Jessica Calarco

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Kelly Kendall Studios

A close-up of Jessica Calarco.

Jessica Calarco

media release: Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net chronicles the devastating consequences of our DIY society and traces its root causes by drawing together historical, media, and policy analyses and five years of Calarco’s original research. With surveys of 4,000 parents and more than 400 hours of interviews across the socioeconomic, racial, and political spectrum, Calarco illustrates how women have been forced to bear the brunt of our broken system and why no one seems to care.

Despite their effort, women constantly feel guilty for not doing more, and Calarco poignantly shows us how the US weaponizes that guilt and gaslights women into believing that they don’t deserve help. Yet women's labor is the reason we've been getting by without a comprehensive public safety net, while maintaining the illusion that we don't need one.

Weaving together eye-opening research and a revelatory sociological narrative, Holding It Together is a bold call to demand the institutional change that each of us deserves, and a warning about the perils of living without it.

Presented in partnership with Wisconsin Public Radio, and in conversation with WPR "Wisconsin Today" host, Kate Archer Kent.