Holding It Together

Holding It Together Plot Summary

Introduction

In the United States, women serve as an invisible safety net, holding together families, communities, and the economy through their unpaid and underpaid labor. This arrangement is neither accidental nor inevitable, but the product of deliberate policy choices that have shifted responsibility for Americans' well-being away from government and employers onto individuals and families. When systems fail, it is predominantly women who absorb the resulting risks and fill the gaps, often at tremendous personal cost to their economic security, physical health, and mental well-being. What makes the American situation unique is not that women carry more caregiving responsibilities than men—this pattern exists worldwide—but that American women must do so without the institutional support systems available in other high-income countries. While nations like France, Norway, and Denmark responded to post-World War II challenges by investing in universal childcare, healthcare, and family support policies, the United States chose a different path, creating what sociologists call a "DIY society" where people are expected to solve their own problems rather than count on collective support. This DIY approach might seem plausible only because women make it appear workable through their exploitation, creating the illusion that families can thrive without robust public support.

Chapter 1: The Hidden Labor: Women as America's Unofficial Support System

In the United States, women serve as an invisible safety net that holds society together when formal systems fail. This reality became starkly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when mothers found themselves stretched to breaking points. Women like Akari, a single mother of two young children, worked multiple jobs to make ends meet while simultaneously managing remote schooling when classrooms closed. She faced an impossible choice between caring for her children at home or keeping the jobs that put food on their table. The evidence for women's role as society's support system is overwhelming. Women represent nearly half of the total US workforce yet earn only 73 cents for every dollar earned by men. They disproportionately fill the lowest-wage jobs in our economy while simultaneously performing the majority of unpaid caregiving labor. On average, women spend more than twice as much time caring for children as men do, and women without children spend twice as much time caring for extended family as men. This unequal distribution of care work has profound consequences for women's economic security and well-being. This burden falls particularly heavily on women of color and low-income women. When Akari couldn't afford childcare during the pandemic, she brought her children with her on food deliveries, having them wait in the car while she dropped off orders. The alternative was losing income her family desperately needed. Her story illustrates how women are forced to make impossible choices when systems fail, often sacrificing their own well-being, career prospects, and financial security to ensure their families survive. The expectation that women will serve as society's backup plan is deeply embedded in American culture and policy. From the structure of the school day (ending hours before the typical workday) to the lack of universal healthcare or childcare, American systems are designed with the assumption that women will fill the gaps. This arrangement allows the government and employers to avoid responsibility for supporting families, instead placing that burden on individual women. This invisible safety net function comes at tremendous cost to women themselves. They experience higher rates of stress, anxiety, and depression. They face career penalties and wage gaps. They accumulate less wealth over their lifetimes. And they often find themselves trapped in cycles of precarity, unable to build financial security because they're constantly responding to crises. Yet despite the essential role women play in holding society together, their contributions remain largely invisible and undervalued.

Chapter 2: Structural Exploitation: How Policy Choices Trap Women in Caregiving

The exploitation of women's labor is not accidental but systematically engineered through policies and cultural expectations that trap women in caregiving roles. Consider Brooke, a childcare worker who loves her job but can barely survive on her $11 per hour wage—less than what many fast-food workers earn. Despite having a college degree and years of experience, Brooke struggles to pay rent and often relies on food banks to eat. Her situation reflects how society simultaneously demands women's caregiving labor while refusing to value it financially. This trap operates through multiple mechanisms. First, the gender segregation of the labor market channels women into low-paying "pink-collar" jobs like childcare, nursing, teaching, and social work. These essential roles are chronically underpaid precisely because they're associated with women and with care work that's expected to be done out of love rather than for money. Second, workplace policies assume workers have no caregiving responsibilities, forcing women to choose between career advancement and family needs. Third, the absence of universal childcare, paid family leave, and other supportive policies makes it nearly impossible for many women to pursue full-time careers while raising children. The trap tightens further through what might be called the "motherhood penalty." Women who become mothers face immediate career setbacks: they're less likely to be hired, are offered lower salaries, and are perceived as less competent and committed than equally qualified men or childless women. Meanwhile, fathers often receive a "daddy bonus," being seen as more stable and committed to work after having children. These biases push women toward part-time work, career interruptions, or leaving the workforce entirely—choices that are then framed as personal preferences rather than structural constraints. From early childhood, American girls are groomed to stand in for the social safety net. They are given baby dolls while boys receive trucks, taught to be quiet and obedient while boys are encouraged to be loud and adventurous, and assigned caregiving responsibilities for younger siblings that boys rarely face. This socialization process creates what sociologist Miranda Waggoner calls "mothers-in-waiting," establishing the expectation that all women will eventually become mothers and that motherhood is their primary purpose. Laws and cultural norms further cement women's caregiving roles by restricting reproductive autonomy. Barriers to abortion access and contraception push women into poorly timed pregnancies or having more children than planned. Even before the 2022 Dobbs decision that ended federal protection for abortion rights, a toxic mix of pro-natal messaging and practical obstacles to abortion access was already forcing women into motherhood. Social pressure from families, friends, and faith communities also leads women to worry about being labeled, judged, or ostracized if they choose not to have children or to limit family size.

