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Woman Asks for 'Unhinged' Examples of Microfeminism—Over 13K Reply
Woman Asks for 'Unhinged' Examples of Microfeminism—Over 13K Reply

Newsweek

timea day ago

  • Entertainment
  • Newsweek

Woman Asks for 'Unhinged' Examples of Microfeminism—Over 13K Reply

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. One Seattle woman's call for "unhinged" examples of everyday feminism has lit up the internet. Tori Dunlap (@herfirst100k) posted a short clip on TikTok, asking for ways in which users practice microfeminism. "I'm not talking about 'assuming the doctor is woman', give me insane ones," she wrote on the text overlay. The clip, which has amassed almost 6 million views and over 13,000 comments, opened the floodgates for examples of what she calls microfeminism—small, pointed ways people challenge gender norms in their everyday lives. From left: Tori Dunlap speaks in a white cap and black sunglasses with palm trees in background. From left: Tori Dunlap speaks in a white cap and black sunglasses with palm trees in background. @herfirst100k As an internationally recognized money and career expert, Dunlap told Newsweek that she has worked in environments where being a woman means having to constantly navigate micro-patriarchy. "Like being talked over; expected to 'smile more' … I just knew that the comment section would let us flip the script and laugh a little in the process," Dunlap said. Responses to the viral clip included calling the father first when their child is sick at school; pairing the husband and child together when booking flights as a travel agent; and assuming fruity drinks with umbrellas were ordered by the men at the table. One popular example was also telling angry male co-workers, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you emotional." "It was hilarious, and honestly kind of healing," Dunlap said. "That comment section is like reading a ton of small rebellions." After saving $100,000 at age 25, Dunlap quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. Dunlap defines microfeminism as "disrupting gender norms in those small but mighty ways." It's the idea is that not all activism has to be loud or performative; sometimes, it exists in the daily moments where stereotypes are reinforced, challenged or dismantled. "Those seemingly small, everyday callouts can start to add up in a really powerful way," Dunlap added. One woman who works in pediatrics makes strong eye contact with the father and shared how "9/10 times he looks at the mom for an answer." Another creative example posted by @mzpettycrocker shared how she begins presentations: "Hello ladies and sons of ladies." Dunlap told Newsweek she was excited that the conversation around microfeminism was really taking off in the comments section. "There were some creative examples, from … listing wives first on wedding invites to asking kindergarten students what their dad cooked for dinner last night (and acting shocked if they say their mom cooked)," Dunlap said. "The power of microfeminism is that, once you name the expectation it's targeting, you start to break it down and you realize how ridiculous it is."

Wages for housework: If your job is working in the home, should you be paid a salary?
Wages for housework: If your job is working in the home, should you be paid a salary?

Irish Times

time25-05-2025

  • General
  • Irish Times

Wages for housework: If your job is working in the home, should you be paid a salary?

