What Is Infrastructure? It's A Gender Issue, For Starters
One recent tweet from New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — along with its reams of snarky responses — sums up a key divide over infrastructure in Washington right now.
"Paid leave is infrastructure. Child care is infrastructure. Caregiving is infrastructure," she wrote.
This prompted a wave of backlash, particularly from conservatives — writer Christina Sommers posted a photo of (presumably) her dog and the words, "Izzy is infrastructure." "Ranch dressing is infrastructure," quipped the Daily Wire. And on and on and on.
Spoiler: Washington won't reach consensus over what "infrastructure" means. But Gillibrand's tweet gets at a different facet of that conversation: that infrastructure is a gender issue. And that idea is particularly important as the president pitches his plan as a salve for the pandemic-battered economy in which women, particularly women of color, have been left further behind.
Past infrastructure jobs have been men's jobs
The $2 trillion American Jobs Plan includes more than $600 billion that would go towards things that have historically often been touted as infrastructure, like roads and bridges, though it also includes money for elder care and upgrading childcare facilities.
And there has been a definite gender imbalance in those infrastructure jobs.
"If we were to look at the traditional definition of infrastructure, which includes construction jobs and production occupations and some installation and repair, those tend to be traditionally male," said Nicole Smith, Chief Economist at Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce.
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In fact, around 9 in 10 "traditional" infrastructure jobs have historically gone to men, according to a recent report that Smith co-authored.
Biden's plan does offset that somewhat, for example with the care-economy spending.
