WMC Talks: The State of Domestic Workers & Caregivers

Ai-jen Poo, president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and executive director of Caring Across Generations, joins Erica Martínez González to discuss why care work is essential yet deeply undervalued in America. Ai-jen also shares her memories of Gloria Steinem.

In this first episode of season two of WMC Talks, Erica and Ai-jen examine the experiences of domestic and care workers - many of them women, immigrants, and women of color - and the racist origins that led to domestic and agricultural workers being excluded from labor protections and which continue to shape care worker wages and working conditions today. She also explores the growing care crisis facing families, the need to include caregiving in conversations about affordability and the working class, and the critical role media can play in making care workers and their contributions more visible.

This is the first WMC Talks since the deaths of Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem earlier this month, and Ai-jen shares a moving remembrance of Women’s Media Center co-founder Gloria Steinem, recalling how Steinem introduced her to the history of Black women domestic-worker organizers and supported a new generation of women activists.