“How do we lift up the benefit that women provide in our state?” – Jen Simon
Jen Simon is the founder of the Wyoming Women’s Community Action Network and she works with women around the state to increase access to health care, representation, visibility, and the economic security of women in the Equality State.
After traveling a lot in her youth and after earning her Master’s Degree in Divinity from Vanderbilt, she then accepted a role doing national service work in Teton County.
In this episode, you’ll hear what keeps her in Wyoming after 20 years, her stern grandmother’s lasting effect on her values, and how women’s rights became her passion.
Jen Simon: Thank you so much for having me, Emy.
Jen Simon: So our mission and purpose is just as you've described, to increase access to health care, representation and just the visibility and economic security of women in The Equality State. I know that you've had lots of great conversations through this podcast with women who are talking about what The Equality State is good at and what we could be doing better. And the Wyoming Women's Action Network really just exist to try and make sure that we continue to move the needle, continue to move forward, and get people in The Equality State to understand the real benefits that women bring and some of the struggles that we have.
Jen Simon: That's a great question. So it started in part because there were a number of great bills that benefit women, professional women, women who are at home, pregnant women that were facing the last legislative session. But there wasn't necessarily anybody who is advocating actively for those bills. There are organizations in the state that do incredible work on behalf of women, but not a lot that really have the latitude to be done in the legislature.
Jen Simon: So I founded this organization and started to work with some, some really amazing women around the state to try and move the needle to make sure that the five wage gap bills that were in the legislature had some attention, made their way forward. That representative Yin's Pregnant Worker Fairness Act actually had some attention and got some traction so that we can understand what things can be done to benefit women in The Equality State.
Jen Simon: And in addition to that, I spent the summer kind of traveling around Wyoming and talking to various groups about issues, primarily the gender wage gap right now, but we have a number of issues that we're going to be focused on and then are developing a partnership with the Equality State Policy Center again to really look at legislation and policy and how do we, how do we lift up the benefit that women provide in our state?
Jen Simon: Well, so I am just picking up on the point that you just made, which is a great one. I would tell you that all other work comes out of domestic work, right? So when women are at home taking care of families, whether that's looking after kids, homeschooling, running errands, cooking, cleaning, any of those things, that's all work, and that's all unpaid care work.
Jen Simon: And I was actually reading some information yesterday that talked about the fact that there's some estimates that indicate that the GDP would grow by more than 20% because that care work is worth over $3 trillion every year, right? But we don't put a value on it and so it's really easy to overlook. And I think when we start to dig into those issues, we can see all the incredible contributions that women in Wyoming have made and continue to make, and that they have an actual value that sometimes gets overlooked.
Jen Simon: Well, I appreciate that question, thank you. I think there are a couple of components. One is, I always hearkened back to my grandmother. I had a grandmother who was very clear that you should call her grandmother and never grandma. She was a little bit rigid, but she had this incredible sense of fairness and justice. And I think that that because she couldn't really cook, like she imparted fairness and justice to me as opposed to her best cookie baking recipe or any of the things that some of my girlfriend's grandmas imparted to them.
Jen Simon: You know, she in her 70s traveled all over the world in her 70s and 80s went down to Washington and marched on behalf of women's rights. I mean she really was an interesting character and I think her sense of fairness was absolutely imparted to me. So I think that that there's that piece where I feel like we need to correct injustice where it exists.
Jen Simon: And then I really feel that women's contributions to our broader culture are so powerful and so important and really frequently overlooked or underestimated. And in some cases really just devalued that the things that men do are considered to be normative. And that, you know, if you have, I was reading something else today that talked about heart attack symptoms and that women's symptoms are considered atypical, but there are only atypical compared to men's, right? We all, you and I would most likely have the same heart attack symptoms, but we probably wouldn't have the same symptoms as our husbands.
Jen Simon: So why is it that we're considered atypical and they're considered to be typical? And so starting to dig into some of those things and the fairness issues around them, I think kind of pulled both of those pieces of my life together.
Jen Simon: Yep. The more than two decades I've been in the state, definitely the longest I've ever been anywhere. You know, my family had, I think started out, my dad started out with really good intentions and so did my mom and they, they ran into some hard luck over the course of time. And I think that that, that prompted a few moves and, and it sort of set me up to, again, I think it, it feeds into the sense of fairness and justice and what that looks like. But I left and went to college in Colorado and when I left, my dad said, "Well, I doubt we'll ever see you again." (laughs) Not in a bad way, but just in the, like the mountains are calling and I must go John Muir kind of way.
