Does anyone else go to work sick?
Which Side Are You On? Activists Launch "Women for Paid Sick Days" Campaign to Press Mayoral Candidate Christine Quinn
http://www.alternet.org/story/156391/which_side_are_you_on_activists_launch_%22women_for_paid_sick_days%22_campaign_to_press_mayoral_candidate_christine_quinn/
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Women Working Sick
“Nearly 1 million New Yorkers don't get paid sick days—most are women working in low-wage service jobs like waitresses, retail clerks, day care providers and home care workers,” Maria Castaneda, Secretary-Treasurer of 1199 SEIU-UHE told the crowd. “For those women, unexpected illness or a child's doctor visit can cost a day's pay or even their jobs.”
According to a report by the Community Service Society, more than half of workers who handle food as part of their jobs, and 43 percent of those in close contact with children or the elderly don't get paid sick leave, meaning that when they work sick, they put others at risk as well. Marjorie Hill, CEO of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, pointed out that people with HIV are at increased risk of contracting illness from those around them, and are more likely to face serious consequences as a result, making paid sick days a priority for her organization, and a public health issue that should be of concern to all.
Ai Elo, a restaurant worker with the Restaurant Opportunities Center, works to support her two younger siblings, of whom she has primary custody. She pulled extra shifts to make enough money, but soon began to have knee and back problems. “My knees got so bad that I collapsed at work one day while serving a customer. Even then, my boss forbade me from going home until the end of my shift,” she said. “But as many women workers know, whether they are mothers or like me whether it's because they have primary custody over siblings or other relatives, putting your own health at risk is one thing but putting the health of loved ones at risk is a different story.” When a family emergency came up, Elo had to choose family over her job and stayed home, knowing it would cost her.
And yet paid sick days would actually save money for the city. The Institute for Women's Policy Research estimates that workers without paid leave don't see doctors as quickly as they should and wind up more dependent on emergency rooms. If New York City workers got paid sick days, they estimate, nearly 50,000 emergency room visits would be prevented, reducing health care costs by nearly $40 million.
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I know I have, although fortunately it hasn't ended me up in the ER.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I've gone in with fever and the flu, but Pneumonia! Holy cow. I'm glad you're alive! It's sick that you'd have to worry about being fired over a life-threatening condition. 
She ended up in the hospital and was out of work for six weeks after diagnosed with pneumonia.
You are so fortunate to have recovered. Please don't push yourself so hard in the future. Take care! 
and I think it would be seriously awful to have to go to work sick.
felt the need to go to work sick as a dog, I "get it".
I always had my parents, who, though by no means "well off"
did live in a modest little house I could stay at if things got
really tough, so I suppose my situation wasn't as "dire",
as those of some others. 
None of this means I'm indifferent to the need for sick leave..Having
to go to work when you are as sick as you've describe is criminal, in my view
Sick leave should be mandatory.
but how many MEN do you know who fit this description?
I know of NONE, but I know of a few women who fit it...
No offense, but I think women are sometimes their own worst enemies...One of the
things women do more than men, for instance, is neglect to delegate...They can
be dutiful little control freaks, always "self-sacrificing" for...Oh hell, I don't
KNOW what for....bragging rights?
Love the "man flu" site, btw! 
with dependent children to care for at home.
So, please, tell me, which child would you have delegated the task of earning the money to pay our rent to -- my 11 yr old, or my 12 yr old? Tough call, I know; but the thing is, somebody's gotta do it, and the kid's lemonade stand went deep into the red during the recession
. And it's *sigh* just so hard for us single working parents to find good servant help to delegate tasks to these days. Everyone at the Club has been talking about it. Why, poor Anne Romney has been just absolutely livid over it! (Zorra bats her eyes, flutters her fan, pretends she is "getting the vapors"
Sooo,....I guess that leaves us the dutiful little control freak mom who is working 17/7 plus taking care of her children the best way she knows how, and for what reason?
For "bragging rights"?
"Bragging rights"?? Are. You. Kidding. Me. ?
Or could it possibly have been self sacrificing out of, oh...I don't know...love for her children?
And since when has disgustingly reliable and responsible become "control freak"?
Control is what passive-aggressive people attempt to assert when they don't show up, or show up late, in order to give themselves some pathetic sense of superiority, power, and control over others by making their lives uncomfortable. That'll teach 'em.
Another annoying trait single working parents develop, besides being reliable and responsible, is to be unnervingly direct when confronted with bullshit (especially those single parent feminists, when they are confronted with examples of institutionalized, enculturated sexism)...and, darn, I just can't seem to break this annoying habit, either -
So...in this vein...there is also this in your post, btw:
[font color="red" size="size" face="face"]SEXISM:
Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.[/font]
Your post is, unfortunately, sexist.
One of the
things women do more than men, for instance, is neglect to delegate...They can
be dutiful little control freaks, always "self-sacrificing" for...Oh hell, I don't
KNOW what for....bragging rights?
Seriously? Are. You. Kidding. Me. ?
Sexism, exactly as defined, non?
If I wasn't such a dainty, delicate little lady, I'd totally tell you, bless your heart,
to stick your sexist post where the sun don't shine; but I won't, because it's simply not ladylike, and my delicate female constitution simply can't bear the rudeness of it.
And yes, it's very true; I really do stress hard over possibly not being able to honor my word. Not honoring my word fills me with unrelenting remorse, (because, like soooo many other women, I share the inherent stereotypical female characteristic
of being a "dutiful little control freak" 
. It's really annoying to me, sometimes.
But the people on the other end of those commitments always seem to appreciate it; is this where the "bragging rights" thing comes in?
