Women, Self Esteem, and Economics

[callistra]

Yesterday I think I was premenstrual. Enough of that.



Hot damn, fuck fuck fuckety fuck, there's another Wild Women's Weekend coming up and I want to go! And there's a number of reasons why I can't. One: my baby is due. So her mother needs me underfoot to do the manly thing and faint during the birth like my dad did when I was born. Oops, no, he *almost* fainted, but just vomited instead. :-) And the other reason is because I don't have $400 stashed away anywhere handy right now.

I know it would be worth it. It's 2 nights accomodation, all your food, and two days of workshops with Lucy Cavendish again, which would retail at about $150 a day. I know it's worth it. And what sort of price can you put on spiritual growth? But quite simply, it all ties in with stuff Babalon and I have been discussing recently, and one of things that has come to our attention.

Women don't know how to price themselves.

Part of it is because we don't know what we're worth. I run Femmeconne and don't make any sort of money for myself or Babalon, but we've got to get paid somehow and while it's all very nice to enjoy the weekend and have warm glowy feelings, we live in a world were the $$ are important if we intend to get fed. But I don't know how much my effort and time is worth, and I have self doubts about how much people would want to come if I allocated money in the budget for the organizers to get paid. And if I went out on that limb to allocated a payment of any sorts, whether it's $20, $50, or $10 an hour for the number of hours worked, I worry that people would be upset at me for doing so.

Lucy knows her time is worth $150 for a day workshop. It's not hard stuff - the format for the WWW workshops is formats I have seen many times before, but with more time to go through what happens and with Lucy's knowledge and history and whatever behind it. She's come to the realisation that she is worth $150 for a dayworkshop, and she may have done what Sark has done (get professional help there, which sounds fantastic to Bablon and I, but again that needs money which frankly, we do not have. I just spent $3K on the hot water. I do not have any money left.) I'm scared to charge people for my own time, because I worry that other people will not think it's worth it. My rational brain says "You're an idiot. You know you're worth $100 for three days of fun plus overnight accomodation and organization and weeks of planning and stressing and ..." as a side note, you would not believe the number of qualifiers I kept putting in before that $100 there... maybe, perhaps, almost, around, they just kept appearing and I just kept deleting them and now I'm all worried you'll all yell at me for daring to say I deserve $100, which is NOT A LOT OF MONEY.

Babalon mentioned this in reference to Art. There are so many arty and creative people who read my blog and are good friends of mine, and yet I would bet that mythical $100 that they have no idea how to price their own work. They're scared to even put a dollar value on it. I'm always terrified at the Swancon art shows - what if no one bought your art, because it was overpriced? What if someone bought your art because it's underpriced? What part of your heart are you underselling? Overselling? Giving away? The yawning fear of being rejected (not bought) against the screaming fear of being critiqued (it's amateurish but cheap) versus the need to buy more paint to make the next piece? Or even just to eat?

Is this a reflection of how the world devalues that which does not produce? Art produces warm glowy feelings (or harsh uncomfortable ones, depending on your artist) and therefore is either insanely expensive, or else is insanely cheap? Women like to do the community building thing, which is intangible? A bunch of people sitting around feeling good about themselves and working towards a better future for every one is... value-less?

Back on track now... Femmeconne this year is already going to be a little bit more expensive, because we have more planned. Some of the activities we want to do require hire of equipment and qualified instructors, and we have some very exciting things we're considering too which may cost less, but might also involve paying someone for their time.

I feel guilty too in that if *I* want to be paid, why shouldn't every one who helps out *also* get paid? If Babalon and I get paid, what about the volunteers? The ladies who help cook, lead yoga, run their own groups, do their own workshops within the femmeconne frame work... What about them? Not only am I charging them to come along, but then I'm using their work too to make things a more interesting weekend.

But by the same token, it is the people and what they put into Femmeconne that makes it awesome. If we paid every one who came for their time, we'd also have to charge $400 for the weekend, and I'd still only get the $100.

So I feel like I'm utilizing an already underpaid and shy-of-asking-for-payment group in a manner reminiscent of our evil overlords. Am I struggling to not become a sign of the system? How can I do the things I love, and get payment, and could it bypass the $$? Is there a system I can find which would do this?

I have talked to a few people who are also women offering intangible services, and they never know how much to charge. In our heart of hearts we don't think we are worth it. We feel like a sham, a fraud, an imposter, when we say "I do this. I want to get paid." I want to teach women the things I have learnt. I am worth being paid for this. But I still feel the same. What can I say I could teach women? How to be themselves. To stop aiming for perfection and be happy with "it'll do." To use a goddamned timer. To be happy with their size, weight, height, hair colour, and appearance. To spot when people are using cultural and societal lies against them. How to use the cultural and societal lies for their own gain. To be happy in themselves. To add beauty to their lives. To think outside the plate. To think inside the plate. To work magic. To do the impossible. To feel the impossible. To be women. To love women. To accept life and yet still want to make it a better place. To meditate. To accept their bodies, and role of their womb in their every day lives. To feel the workings of their body and be as amazed as I am. To be included despite various difficulties. To know we care. To break down imagined walls.