Jen Simon: And, and he was right. You know, I didn't really make it back to, to where they were. And my siblings are pretty scattered, but I made my way up here and like a lot of people expected only to be here for a summer. I was going to take a job with actually Teach For America and instead I got an opportunity to do National Service work here in Teton County. And I loved the community and the opportunity to do that kind of community service work. I knew I was never going to go into the military, so doing domestic service was really important to me and it meant that I got to stay in a beautiful place.
Jen Simon: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jen Simon: You know, Emy, my, my kind of knee jerk answer to that is that I, I was ready for a little bit of a break because I lived in Wyoming for well over a decade at the time and was really interested in going somewhere and having sort of a sustained conversation around issues of, of justice. and I picked Vanderbilt for that reason. I mean the divinity school there is really outwardly focused. Everybody's conversations are about how will what I am learning affect my church congregation or the nonprofit I'm working for or my community or my state.
Jen Simon: And it really helped to refine and hone and deepen my sense of what kind of work I need to do in the world, which then enabled me to come back here and work for the hospital, which was really exciting because I think, I think that churches often talk about themselves as the most radically hospitable spaces, but the truth in my opinion is that hospitals really provide that, right? Hospitals meet you where you are no matter how broken you come through the door, they receive you and they, you know, they're committed to trying to fix you.
Jen Simon: And so it was a really exciting opportunity and that allowed me to, again, deepen my roots in the community and work on things like the Women's Healthcare Fund so that that we could provide access to healthcare to women in this community.
Jen Simon: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jen Simon: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jen Simon: Absolutely. And I, in no way mean to be disparaging of churches, I just think that hospitals really occupy this unique space in our communities.
Jen Simon: Oh, so one of the pieces that we worked on, well, there are a couple pieces. One was the, the Art and Healing Program expanded to have a music therapist at the Living Center, which really was an incredibly powerful tool, especially for some of our residents over there who had cognitive decline or dementia. Music is one of the last things to go from, from your brain as it changes, which is extraordinary and so people who maybe are no longer verbal can actually still sing or will actually respond to music.
Jen Simon: So it was exciting to put that kind of thing into place. But I was also really fortunate to get to work on We Care For Seniors, which was a community Specific Purpose Excise Tax initiative to really highlight the benefit that that a nursing home has for our community and to raise the funds to build a new one and they've broken ground over there and there's some really incredible opportunities for our aging population. I think the other benefit that I was hoping would come out of that is that we'd really see those folks. I'd see the contributions that they've made and be clear that this is an important, vibrant part of our community.
Jen Simon: I love this question, thank you. I'm gonna have to turn that over a little bit when I go home. I'll, uh, I'll, I'll probably have another answer for you tomorrow, but I think, you know, one of the things that, that I'd love to kind of explore more that I think the Wyoming Humanities Council is giving the opportunity for through your Cross-Pollination Grants is what are the intersections between women in Wyoming and religion?
Jen Simon: For example, by bringing my divinity background into it and also politics, right? We're headed into a 2020 election year. Wyoming's representation among women in the state legislature is pretty low. What are the intersections between women, how we're represented and, and the religious piece of it? Is there an opportunity to kind of explore that and talk to women around the state about, about where they see themselves in that intersection? No, no, that's a fully fomented idea yet.
Jen Simon: Thank you.
Jen Simon: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jen Simon: January.
Jen Simon: Yeah, and, yeah. And we were not quite ready for prime time, but the truth of the matter was it was like, "Okay, well they're talking about these issues so we need to be ready to go as soon as they are." The website went up and we went live and started to pump out fact sheets and talk to legislators and talk to advocates around the state and build a coalition and some exciting things are coming from it too. I think that there's more awareness. You know, yesterday's Casper Star-Tribune had a cover story above the fold as journalists like to say, talking about women lagging behind or the Wyoming lags behind in terms of women in the State House and, you know, we want to figure out how to help make that different.
Jen Simon: Yeah, exactly.
Jen Simon: You're welcome. Thank you.
“The Wyoming Women’s Community Action Network really exists to try and make sure that we continue to move the needle, continue to move forward, and get people in the Equality State to understand the real benefits that women bring.” - Jen Simon