March 25, 2022

Women’s History Month: One woman’s reflection in uncertain times

BY Attorney Leigh Woodruff, Community Legal Aid Litigation DirectorDaily Hampshire Gazette

It’s been two years since the pandemic and recession reached us in Massachusetts. Events of these two years are now part of history. And that recent history changed the future for countless people — especially women. In addition to bearing the brunt of economic losses, women have suffered increased domestic abuse, evictions, homelessness, poverty, and exploitation.

Since March 2020, my colleagues and I at Community Legal Aid have provided free legal services to many women facing crises during this uncertain time. Our work caused me to reflect on my own experience during another time of uncertainty — the Great Recession.

In the mid-2000s, I became a single parent when my marriage ended. To support my new single-income household, I took a job at a high-pressure law firm. I worked long hours, while my 4-year-old daughter thrived at a private preschool. Life felt challenging, but productive.

Then came the Great Recession. My job evaporated. I lost sleep worrying: Will I lose my house? Will I have to pull my daughter from preschool? What if I get sick without health insurance? But none of those things happened — to me. Although the Great Recession derailed many women’s lives, it dealt me just a glancing blow. Why?

Upon reflection, the answer is clear: My history. Long ago, my ancestors emigrated from England. Their descendants accumulated wealth over time. In the 20th century, my college-educated grandparents funded my father’s college education. My own parents did the same for me.

Without student debt, I was able to buy a home and accumulate savings during my 20s. When crisis hit, those savings sustained me; and I found a new law firm job through connections to people with histories much like mine. In short, history gave me a safety net of resources and relationships that limited my vulnerability to crises. That is this woman’s history.

But it is not a history most women share. For example, meet Clare and Tanya, two Worcester women who lost their incomes in 2020. Like me, Clare is a single mother whose family has been in the U.S. for generations. Unlike me, Clare is Black and first in her family to attend college or own a home. When her unemployment claim was denied, Clare feared losing her home.

Meanwhile, Tanya’s workplace closed during the early days of the pandemic. She found herself isolated in a tiny apartment with her baby and husband. As her husband’s stress escalated, so did his drinking. When her husband punched Tanya, she fled with the baby.

History had provided no safety net for Clare and Tanya — leaving them vulnerable to harms I never faced in my time of crisis. But Clare and Tanya, like so many women, are resilient. When they stood alone and “net-less” at the precipice of an uncertain future, Clare and Tanya acted. They called Community Legal Aid. Clare and her lawyer appealed Clare’s unemployment denial. Clare got her benefits and kept her home. Tanya worked with a CLA lawyer to obtain emergency housing and a court order requiring her abuser to stay away. Now, Tanya’s lawyer is representing her in divorce proceedings.

CLA empowered Clare, Tanya, and many other resilient women facing pandemic-driven crises. But more women need CLA’s help. No lawyer — even a dedicated legal aid lawyer — can represent every person needing her services. That’s why I contribute money from every paycheck to support CLA. We need to fund more lawyers to advocate for women (and others) whose vulnerability to crises is a product of history — nothing more.

Leigh Woodruff, an attorney, is litigation director at Community Legal Aid. Community Legal Aid provides free civil legal services to low-income and elderly residents of the five counties of Western and Central Massachusetts (Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, and Worcester), and maintains full-time offices in Worcester, Fitchburg, Springfield, Northampton, and Pittsfield.