Reshma Saujani's Book: Pay Up (Or Go Home)

“Motherhood in America is broken, and we need a plan to fix it,” Saujani said in a statement Wednesday. “I wrote ‘Pay Up’ because mothers are tired of being America’s social safety net and working for free. And we know that equity in the workplace will only be accomplished when there is equity at home. I want women to see themselves and their worth in this book and it provides a guidepost on what we can do to bring about change on a structural, cultural and personal level.”

Deep in the archives of this blog are several months of blog posts from when I volunteered for Reshma Saujani's campaign for Congress on the Upper East Side, and Astoria. She has impressive political instincts, not to say amazing intellect. To me it felt like a product launch before the market was ready. Gender is not a statement on Reshma Saujani, it is a statement on the rest of us, particularly men. I am very selective about who I volunteer for. For example, right now my focus is on this dude in Nepal who has never held any office but who I think is going to pull a Macron in Nepal. Dr. CK Raut. When America is trying its best to become South Africa, I think Nepal where I grew up and which has been seeing revolutionary fervor since 2006 just might give the world its most cutting edge democracy.

At the election returns party, when it became obvious she had lost, Reshma Saujani's then fiance Nihal approached me. To console him I said, Bill Clinton lost his first election for Congress, so did Barack Obama. To console me he told me how many times Lincoln had lost!

Might I suggest, a Marshall Plan for women can only be global. There is no other way for it to succeed.

Earlier this year, Saujani placed an advertisement in The New York Times, with co-signers including the actors Julianne Moore and Charlize Theron, urging President Joe Biden to pass a “Marshall Plan for Moms” that called for mothers to receive $2,400 monthly checks for unpaid labor at home. For her book, Saujani interviewed hundreds of women, and also shares her story of “waking up to the notion that overwork is a path to burnout, unhappiness, and rage,” according to One Signal.

Go big or go home!