Valuing Domestic Work in (Post) COVID-19 Times | Carlotta Gradin, Maïmonatou Mar and Shani Orgad

The Covid-19 has thrown into sharp relief, just how vital the work of ‘key workers’ or ‘essential workers’ is for our lives and survival. Among those workers are domestic workers, who are disproportionately female migrants and women of color. These workers, who have long been underpaid, overworked, and under-resourced, have suddenly become visible and seen as essential. What narratives about domestic workers have circulated during the Covid-19 pandemic? What can we learn from them to maintain and foster the visibility, recognition, and valuation of domestic workers after the pandemic? How can we change the narrative about domestic work to support and value the 68 million workers worldwide? And how can new stories about domestic work be mobilized to garner public and political support? The panel brings Dr. Maïmonatou Mar (Gribouilli, France) and Shani Orgad, Professor of Media and Communications at the LSE, to share their reflections on these questions and discuss the importance of changing the narrative about domestic work.

SPEAKERS

Carlotta Gradin is the Vice President of Advocacy for UN Women France. She holds a Master in International Administration from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and is also a graduate of Sciences Po Strasbourg. Currently, she pursues a thesis on the European and International legal framework for the prevention and the penalty of cyberviolence at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas. Carlotta is a legal expert, researcher, and lecturer on legal issues regarding human rights, gender equality, and discrimination. She worked for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome and the High Council for Gender Equality in Paris. 

Maïmonatou Mar, Ph.D., is the co-founder of Gribouilli, the French social venture empowering domestic workers. Gribouilli launched the first community for nannies in Paris. They are key workers but invisible: mainly middle-aged women with migration backgrounds who suffered from isolation and the digital divide. Nearly a thousand nannies benefit from information, P2P learning, basic learning, and soft skills class for their economic inclusion and decent work access. Gribouilli offers leadership programs through an Ambassador program for nannies. Ambassadors of Gribouilli, therefore, collaborate with public-private partners to improve public policies. They also develop a coop with more inclusive and accessible commercial services to the benefit of the families. Gribouilli is a 3yr multi-award winning organization (Prizes from Paris City, the Foundations JL Lagardère and Deloitte...). Maïmonatou is an A. de Rothschild Fellow, CXC/Ashoka Fellow, and a 2020 Paris Talent.

Professor Shani Orgad is a Professor of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research and teaching focus on media representations, gender, care, and inequality. She is the author of numerous articles and four books, including her most recent book, Heading Home: Motherhood, Work and the Failed Promise of Equality (2019, Columbia University Press), which examines the stark gap between the promise of gender equality and women’s experience of continued injustice. Orgad has won numerous awards, including the 2019 LSE Teaching Excellence Prize, the Sociological Research Online SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence (with Rosalind Gill), the 2018 LSE Excellence in Education award, and the LSE Innovator Award. Orgad is the Director of the social sciences program of the Ariane de Rothschild Fellowship.