Congress needs a hard-working woman
I have wanted to be a scientist since middle school, but knew I would have to work hard to achieve my dream. Despite having two hard-working parents, we had modest means and I knew I would have to pay my own way through college. My first job at 16 years old was as a diner counter girl. I applied around but without any work history, it was the only job I could get. Most of my customers were older men that would stop in for a coffee and biscuit, costing about $2. I earned one-two quarters tip per customer, hardly enough to pay for gas to get there, but I kept working because I needed a good recommendation to get another job later.
A few weeks in, an older waiter suggested I could make more if I flirted a little and wore tighter clothes. This made me extremely uncomfortable, but I was desperate to save up for college. It worked, my tips went up to $1 or so per customer, occasionally $5. Older men started coming in and requesting items off the bottom shelf just to have me get them. I hated it with every ounce of my being, but I told nobody because I was ashamed and it felt like my only option. I justified a college education was worth becoming essentially a 16-year-old sex worker.
I got that good recommendation and got better jobs after high school graduation working retail floors, stocking warehouses and working as a nanny. I paid my way through Haverford College and went on to get my Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. While my graduate adviser was respectful, my peers and I in our five-seven years of study dodged inappropriate touching and paternalistic comments from men with power over our careers. One friend who was sexually assaulted by her adviser suffered through two more years in silence to graduate so she would not lose years of work. Climbing the ladder does not exempt us from these abusive structures.
We could have used unions in these jobs, but repeatedly graduate student unionization fails due to tactics of law firms and the lawyers who support my opponent Mary Gay Scanlon. Unions are the backbone of the working class, but not all of us who have been working our whole lives have had the privilege of being represented by one. I will fight in Congress to protect unions and enact legislation to make it easier to form new unions. I understand how essential workers’ rights are to a thriving middle class and alleviating poverty.
I will fight for women’s equity, for which we have seen increased demand since Donald Trump’s election. The #MeToo movement is actually rooted in economic justice. When a woman is biased against, made uncomfortable or abused in the workplace, her economic prospects are limited. The #MeToo movement and the women whose lives have been affected are not a springboard from which the political establishment should be launching to greater power. The very foundation of the movement is to challenge patriarchal establishment structures.
The status quo has not been working; women’s issues in the workplace have been set to the side and we have no women in Pennsylvania’s federal delegation. Working class, union leader, lawyer or scientist – it is unfair to the 51 percent of women in this state to only be represented by men. It’s time to claim our seat for working women at the table. As I campaign through the 5th District, I hear a resounding chorus from women demanding representation. Lived experience, not just those of our family or friends, is crucial because it allows for a nuanced perspective and knowledge of the aspects of our lives we do not openly discuss.
This week wrote in the “Rich Lazer is the only candidate from Delaware County or Philadelphia who has the background and understanding of the issues that affect the working men and women of Delaware County in Congress.” While Rich has done some good work for unions, he has spent an entire career in a government office, and can never fully understand the systemic injustices faced by working women. I have a huge amount of respect for John Kane and the support he has given Democrats over the years, but asserting that Rich is the only candidate who can understand the working class is an attempt to silence the experiences of working women.
The only wear today John Kane white collar I is that of my lab coat. I am fortunate to no longer have to worry about running out of gas on my drive home, but I still carry those experiences with me. If you elect me as your next congressperson from the 5th Congressional District, I promise to fight for a $15 minimum wage for all workers with no exceptions, universal single-payer health care, strengthened workers rights, tightened and enforced workplace sexual harassment policies, and federal funding of our public schools, so our next generation will not have to suffer the same abuses as ours and those before us.