I need money for more training. There's knowledge out there I think I need which would augment what I already know, and increase the knowledge I can give out to other people. But, as per so many other women, I don't know what I am worth, and I don't know how to price it. But neither does any one else. I've had some crazy wild experiences which cost me $15 for three hours. That's $5 an hour for a spiritual journey of which I am *still* feeling the results of three months later. That's half or even a quarter of the price of a movie which I would probably forget half of on the way home. I told her she undercharged, and again there was that yawning feeling of "I'm not worth it." I could see it when she looked away. She could have doubled the price, and still had every one think she was underpriced. She should have charged four times the price at least. And even if there were ten people, (which there wasn't) $600 is not enough money to cover the time and training and preparation and stress and work that went into the event. The event itself probably took three hours. It took a second person all day to tend various things.

The economies of real life mean that we need to get money somehow. Women don't think what they do is worth being paid for. Sark has overcome this hurdle. Lucy Cavendish has overcome this hurdle. Somehow, Babalon and I need to overcome this hurdle. I will always have special memberships for Femmeconne which will allow financially disadvantaged women to attend, because the aim is to help people more than it is to provide me with an income. Which it doesn't anyway. I'm not going to change the way Femmeconne is budgeted. I still want other people to take over Femmeconne in time. If no one wants to, by the same token, I/we will keep doing it until the work outweighs the pay (emotionally speaking.) I am looking to other ways to generate enough income to keep us doing Femmeconne on a volunteer basis. And soon, I need to find $500 so I can make the next booking. I'm excited already! It's going to be more awesome that last year! *grin*

Um, put it in your calendars, 21st, 22nd, 23rd of September.
:-)

Comments

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

Marked in my calendar:-)

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I'd be absolutely happy to pay more, particularly if it involves being somewhere without millipedes as well.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

eta: the only issue I could see with charging for your time (not a problem, just something to think about) is that this could turn it into a "business", for paperwork and tax purposes (or, I suppose, a non-profit endeavour with employees/contractors).

[callistra.livejournal.com]

I am happy to pay tax if I am being paid. I have an ABN and do BAS quarterly already, so that's OK with me.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

I'm working on the millipede thing, but Bickley is just so good for so many other reasons.

I wonder how we can fix it for a weekend. There's got to be a way! I am researching other places as we speak, in fact (plus I am drunk). If you have any places you'd like me to check out, please put them forward.
:-)

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can survive the millipedes. Just wanted to have a whinge.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Oh good.
:-)
I was thinking about it last night, maybe we could have a big sweep out on the first night, and then spray an outdoor bug killer or something around the outside of the cottages. I don't know if that is effective though.

[meljane.livejournal.com]

Baby ? what baby ?, I'm confused?!

Did I miss something?

[splanky.livejournal.com]

My baby!

[meljane.livejournal.com]

But she said her baby , that why I was confused .

[callistra.livejournal.com]

It is my baby. It was a very passionate letter I sent to london, and we're eagerly awaiting the results.

[redbraids.livejournal.com]

I think that you are ABSOLUTELY right to charge for your time for running femmecon, and that the amount you specified is not high. I look at it in the way that if you and Babylon had not decided to run it then it would not have exisited and gone forward, therefore you effort is pivitol. For people helpiong out in the kitcvhen etc that you mention, that is more of a helping hand thing.

For the pricing question, this comes up often on the historical costuming groups I am on. Often the feeling is that it should be equivalent to at the minimum a basic hourly wage for something that only takes the time specified (i.e. an hour pay for an hour work), Then higher for more detailed work. Or in this case higher for lecturing/presenting it needs to include the time for prep work etc. For example, when I lecture at uni the hourly rate may seem high, but then it usually takes about a day to prepare each hour of lecture, plus followup up, hence the higher 'hourly' rate for the one hour of actual talking. On top of this you need to add in materials costs, plus people will often mark things up as to 'what the traffic can afford'.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Last femmecon, did the you and Babalon pay for your own accodomation, or was it factored into the attendance price?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

We paid the same as every one else.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Have you considered factoring in the cost of Babalon and your accomodation into the attendence price?

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

I see no need for gender-specificity: Most people don't know how to price themselves.

