Women’s History Month Slideshow Part III: Women’s Work
As part of our Women’s History Month/International Women’s Day 100 Year Anniversary slideshow series, we wanted our third set of photographs to represent “Women’s Work” around the world. While it was difficult to pick just a few images, we finally decided to choose women who were shown entering jobs/roles traditionally seen as male, women raising families/working with children, and women working in sectors we often take for granted: sweatshop labor, migrant workers, farmworkers, vendors, etc.
Slideshow Series
Slideshow Part I: Women Around the World
Slideshow Part II: Fighters, Leaders & Survivors
Slideswhow Part III: Women’s Work
(Click here to view all images of this slideshow on the PhotEdit Inc. website. All images are available for licensing.)
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We wanted the selected photos to be a representation of the very real issues women face globally. So aside from having depictions of women breaking career boundaries, we felt it necessary that our slideshow also highlight that women in 2011 still face many challenges including the following: women make up 70 percent of the world’s people living in poverty; women comprise only 3% of CEOs among Fortune 500 companies; women globally own only 1% of the world’s assets; and women also typically spend twice the time men do taking care of children, shopping for the family, and doing household chores often working up to 16 hour days. These complex issues are in part due to the types of jobs, training, and education women have access to worldwide—our women’s work slideshow just barley scratches the surface of the issues women face in the world’s workforce.
Statistics aside, for PhotoEdit Inc. many of the issues depicted in the images we chose hit close to home. While of course none of these images are the exact story of our families, the idea conveyed behind them rings true for our staff considering that most of the PE staff comes from working class families, including staff in our management positions. As a kid I used to work alongside my mom and sisters seasonally making hosiery for Nordstrom’s and Frederick’s of Hollywood. Lingerie, wedding garters, sexy hosiery…that was us “making it” in Southern California for minimum wage. The rest of our staff, despite now having an education and a job where we can work behind desks, all have similar stories we can tell of our mothers trying to raise us either here or abroad. As such, we feel a personal tie to honoring the work of the women in these photos who represent our own struggles and larger global issues, and to thanking our photographers who provide accurate image representations that remind us of the gender work there is still left to do.