I'm not going to alert on your sexist post, and I make no apologies for being direct and honest. I've already experienced enough unconscious institutionalized sexism (and homophobia and racism)) to last me the rest of my life, and I'm never, ever going to be obeisantly silent when I encounter it.
I got over apologizing in the face of sexism (and homophobia and racism) a long time ago, when I was working 2 gigs with mouths to feed, along with everything that comes with that territory.
Now, you can get angry at me for this seemingly harsh post, or you can run with it, and make an effort to reassess your worldview of women. A lot of men (and more than a few women) don't understand the profound unconscious effect on their belief systems that the institutionalized misogyny inherent within this patriarchal system instills in them.
Think about it.
Please.
On edit: I suspect that the men who fit "that description" are, or have been, single working parents.
talking about "delegating" housework? .
What I WAS talking about, in fact, was women who work outside
the home who, in those postions, are in a position to
to delegate to adults under their supervision.
As far as this being "anti-feminist", give me a break --It's hardly a
moral failing, for God's sake and there's probably a sociological
reason for it, but the tendency has been observed and commented
upon by women themselves, most of them "feminists"...My own
sister has this tendency in her job and she is actually quite successful,
she just needlessly overworks herself
Too bad you leaped to conclusions, as it makes the above rant,
with all it's accusations about my supposed "sexism"
not only off-point, but almost laughable...I belong to
the History of Feminism group and anyone even REMOTELY familiar
with me, knows me to be one of THE most outspoken
feminists on this board.
It's just that when I see a post where women are referred to in the context of the stereotypically female category of "dutiful little control freak...self sacrificing...for bragging rights" and who "neglect to delegate, like men delegate", I guess my sexism auto-immune response goes into overdrive. I see "working guy who sits on couch and drinks beer and watches TV while working woman comes home and does everything else and man can't understand why woman is consistently resentful about this and tries to explain why, and has repeatedly tried to delegate minimal domestic work, and guy says "hey I do things around here, I took out the garbage yesterday, so what's your problem? You're trying to control me!" syndrome.
As a woman with two children who has managed a household and been the executive administrator of two small successful, but not overly lucrative, businesses at the same time, one a non-profit, the other self-owned, and then later in life a manager of another non-profit as well, I have a tendency to totally resent the stereotypical "control freak female" label. You simply do what needs to be done, because it needs to get done, and you are ultimately singly responsible for the work getting done, so if someone else can't, or won't, do it, you do it yourself, even if you are ill, because (sometimes helpless) people are depending on you to get it done.
I've had to deal with more than a few men on staff who resented my position of authority because I was female, and who would childishly try to impede my efforts, and I'm sure that I have been labeled as a "control freak" by men both in my home and male staff members as well. (I do not believe that any of the women who worked or lived with me ever considered me a "dutiful little control freak self sacrificing for bragging rights". The younger brother (in his mid 20's) of one of my LTR partners who rented a room in our home actually had the audacity to say to me "Who appointed you God?" after I politely explained to him, while he was finishing scrubbing the cooking surfaces off of my expensive non-stick cookware with a metal scrubber, that doing so would ruin the cooking surfaces, and that that I would appreciate it if he cleaned up his own messes in the house. etc.
Soooo, from experience, I learned that, by only hiring women whenever possible, I no longer had these types of problems, maybe because we has all learned how to be dutiful little self sacrificing control freaks I suppose; anyway, under those circumstances, all the women simply did their job without hitting on each other, or trying to sabotage me, freeing me up to relax because I no longer had to monitor staff, and could concentrate on my primary work, allowing me to vacate my position of Chief Dutiful Little Control Freak Who Self Sacrifices Because The Reality Of The Situation Is That A Deadline Is Looming And She Needs To Complete Work That Failed To Get Done By Petulant, Disrespectful Staff
My children absolutely considered me a "dutiful little self-sacrificing control freak" when they were teenagers. Now that they are grown up, married, one with two children, neither of them even remotely believes that I was/am a control freak anymore. And it appears that I have been fairly successful in getting them to understand why and how to pull their weight so that they don't ever come to view their wives as "dutiful little control freaks self-sacrificing to claim bragging rights".
Now, I do see your point that there are some women who are totally, and needlessly, workaholics. It is regretful that male workaholics are generally positively stereotyped as "admirable, productive, highly respected over achievers", while women who conduct themselves in exactly the same manner as the aforementioned men are generally negatively stereotyped as a "dutiful little control freak self-sacrificing for bragging rights". Both are often heart attacks waiting to happen; the difference is, the man gets respect for earning his heart attack, while the woman is labeled an overbearing, shrewish, self-sacrificing fool for earning hers.
Honestly, I find it distressing that the feminist women you refer to in your post would stereotype workaholic women as "dutiful little control freaks self-sacrificing for bragging rights". I am pretty sure that there are some common sociological reasons behind women becoming workaholics.
Anyway, I sincerely do apologize for misreading your post as sexist; it is true that I am not familiar with you as a frequent poster in Feminist Groups, and because that stereotype/label "dutiful little control freak who refuses to delegate and self sacrifices because of a need to claim bragging rights" basically applies only to women, it totally hit a very, very raw nerve in me. I did not equate someone being "an obsessively reliable hopeless responsibility freak" with women working themselves to death for no good reason. And I have always viewed domestic responsibilities as equal in value and necessity to working within the system, so I do not automatically distinguish these types of work from one another. Again, my bad.
So very sorry. Please forgive me for my unwarranted, rude response. I do hope you can find some understanding, and a bit of empathy, of/for/why/where I was coming from with my misdirected rant, after this reading this relatively deficient explanatory "novel".
you, and no doubt other women, are very sensitive about.
I can see how it could be seen as offensive, especially with the diminutive "little".
It was a poor choice of words and I shouldn't have used them.
My sincere apologies.
back at ya
