, our society may inadvertently edge ever closer to one of a dystopian fiction we love to binge watch. But at least we have something to call it, right?

Canada has faced recessions before, when times are hard we pull through, a little scarred with lessons learned, but we do recover to full economic prosperity. This one is different. The 2008 recession was driven by a contraction in male-dominated industries such as manufacturing, with recovery fueled by an increase of women in the workforce and an uptake in the service, typically female dominated industries. When COVID hit in March 2020, restaurants, hotels, child care centres and small businesses, mostly female dominated sectors were the first to shut down. Eight months in, and it’s clear the road to recovery will be long and hard, with sadly many businesses, unlikely to recover at all.

The closure of schools and daycares during the initial lockdown period created increased stress for all working parents. But as much as we liked the illusion of an equitable society, the pressure to balance work, home, childcare and homeschooling undoubtedly heavier on working mothers than working fathers. Even the families who were convinced that their relationships were truly balanced prior to March 2020, found themselves in battles over whose meeting was more important, who is spending more time with the kids, whose job was more demanding, and financially secure. I know, I was one of those families.

Over the last 40 years, women’s role in society has come far, a generation of women who have been taught they can do anything, were not suddenly expected to do anything, they were expected to be able to do it all. And we realized we were not superheroes, we could not be the perfect mother, the perfect teacher, the perfect employee and the perfect partner all at the same time.

However, the pandemic did not create these issues, it simply amplified them.

As families were forced to reevaluate and prioritize based on need, the systemic failures of the society we previously accepted became exposed.

Failure to support women.

Failure to support mothers.

Failure of companies to close the wage gap and provide pay transparency.

We have watched for years as companies say they will do better, they have created women’s groups, set targets around diversified executive tables. But we have stayed quiet as those targets are still “to be met”, stayed quiet when companies refuse to track pay equity, offer less money to female employees, fire employees on maternity leave under the guise of organizational restructuring. Said nothing as the hiring manager questions the commitment of female employees with a family, yet never once question the same commitment from male employees.

The pandemic did not create the society that has taught women to blame themselves, to meditate more, to lean in, to not drop the ball, to do it all. We did.

This was the reason three years ago I started a community dedicated to supporting mothers in the workplace called, Moms At Work. To provide support, advice and voice to offset the imbalance. These women are your workforce. They are your managers, executives, daycare workers and nurses. We support each other. We turn to each other and we advocate change. This inequity has finally been brought to the surface. It is finally being seen and the economic impact is being felt.

As we enter our next phase, we must do this right. The government has committed to creating a national action plan for getting women back into the workforce, which would be guided by task force experts. However, going back to what we had isn’t an option, we need to do better.

While I applaud the government making this commitment, I am also challenging them to do this differently, imploring them to do it right. Repeating existing systemic failures by producing another government action team, led by people who have already succeeded, not because of the struggles they have overcome, but benefited by the social inequities that already existed.

I challenge you to reevaluate your definition of experts.

This is an unprecedented time, the true experts and visionaries are not the industry figure-heads who broke the glass ceiling.

The experts appointed to this task force must be us. Working mothers.

Appoint the women who have attended meetings and made deadlines all while refereeing a fight between two siblings. Invite the women who were overwhelmed by seemlily never ending demands of online school, home-daycare, and lonely children on top sales targets and zoom meetings and had to take a career break. Invite the mothers who had no alternative but stop working to care for their children when the schools and daycares closed. The voices of the women who are struggling now, are the experts. If we are going to have a ‘new-normal” for working mothers, let us be the ones who define what the new-normal will be. All of us. A plan for the many, not a plan for the few.

So,this is my application for our Taskforce. Since the start of this pandemic, I have pivoted, repositioned and re envisioned to keep my business moving, all while caring for my three children under 10. I have over 15 years experience as an HR professional. I am an advocate, and lead a community of support for over 5000 working mothers.

We need to make our voices heard.

We can bring our solutions to the table.

Change the system, erase the systemic failures. Let working mothers speak for working mothers. If you truly want to know how to get us back to work, ask us. For the first time ever — let us lead. We will change the world.

— Allison Venditti

Allison Venditti is a HR professional, career coach, mother of 3 & advocate for pay transparency and working mothers. She is the founder of both Careerlove.ca and Moms At Work — a community of over 5000 working Canadian women. Want more ranting sign up for my newsletter here.