Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Melania Trump gives her first sit-down interview as first lady, more Native American women than ever are running for office this year, and—great—there’s another workplace “penalty” for women to contend with. Go get your Monday.
EVERYONE'S TALKING
•The pumping penalty. You’ve likely heard of the motherhood penalty. Now there’s this: the breastfeeding penalty.
A new Bloomberg report details how women are often set back professionally if they work while breastfeeding.
Women who have to slip out of a meeting to pump or put off a work trip to nurse a newborn “face stigma for taking time away from their jobs,” according to Bloomberg. But there’s financial fallout too. A study by Phyllis Rippey, a sociologist at the University of Ottawa, found that of moms who had children between 1980 to 1993, those who breastfed for at least six months experienced “more severe and prolonged earnings losses than mothers who breastfed for less time or not at all.”
News of this comes as workplaces have become somewhat more accommodating to nursing moms. Employers must provide women with a non-bathroom lactation space per a 2010 amendment to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. About half of employers have such a resource on-site, up from 28% in 2014, but (clearly) “there is still a large problem with compliance,” Galen Sherwin, an ACLU lawyer, told Bloomberg.
As The Broadsheet has reported in the past, some employers are going beyond the legal requirements, offering perks like breast milk shipping services for new moms who need to travel for work. Goldman Sachs, for instance, announced it would provide the benefit in August.
Pumping at the office or on business trips is, of course, a quirk of working while female in the U.S.—the only developed nation in the world not to guarantee new moms paid time off. If that wasn’t indignity enough, we now know that when women try to clear that hurdle—returning to work weeks (if not days) after giving birth, breast pump in tow—the system that’s forcing them back under such circumstances will then penalize them for doing so.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
•Melania's sit-down. Late Friday night, ABC News aired an interview with Melania Trump that was filmed during the first lady's trip to Africa. Among the highlights: Trump's admission that she wore the infamous Zara jacket that said "I really don't care" on the back as a message to the "left-wing media"—even though her spokesperson said at the time that there was "no hidden message" behind the jacket. Trump also answered questions about the president's alleged affairs, the #MeToo movement, and her self-declared status as the "most bullied person in the world." ABC News
•Arriving Spring 2019. Kensington Palace announced this morning that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are expecting their first child. The baby, due right around the time of Brexit, will be seventh in line to the throne—regardless of gender. Time
•Who's crazy? Actress Natalie Portman provided this perspective on the all-too-common 'crazy' woman characterization this weekend: "If a man says to you that a woman is crazy or difficult, ask him, ‘What bad thing did you do to her?'" Portman gave a speech outlining ways to help women reach equality at Variety's Power of Women event Friday. Huffington Post
•Midterm milestones. More Native American women than ever are running for office this year. Among them: Deb Haaland in New Mexico, Sharice Davids in Kansas, and Peggy Flanagan and Donna Bergstrom, who are facing each other in the contest for lieutenant governor in Minnesota. Haaland is likely to be the first Native American woman elected to Congress. Washington Post
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Nike's Zoe Krislock is the new CEO of MiniLuxe.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
•Media man. Writer Stephen Elliott marked the one-year anniversary of the Shitty Media Men list—the Google Doc that women in media used to warn one another about men with histories of sexual assault or harassment—by suing its creator, Moira Donegan. Elliot is demanding $1.5 million in damages because he appeared on the list next to a description of his alleged behavior, and has requested data from Google on users who interacted with the list. (Google has said it won't comply.) A GoFundMe for Donegan has raised nearly $100,000. The Cut
•WeWork's weakness. Speaking of lawsuits, one filed against WeWork by early employee Ruby Anaya alleges that the co-working giant enables an "entitled, frat-boy culture that permeates [it] from the top down." Anaya describes being groped at two separate company events and experiencing retaliation by WeWork after she reported the incidents. WeWork denies the claims in the lawsuit and says Anaya was fired for poor performance. Vox
•Dress with a message. If you didn't tune into Royal Wedding 3.0 on Friday, one heartwarming moment came from Princess Eugenie's wedding dress. The bride—a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth—wore a low-back dress to show off her scar from back surgery she had for scoliosis at age 12. The design was a way to stand up "for young people who also go through this," Eugenie said. Refinery29
•The story of Song Yang. This stunning story investigates how Song Yang, a woman from Liaoning, China, ended up as Jane Doe Ponytail, dead in the midst of an NYPD investigation into sex work in Queens. New York Times
Today's Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe. Share it with a friend. Looking for previous Broadsheets? Click here.
ON MY RADAR
Is there such a thing as ballet that doesn't hurt women? BuzzFeed News
When Asian women are harassed for marrying non-Asian men The Cut
The transformational bliss of borrowing your office clothes New York Times
QUOTE
|
|---|