'If you are a stay-at-home mom, your husband should be paying you a salary.' That's the pitch made by financial influencer Tori Dunlap, aka @HerFirst100k, in a TikTok post. Filming from the driver's seat of her car, she ticks off the jobs most mothers do without pay: 'Chauffeur, chef, nanny, project manager for the house...' The replies roll in – some appreciative, most dismissive. 'Bills paid, food on the table, card in my wallet and time with my kids. I'm paid better than any full-time job,' writes Robi Cheaux. 'She's compensated with free meals, housing , clothes, car , trips,' says Michael Candeta. Others object to the transactional logic of a wage. 'If you are married and have to 'pay your wife', you aren't actually married,' Sean Brady argues. 'Feminism is when my husband is my employer,' writes Roseann Adu. The conversation turns to performance reviews, with one person writing: 'If she wants a night off from making dinner, submit a PTO request one week in advance.' What's surprising is not that the internet objects to a wage for housework, but that a decades-old debate still sparks outrage. READ MORE In the 1970s, the activist Silvia Federici published a manifesto as part of the Wages for Housework campaign. Demanding a wage made the work, which was almost exclusively done by women, visible in a new way. It also challenged the idea that certain tasks and burdens – childcare, homemaking, the mental load – were somehow 'natural' to women. Federici called her manifesto Wages Against Housework, switching out 'for' with 'against'. She was suggesting that the money itself isn't really what's at stake. She believed that demanding a wage brings it into a market where it can be seen as work and, more urgently, refused. If capitalism was an iceberg, the economist team JK Gibson Graham have argued, then waged labour is just the tip. Under the surface are countless acts that go unrecognised and unpaid, but which keep the system afloat. These include childcare, voluntary work and even the 'work' of the biosphere. We don't usually cost these types of work. Economists call these jobs 'externalities', or benefits the capitalist system reaps without paying. In an attempt to bring more of the iceberg to the surface, economists have recently calculated that the work of a stay-at-home parent is equivalent to a salary of $175,000 (€154,778) a year. Today, if you are sick, elderly or dying, the state hopes that you have a family member who can care for you Externalities have only grown since the 1970s campaign for wages; invisible work fills the gap between what neoliberalism promises and what it actually delivers. In her book Family Values, Melinda Cooper argues that state welfare systems increasingly rely on the family – not as a beneficiary, but as a backstop. Neoliberal reforms reimagined the family as the first and proper site of care, responsibility and moral reform. Take changes to child support, for example. In the 1960s, the American welfare system directed its resources not to poor mothers, but to identifying and pursuing biological fathers to compel financial contributions. The state didn't just demand care – it sketched the form it would take, defining who counts as a family. In this way, Cooper argues, 'welfare reform sought to remind women that an individual man, not the state, was ultimately responsible for their economic security'. Today, if you are sick, elderly or dying, the state hopes that you have a family member who can care for you. When you go to work and your wage won't cover childcare, the state hopes that your family will step in, in the shape of a partner who isn't working outside the home or a grandparent, or an aunt who works from her home as a childminder. Dunlap's insistence that a man should pay his wife a salary evokes the era of the 'family wage' – when a single income (normally paid to a man) could support an entire family. Today it's far more likely that both partners work outside the home, with (mostly) women taking on a second shift of unpaid care work after hours. The vitriol and eyerolling comes, I think, from the impossible demand such a claim makes As some replies to Dunlap's video suggest, a wage for housework isn't just about costing labour. If a partner pays their spouse a wage, the very nature of relationships change. If 'love' hides domestic work, then wages risk turning lovers into co-workers – or worse, employer and employee. [ What the rows over skorts and public toilets reveal about Irish attitudes to equality Opens in new window ] [ Marriage equality 10 years on: A boy sees us hold hands and says 'I f***ing hate gay people' Opens in new window ] We're not always comfortable costing externalities. Like a marriage with its own HR department, they risk putting a price on priceless things – like a mother's love for her child. In doing so, these things can be robbed of their real value. It's not about putting a price on love or family, though. It's about exposing the illusion that our care comes without a cost. So, what would it look like to cost care? Environmental economists propose a Pigouvian tax. Named after the economist Arthur C Pigou, it is levied at corporations to offset the harms they cause but don't usually pay for. Carbon credits are one example. Reparations for centuries of colonial extraction, ecological devastation and slavery in the Global South could be another. What if we flipped the model? What if we taxed the benefits that capitalism absorbs for free? I'm proposing an inverted Pigouvian tax: a levy on corporations and institutions that profit from the unpaid care work they don't provide. Revenue could be redistributed as a care wage, a universal basic income, or put into public services like childcare and elder care. Why is a wage for housework still so controversial in 2025? It doesn't only come down to sexism. The vitriol and eyerolling comes, I think, from the impossible demand such a claim makes. The reality is that capitalism needs unpaid work. If we brought all that work on to the ledger – if we counted every nurse suffering from burnout and every exhausted mother – the books wouldn't balance. The system would break.

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