Chapter 3: The Myth of Choice: How Economic Constraints Limit Women's Options

For women in lower and middle-income families, the motherhood trap is reinforced by severe economic constraints that leave them with few viable options. Without access to affordable, reliable childcare, these women face an impossible choice: pay for childcare that consumes most or all of their wages, or leave the workforce to care for their children themselves. This dilemma is particularly acute for single mothers and those whose partners earn low wages. The childcare crisis in America exemplifies these constraints. High-quality childcare centers often have year-long waitlists and prices that rival college tuition. Even when spots are available, the hours rarely align with the schedules of parents working multiple jobs or non-standard shifts. Home-based childcare might offer more flexibility but less reliability, as providers may close unexpectedly due to illness or family emergencies. For mothers earning minimum wage or slightly above, the math simply doesn't work—childcare costs would consume most or all of their take-home pay. Without family nearby to help with childcare, many women are forced to leave the workforce entirely or cobble together part-time work during hours when their partner can watch the children. This arrangement often means working nights and weekends, leading to sleep deprivation and relationship strain. Some mothers attempt to work from home while simultaneously caring for young children, an arrangement that leaves them feeling as though they're failing at both parenting and their paid work. The economic consequences of these constraints are severe and long-lasting. Women who leave the workforce to care for children experience significant drops in lifetime earnings and retirement savings. When they attempt to return to work, they often face discrimination from employers who view gaps in employment as red flags. Many find themselves pushed into low-wage, part-time jobs with unpredictable schedules and no benefits. These jobs—in childcare, retail, food service, and home health care—are dominated by women and systematically undervalued despite their essential nature. For women of color and immigrant women, these economic constraints are compounded by systemic racism and xenophobia. Black and Latina mothers face higher rates of poverty and unemployment, lower wages when employed, and greater difficulty accessing government assistance programs. They are also more likely to be the primary breadwinners for their households while simultaneously bearing primary responsibility for childcare and housework.

Chapter 4: Cultural Narratives: How Gender Myths Justify Unequal Labor Division

The persistent belief that men and women are fundamentally different creatures—often described as being "from Mars and Venus"—serves as a powerful justification for unequal divisions of labor. This gender essentialism portrays women as naturally nurturing, patient, and detail-oriented, while men are depicted as naturally competitive, aggressive, and better suited for breadwinning. These supposedly innate differences are then used to explain and normalize women's disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care work. Bethany's situation illustrates this dynamic perfectly. A former social worker with a master's degree, Bethany left her career to care for her children while her husband Dennis continued working as an IT professional. When asked about their division of household labor, Dennis explained that Bethany handles most childcare and housework because "she's better at it" and "more patient" with the children. He frames this arrangement as natural and efficient, playing to each person's strengths, rather than as an unequal distribution that advances his career while stalling hers. This Mars/Venus narrative persists despite overwhelming scientific evidence against it. Research consistently shows that psychological differences between men and women are minimal, with far more variation within each gender than between them. Studies of hunter-gatherer societies reveal that women historically participated in hunting alongside men, contradicting the notion that gender-based division of labor reflects ancient evolutionary adaptations. And cross-cultural research demonstrates that gender roles vary tremendously across societies, indicating they're socially constructed rather than biologically determined. The Mars/Venus myth also operates through a more subtle mechanism: the weaponization of incompetence. Men like Dennis claim they "just aren't good at" tasks like cleaning or childcare, strategically performing incompetence until women take over these responsibilities. This tactic allows men to appear helpful while actually doing very little, as Bethany discovered when Dennis's attempts to bathe the children resulted in them being "all wound up" at bedtime, creating more work for her. Perhaps most insidiously, the myth encourages women to police themselves and each other. When Bethany momentarily expressed frustration with Dennis's limited contributions at home, she immediately backtracked, making excuses for him and blaming herself for expecting too much. This self-correction reflects how women internalize the idea that expecting equal partnership is unreasonable or unfeminine. The myth thus becomes self-reinforcing, as women silence their own discontent and adjust their expectations downward.

