"Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women." When sociologist Jessica Calarco said that in an interview for Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study newsletter in November of 2020, it struck a nerve in a country still staggering under the weight of COVID.
Calarco was discussing her research on inequalities in family life and education, which had resulted in two papers on the impact of the pandemic. She concluded that event hadn’t actually created new problems, but rather intensified existing ones. That quote became the interview’s headline, was referenced by dozens of news outlets, and widely tweeted before editor Leah Trouwborst asked Calarco to turn her research into a book. The result is “Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net,” which personalizes her research through vivid individual examples and places it in a broader historical and comparative context.
