![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I don't know if IMPACT considers this, but if these appointments are necessary to get me back to a point where I can accept a job, if such a thing is possible, I think they should count. I'll have two doctor's appointments, a therapist appointment, and an appointment with a a physical therapist this week, which will probably take up about 5 hours total if you include travel times, which in Terre Haute almost always include getting stuck behind a train once in a while. This twenty hours a week thing is forcing me to spend spoons that could be better spent elsewhere.
I woke up this morning and went through my usual morning routine. As I stepped out of the shower, I remembered I intended to look for work today. I got the best looking clothes I still have, got dressed, applied deodorant, brushed my teeth, removed the rat’s nests from my curly hair, and then looked at the tube of foundation on the counter. As I looked at it, I thought, “Why don’t employment programs that help people look for work by providing clothing also help with cosmetics?”
Now, I might not have thought this at all if it weren’t for the zero dollars per week I can pull in reliably right now. I might also have thought how much I resent being forced to look for work because the People’s Republic of Hoosierdom has decided I qualify as an able-bodied adult without dependents. These are separate issues. Wearing makeup is part of looking professional for women. Poor women may have just as many problems purchasing cosmetics as they do purchasing suitable clothing. Yet the system assumes that women only need what men need when they apply for a job or go to an interview.
Professional expectations are inherently sexist, but it seems that the programs designed to help people get employment would take this difference between genders into account. Those programs with which I am familiar do not provide such assistance.
