A National Crisis for Women (with Hope): An Interview with June Sugiyama

The pandemic, economic uncertainty, and continued systemic racism and gender oppression, have exacerbated negative outcomes for women across the United States, particularly those least represented and least resourced. The numbers are staggering - in December 2020, almost all job losses were Black and Latina women. We've lost over 40 football stadiums of women from the workforce. It's a national crisis.

We’re at risk of decades of setbacks for women. And what’s often missing from the conversation is the emotional impact. We know the economic indicators are profound as women leave the workforce. The impact on mental health is equally devastating and long lasting.

But there is hope. There is momentum on many levels.

At Empower Work, we see the positive impact both emotionally and economically when women have a supportive resource that combines practical information, coaching, and emotional support. Last year, as we saw record numbers of people utilizing our free, confidential text line for work issues - worried about losing their jobs, not getting time off to care for family members who were sick with COVID, scared by the lack of protective gear in their workplace, and so much more, we also saw profound change. Over 91.5% of those who connected with one of our trained peer counselors reported improved mental health and weeks later, shared that they were more secure economically.

As we tackle the long term and deeply embedded systemic challenges facing our economic recovery, the pandemic, and racial and gender disparities, immediate, and interim, resources are critical such as accessible mental health care, new paid leave programs, extended unemployment benefits, and child tax credits.

Our work over the past year has been supported by Vodafone Americas Foundation. They’re leading the charge on empowering women and girls through technology. Thanks to their support, Empower Work rose to meet the needs of 2020 as this crisis began to unfold, reaching thousands of vulnerable women and learning key insights from a new data dashboard that the foundation’s support helped us invest in.

We’ll be sharing new learnings from this past year and early part of 2021 on ways we can continue to invest in and support women in a special event March 23rd.

As we gear up for the event, I sat down with June Sugiyama, Director of Vodafone Americas Foundation, to chat about trends she’s seeing across the larger space, and why this work is more important than ever.

June, thanks so much for taking the time. To start, you’ve been leading the way for women across your career and have been dedicated to seeing positive change for women through technology. I’m curious, what are the biggest challenges you’ve seen for working women over the past year that may not have been covered more widely in the headlines?

I think organizations like Empower Work have been diligent about amplifying the data about women in the workforce - that there are unprecedented numbers of women in the workforce but they seem to be the first line of defense or the sacrificial lambs when a crisis happens. During a crisis like COVID, women are the ones who have to make the difficult decision between work and family, or perhaps, work and family or self care.

When it comes to tech, there are unprecedented data about the number of women who enter the sector but soon leave, plus the dismal number of women in leadership, and even worse are the number of female entrepreneurs who receive funding, which currently floats around 4%.

For these reasons and more, what is not in the headlines is during this crisis, women are under incredible stress whether they lose their jobs or keep their jobs. If losing her job is not stressful enough, she must continue to deal with her rent, food and healthcare, and her stress layer is impacted as you add status like single motherhood, multiple children, or eldercare. On the other hand, if a woman has kept her job, she is having to juggle work and childcare, eldercare or more.

We see that technology in developing countries has made incredible advances in health, education, banking and even safety, but here, technology is lagging when it comes to social impact and it can’t be the end all be all. This is where the technology sector has to fix itself and I see that as one of the biggest challenges.

What approaches or interventions have you seen making some of the biggest impacts?

For one, I think the nonprofit sector has been hard at work and ahead of the game when it comes to helping women in the workforce. Not to keep on touting Empower Work, but your platform allows people the first step to talk to someone to get help. Other nonprofits like FastForward, provide entrepreneurs advice, mentors, and funding to advance their work. WorldPulse and Atma Connect both provide women voices, opportunities to collaborate and help each other. Although most of these organizations are available to both men and women, I think women are getting help and making advances through them.

What’s inspiring you right now as we look ahead at what will likely be a challenging next few years to support women thriving economically, emotionally, and beyond?

There’s a lot going on right now, #MeToo, #Black Lives Matter, #StopAsianHate, all happening alongside COVID. I believe young people, precisely young women, are leading the charge for change. I’ve been to coalitions, meet-ups, panels and protests, and what inspires me the most is that young women are front and center, making things happen. I’m encouraged that they are well informed, speaking up, and ready to lead. We have a long way to go before everyone is healthy and back on their feet, but I feel the coalitions being built, voices being raised and heard, and actions taken by young people will create the change we need.

When we see the headlines, it can feel overwhelming. There is so much happening at a systemic level that can feel hard to see a place to make change. I’ve been inspired by your engagement of employees in giving back and your vocal advocacy for women and girls. What are ways you see that businesses, communities, or individuals could help contribute right now to improving the lives of women today, tomorrow, and in the future?

That is a very important question, because change can be driven by companies and businesses as well as individuals. I believe there are several things that can be done!

Many companies have been making statements about change but there should be action behind their words. Our CEOs from Vodafone have made public commitments to help increase the number of women in the technology sector, increase the number of women in leadership within our own company, and help educate women using our technology and we’ve already started to advance all of them.
Provide opportunities for employees to not only donate money, but become aware and be engaged. We offer two ways for employees to contribute, through Kiva and through our own contributions matching platform. However, Kiva not only provides the mode to contribute but they also inform. Through their platform, our employees are able to learn about people in all corners of the world and what they are doing to make their lives better.
We’ve noticed that many of the nonprofit organizations have become very savvy by providing opportunities for employees to volunteer, be mentors, panelists, reviewers and even board members. This is a win-win for both the organizations and the employees. The organizations receive the help they need while the employees learn more about their community and become engaged.

Thank you so much June for sharing these insights and actions! I look forward to delving into these and more stories, data, and actions with our Board Members Emily Kramer, Angela Scott and partners Annie Sartor from PL+US and Autumn McDonald from New America during our March 23rd digital event.