Introducing The Princess, a Column by Linda Hirshman.

Last month I got a wrenching phone message from a woman who cleans apartments in New York City. Not someone who was dating a laid-off banker or had her sushi allowance cut. A maid. Did I know anyone who might hire her? Apartment 5F lost his job, 5B had to move to Texas for work, and 10A had to spend her extra funds for a sick mother. I called her back. She told me that she and her husband of 40 years are about to lose their house.

Sen. Edward Kennedy's paper [2] on the impact of the recession on women, "Taking a Toll," reported that 64 percent worried "a great deal about the economy." But whenever you try to get a little attention for these women, someone always talks about how much worse off men are. In December, when I criticized [3] the administration's proposal to create jobs in fields that were 90 percent male, conservatives complained [4] that men had experienced about 80 percent of the lay offs, and so quit yer bitchin.

This is a totally bogus argument, but you need to know some economics to explain why. Instead, while the conservatives are manipulating the numbers, and the important [5] male economic [6] bloggers are ignoring the women completely, we popular women writers tend to go for the soft news recession stories, like the one I just told about the maid. What's missing on the web is a feminist economist who can both do the math and get attention for it.

A review of the archives of three [7] influential [8] feminist [9] blogs reveals (with few [10] exceptions [11]) that in December, they were almost entirely silent on public spending and economics while the Obama administration prepared to dispense the largest amount of public spending in the history of western civilization. As the recession worsened, the coverage on the topic continued to be spotty, and, on our mother blog, XX Factor, the relatively few posts about the downturn can charitably be described as recession lite. Contributors discussed the TV shows and movies people watch more of when they're broke. They noted lipstick, coffee machine sales, and tailor shop business as measures of economic suffering, and curvier models as a happy byproduct. Emily Bazelon's series [12] on the possible effect of layoffs on family gender roles is serious enough, but, again, more about relationships than economics.

It's important to do the math. Because when you do, it's easy to knock down the claim that men should get most of the stimulus benefits because they lost most of the jobs. The crucial number when you're planning a jobs program is not who lost jobs when. It's how many people are unemployed and looking for work—the unemployment rate. Last December the unemployment rate for women was about 70 percent of the rate for men-lower, but not that much lower. Yet it appeared that women would get little more than 10 percent of the benefits provided for in the stimulus package. In the intervening months, the package improved for women, but their unemployment rate worsened to 7.5 percent in March [13], 78 percent of the rate for men. Also factor in that female-headed households have much lower incomes—one-third of the earnings of married couples and half of what a man alone makes, according to economist Randy Albelda of the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

And as the tale of the maid who called me reveals, even if low-wage women don't get laid off, many of their employers are cutting back on hours and benefits. Albelda reminds us that when families reduce spending, on restaurant meals, paid child care, and the like, it's the woman who generally winds up working even harder at home, a speedup of sociologist Arlie Hochschild's Second Shift. [14] Also, as Sen. Kennedy's report details, as of 2008, 40 percent more women than men had high-cost, risky subprime mortgages. So as the foreclosures intensify, they're going to get hit big time, with African-American women in for a particular clobbering.

In the crucial weeks in December, the unglamorous, dogged machinery of establishment feminism went to work. (There's life in the Old Girls yet!) Kim Gandy of NOW and the Feminist Majority Foundation's Ellie Smeal put together representatives of women's economic interests—social workers, nurses, librarians, child care providers like the YWCA—and met with high ranking members of Obama's transition team. Perhaps that helps explain why the stimulus changed for the better for women [15], and why it now includes a $500 million provision to train (funniest thing) nurses and other health professionals.

Maybe the blogs are starting to figure out that while virginity [16] sales and cameras that look up your skirt [17] are hit magnets, this recession can be, too. A few weeks ago, Feministing's excellent Courtney Martin [18] courageously admitted that she was not knowledgeable enough about economics, and committed [18]to better equip herself. Blogger Lucinda Marshall's Girls Guide to the Economy [19] is up and running. Megan McCardle, the self-described libertarian, focuses heavily on economic issues at Atlantic.com. Formerly known as "Jane Galt," she is generally considered conservative in economic matters. Several progressive academic economists have formed a list-serve and discussion group [20] called Women's Equality Adds Value to the Economy, of which I am a member, for the express purpose of making suggestions about economic policy and getting them covered in the media. The group has set out a priority list of affirmative action campaigns for women, with regard to traditionally male jobs like construction, set-asides in training programs, and money for social infrastructure projects like education.

In these dire times, female economists are the new hotties. Women writers who engage in feminist politics can watch out for the material part of women's lives, too. I'm already working on a book with a cover shot of me in a bikini next to one of the many for sale signs in my neighborhood. Caption: "Full Frontal Keynesianism." Hey, a girl can dream. After all, Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School bankruptcy professor and head of the congressional oversight office of the Toxic Assets Rescue Program, has had her star turn [21] on The Daily Show!

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