Chapter 5: The Supermom Ideal: Impossible Standards and Their Consequences

The Supermom ideal represents perhaps the most insidious myth about motherhood—the expectation that women should seamlessly manage careers, households, and childcare while maintaining perfect health, appearance, and emotional equilibrium. This impossible standard doesn't merely describe motherhood; it prescribes a specific form of intensive mothering that demands total dedication to children's development while simultaneously excelling in professional spheres. The Supermom myth exploits women by extracting maximum labor while providing minimum support. Religious communities, particularly evangelical Christian ones, often reinforce the Supermom ideal through theological frameworks that position mothers as divinely appointed guardians of children's moral and spiritual development. These communities promote intensive mothering practices while warning about external threats to children's wellbeing, from secular education to popular culture. By framing motherhood as a spiritual calling rather than a social role, they elevate the stakes of parenting decisions and intensify maternal guilt. The message becomes clear: a truly devoted mother must protect her children from worldly influences through constant vigilance and sacrifice. Secular parenting advice similarly promotes intensive mothering through pseudoscientific claims about child development. Popular parenting books and blogs suggest that every maternal decision—from feeding choices to educational activities—profoundly impacts children's future success. This advice often contradicts itself while maintaining the consistent message that mothers bear total responsibility for outcomes. The underlying assumption is that with enough research, effort, and dedication, mothers can optimize their children's development and protect them from all harm, an expectation that ignores both human limitations and environmental factors beyond parental control. The corporate world exploits the Supermom ideal by promoting a sanitized version of feminism focused on individual achievement rather than structural change. Books like "Lean In" encourage women to overcome workplace barriers through personal determination while downplaying the need for policy reforms or cultural shifts. This approach frames work-family conflict as a personal challenge to be managed through better organization and efficiency rather than a structural problem requiring collective solutions. It suggests that with enough grit and the right productivity hacks, women can succeed in systems designed without their needs in mind. The Covid-19 pandemic brutally exposed the impossibility of the Supermom ideal when support systems suddenly vanished. As schools and childcare centers closed, mothers were expected to simultaneously work full-time, educate their children, manage household logistics, and maintain family emotional wellbeing—all while navigating a global health crisis. The widespread maternal burnout that followed wasn't a failure of individual women but the inevitable result of impossible expectations colliding with inadequate support. Yet rather than prompting structural reforms, the crisis often reinforced the message that mothers should somehow manage better.

Chapter 6: Beyond Individual Solutions: Why Personal Strategies Cannot Fix Systemic Problems

The dominant American narrative suggests that women can overcome structural barriers through individual choices and personal determination. This perspective frames gender inequality as a series of personal challenges to be navigated rather than systemic problems requiring collective solutions. However, examining women's actual experiences reveals why individual strategies consistently fail to create genuine equality or security. Consider the common advice that women should simply "choose better partners" who will share domestic responsibilities equally. This ignores how deeply gendered expectations are embedded in workplace structures, economic incentives, and cultural norms. Even when couples begin with egalitarian intentions, they often default to traditional gender roles after having children because men face stronger workplace penalties for prioritizing family, while women face stronger social penalties for not doing so. The problem isn't just individual attitudes but institutional arrangements that make equal partnerships difficult to sustain. Similarly, the suggestion that women can solve work-family conflicts by finding more flexible jobs or becoming entrepreneurs overlooks how these "solutions" often entrench inequality. Part-time work typically offers lower hourly pay, fewer benefits, and limited advancement opportunities. Remote work can increase women's total workload by blurring boundaries between paid work and family care. And entrepreneurship, while offering flexibility, also transfers all economic risk to individual women, who must somehow build businesses while simultaneously managing caregiving responsibilities. The limitations of individual solutions become particularly apparent when examining class differences. Affluent women may be able to hire nannies, housekeepers, and meal delivery services to ease their domestic burden, but this "solution" merely transfers care work to other women—typically lower-income women of color—who then face even greater challenges balancing their own family responsibilities. This approach doesn't reduce gender inequality; it simply redistributes it along class and racial lines. The engineers of our DIY society have sold Americans on the idea that "good choices" are the key to security and prosperity. They claim that if people just finish their education, work full-time, get married before having children, and save diligently, they will inevitably achieve financial stability. This narrative, often called the "success sequence," has been promoted by conservative think tanks and has gained traction even among some progressives. However, the promise of good choices ultimately rings hollow. Even women who follow all the prescribed steps—completing college, establishing careers, marrying before having children—often find themselves struggling with precarity and overwhelmed by caregiving responsibilities. The focus on individual solutions also obscures how women's challenges are interconnected across class and racial lines. When affluent women hire nannies to solve their childcare problems, they become employers who benefit from the same low-wage care economy that exploits women like Brooke and Patricia. This creates a conflict of interest that undermines potential solidarity among women who might otherwise recognize their shared stake in systemic change.