Beyond that, there's the question of whether and when we should try. Many of the things I enjoy are not commercially viable. Any fan-run sf convention would collapse if it attempted to pay the organisers what they are commercially worth. (At a rough guess, I'd put the commercial value of labour that goes into a Worldcon at around $5M.) The economic reality is that you're worth what people are willing to pay and, for a given activity, it may not be sufficient to run that activity. At that point, you have to simply accept that there's stuff we do to make money and stuff we do that we'll never make money from. (I prefer there not to be much of a crossover, just so that I don't have the voice in my head saying "if I were doing this for work, I'd be getting $X". That's why I've thought of buying this (http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/frustrations/388b/).)

Another route to take might be to investigate other funding options. If what you're doing has value to the community, but is too expensive for the participants themselves, there might be other ways to obtain funds, such as government grants or commercial sponsorship.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, I would argue gender specific because:

a) I am not a man and do not know how men feel, and do not feel qualified to speak for men, and

b) I only hear this sort of thing from women. If men in the same position have the same concerns, they haven't come up in conversation with me yet.

Yeah, we're looking at the grants thing but it's hard to start wading through the almost not quite right grants. But I am still reading.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

A couple of hours ago, I read the following in an LJ post by a guy called Jeff (and the bolding is his):

"One of the things that I learned while on a recruiting stint for the Navy is that most people will never understand their true value much less reach their earnings potential...because most people are too afraid to ask."

I guess that with motherhood and your attention to women's issues, you are vastly more likely to discuss it with women. Also, women with babies are probably more likely to do things which are harder to value, rather than full-time work which has a set value stamped on it by the employer.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

That's what pisses me off about housework. That work isn't valued, money wise or otherwise.

If I ever gave my husband a bill for what I do around here (and work full time when school is in), he'd never be able to afford me.

[babalon-93.livejournal.com]

but what about the men! don't forget the men, god forbid we forget about those poor also oppressed men! ;)

but in all seriousness I do think this issue has special significance for women as a group. While there are individual men who suffer from this lack of financial self-confidence, and equally there are many individual women who don't, women over all are more likely to have a problem in this area just as activities that are considered women's activities are more likely to br underpaid or not paid at all.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

By all means say it has a special significance for women. I just said much the same thing. However, when someone launches into "women don't know X" then the statement "people don't know X" is also true, it seems somewhat gratuitous. Working out what any part of our lives is "worth" -- our time, our possessions if we sell them on ebay, our investments -- is hard.

It has more significance for those who are trying to do something which is not "mainstream" and, for younger people, that's probably more likely to be women. However, as people get old and retire, similar situations arise to the one above. My dad, once he'd been retired, wanted to keep working part-time and thought the area of retirement planning was sorely lacking in the community. Some companies provide financial advice for retirees, but little was ever said about non-economic aspects of the sudden lack of work. He could volunteer at the RSL, but would anyone pay to be educated about it? He ended up finding an actuarial company which gave financial retirement seminars and found the idea of having more general retirement seminars as well appealing, but it took a while.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

I don't know that worth can always be measured in monetary terms.

I get what I think is reasonably well paid for what I do in my paid job. But I also choose to do volunteer stuff. I volunteer to do the star tours up at the Perth observatory because astronomy is something I love. I used to volunteer at Scitech (before the PhD sucked up my time) for similar reasons.

And while I do not receive money in exchange for my time, I am appreciated, I get the joy of sharing my love of the night sky with others, and the sheer kick that hearing someone go 'Wow!' as they see Saturn or a globular cluster for real gives me.
Oh yeah and I get to play with telescopes I couldn't justify buying for myself. (And a discount on some fun things at the little store there)

There are many things that people do for fun, and for the socialising and sense of community, that the organisers do not get paid for (sometimes an honorarium) simply because it would not be possible to do as a business on so small a scale. Usually there is rotation among the organisers so that burnout doesn't happen.

If it's something you chose to do knowing full well there would be no monetary incentive then fine. Usually you have other reasons why this is important to you.

But if you get asked to do things that you aren't passionate about or that would prevent you spending time earning enough for the things you need, with no/little recompense, then I agree we have to learn to say 'no'.

[livelurker.livejournal.com]

I think most people (regardless of gender) don't know the worth of their time, usually because they don't realise how limited it is.

Charging for events leaves you more open to the hassles of "But I paid this much money, I expect x" sort of thing, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Also the problem of who gets paid what. Sometimes it's easier to rely on the "We all paid the same to be here" argument.

"Professional" conferences and training charge anywhere between $500-$2000 depending on various factors. Perhaps combine some well defined paid sessions before or after the gathering proper. That way those who want to pay for those can do so. It's also pretty obvious who should get paid for those.

Whichever way you do it, people will whinge :)

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

You've said so much here, and I'm still thinking about it.