exploitation of women
In New York City, many home care workers work 24-hour shifts for up to five days straight, and are only paid for 13 hours of each shift. If they do not agree to this, they risk losing their job.
Home care workers provide 24-hour, live-in care for elderly and disabled patients, as defined by Medicaid. Home care workers feed, bathe, and administer medicine to patients. These workers attend to their vulnerable patients’ unpredictable needs around the clock. But because insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare and New York Healthfirst receive fixed public Medicaid payments to manage care, they make a profit by hiring only one worker for an entire shift.
Eight years ago I left my dorm room, humming the hook to “Till I Collapse” on my walk to the bathroom. When I returned a new song was playing on my laptop. Ludacris’ “P-Poppin’” pierced through the thin walls and echoed down the hallway. I bobbed my head along and then sat down to finish my homework. I looked at the screen, and I thought I saw my sister.
One of the women on the screen in the strip club swinging around a pole trying to seduce Ludacris looked like Jennifer – my older sister.
And something began to shift.
In Half the Sky, Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Kristof and WuDunn document the global exploitation of women an abuse to which we have become indifferent.