On Monday I attended this webinar with Eve Rodsky essentially about division of household labor during quarantine and beyond. It was extremely on-point and ultimately corroborative of what I need to express regarding my former life as a stay at home wife and mother. A nerve was struck when she spoke about invisible labor, an issue that haunted me throughout my married life and certainly divorce as it related to the financial settlement. In fact, during the proceedings, mindful of the judge pro tem’s unlimited discretionary power, at one point I suggested making a spreadsheet with a line-by-line item of each of my job titles and responsibilities, assign a corresponding yearly salary and multiply by 24 years. The response was a huge laugh and so the ridiculous battles continued culminating in the “rigged” outcome.

The following is a quote from the Harpers Bazaar article and link:

MAKE THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE

And just like that, no one ever asked a stay-at-home mom what she does all day ever again.

You can’t value what you don’t see right? Visibility = value, and the silver lining of a quarantine is that the full breadth of what women do for our families is more visible than ever.

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a31912468/coronavirus-women-feminism-essay/