Chapter 7: The Cost of Exploitation: How Everyone Loses in a DIY Society

The exploitation of women's labor in our DIY society comes at a steep cost—not just for women themselves but for everyone. By relying on women to fill the gaps in our social safety net, we create a society that is less productive, less innovative, less healthy, and less happy than it could be. The economic costs are substantial. When women are pushed out of the workforce or into part-time or low-wage jobs because of caregiving responsibilities, their talents and skills are underutilized. This represents a massive loss of human capital and productivity. Studies show that countries with higher female labor force participation and more gender equality tend to have stronger economic growth and higher GDP per capita. By contrast, the United States has fallen behind other developed nations in women's labor force participation, with negative consequences for economic dynamism and competitiveness. The health costs are equally significant. Women who bear the double burden of paid work and unpaid caregiving experience higher rates of chronic stress, depression, anxiety, and physical health problems. These health issues reduce quality of life and increase healthcare costs. Meanwhile, the lack of affordable childcare and eldercare means that many children and elderly people receive inadequate care, with long-term negative consequences for their health and well-being. Children suffer directly when their caregivers are stretched too thin. Whether it's mothers working multiple jobs with little time for parenting, childcare workers who can't afford to stay in the profession they love, or families who can't access quality care at all, the result is the same: children receive less attention, stability, and support than they need. This translates into measurable outcomes: compared to children in countries with stronger social supports, American children have worse health outcomes, lower academic achievement, and higher rates of behavioral problems. Men also lose in this arrangement, though in less obvious ways. The expectation that men prioritize breadwinning over caregiving deprives many fathers of deep relationships with their children and partners. It subjects them to intense workplace pressures and ties their self-worth to their economic productivity rather than their full humanity. Men may benefit from their wives' unpaid labor in the short term, but they miss opportunities for the emotional fulfillment that comes from equal participation in family life. Perhaps most fundamentally, our current approach wastes human potential on an enormous scale. Women like Akari, Brooke, Patricia, and countless others spend their lives struggling to survive rather than thriving and contributing their full abilities. Their energy goes to navigating broken systems rather than building better ones. Their creativity is consumed by solving logistical problems rather than addressing larger challenges. This represents not just a personal tragedy for these women but a collective loss for society.

Summary

The exploitation of women as America's de facto safety net represents a profound moral and practical failure. By systematically offloading social responsibilities onto individual women, particularly mothers, we've created a society that functions poorly for everyone while maintaining the illusion of meritocracy and personal choice. The myths examined throughout—from gender essentialism to the Supermom ideal—serve to normalize and obscure this exploitation, making structural problems appear as personal challenges or natural arrangements. These myths serve specific economic and political interests by privatizing care responsibilities that could be collectively shared, creating markets for essential services while maintaining a workforce of desperate, compliant workers. Breaking free from this trap requires recognizing how these myths function as gaslighting mechanisms that make women question their own perceptions and accept unjust arrangements as natural or inevitable. It means acknowledging that no individual woman—regardless of her privilege, skills, or determination—can fulfill all the expectations placed on mothers without significant structural support. Most fundamentally, it requires understanding that our fates are linked in ways that individualistic frameworks obscure. All humans require care throughout their lives, and creating sustainable care systems benefits everyone, not just mothers. By rejecting the divisive myths that have justified exploitation and embracing a vision of collective responsibility for care, we can begin to imagine and create alternatives that distribute care responsibilities more equitably across society.

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Jessica Calarco

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