Well, I finally cried.

During the first months of the pandemic, I had daily headaches; I had weekly migraines. I had insomnia (of course). And at one point, I swear I thought I was losing my hair.

But I didn’t cry.

Then I watched “Lenox Hill,” the documentary on Netflix. It follows a handful of medical professionals; two of the main characters are brain surgeons, both white men.

But it’s the women who reeled me in. A Latinx doctor in the ER, with her humanity and kindness and respect for the lost souls who come in night after night. And the obstetrics resident, a Black woman, with her humanity to the women and families having babies.

As I write this, I recognize the tropes of the show, with white men performing the complex surgeries and women performing more of the care work, even when they are all doctors. I also recognize that this lays bare what our society has valued — and compensated — more: brain surgery over human connection. (“It’s not brain surgery” was only second to “It’s not rocket science” as a put-down for someone who missed a fairly obvious point during my days on Wall Street. Nobody ever said “It’s not the tough, emotionally draining, super-important care work.”)

The documentary was filmed mostly in 2019. So I watched those people with a sense of dread for what was coming: That in 2020 they have become our “essential workers.” Like so many other women — because women make up a greater percentage of essential workers — they are putting their lives at risk during the pandemic.

In fact, the final episode jumps to the spring and early summer of 2020, and the pandemic. And, at the end of that final show, the civil rights protests.

One of the final shots of the documentary shows medical workers, kneeling as the racial justice protesters march by, holding a sign that says “You clap for us. We kneel for you.”

That.

I burst into tears. The next day I told my daughter about that sign and I cried again. And even writing this, I can feel myself welling up.

That kindness, that humanity, the under-appreciated and underrepresented supporting each other: clapping for each other, kneeling for each other. The tough, emotionally draining, super-important care work.

This unseen, often-unappreciated work of care is work that so many women do every day, and that they are tripling down on during the pandemic. It includes the unpaid work of caring for families or doing the “housework” at work.

It inevitably leads to the question of what we as a society value, both prior to the pandemic and today.

We recently surveyed subscribers to this newsletter. Perhaps not unexpectedly, you feel that we need change from our government and in our companies. You see that women are taking a greater hit to their finances in the pandemic. You are focusing on your financial health, and you want to build a stronger financial foundation coming out of this. To get there, you’re cutting expenses wherever you can.

But you are also — get this — increasing your charitable giving.

What’s the way forward?

Well, as the saying goes, it’s not brain surgery. It’s recognizing that we all have to take care of ourselves — we’ve seen how our government, our healthcare systems, our workplaces, and other institutions can fail us.

It’s also seeing that we’re better off if we take care of each other — and we’re even better off if we more fully value those who provide that care.

Give. Care. Save. Vote. Invest.

Disclosures