[I]f you want your activists front and center out there doing the work to combat the Forces of Intolerance and create a better liberal-progressive world, the reality is we need to get paid so we can comfortably live our lives and fight for you full time. ““ Monica, TransGriot
There’s been some controversy over a letter that “disappointed” college student Nonnie Ouch sent to the Dallas Voice about activist Dan Choi’s speaking fee. (The letter is addressed to Choi.)
Since [the National Equality March], I began the arduous journey to get you to speak at my school, Texas Tech University”¦ To me, the mere hope of reaching out to those who meet my words with deaf ears was worth putting up with your agent and the exorbitant amount of $10,000 to get you out here. I never for a moment questioned why it was that much, or why you were charging anything at all.
“¦About a month ago, after nine months of dealing with your agent, I received an e-mail directly from you. In short, you basically said that the only way I could get you to speak is if I raised enough money to bring you to Tech. No deals, no compromises, end of story.
“¦I’ve lost all respect for you as a gay- and human-rights activist”¦You, sir, have lost sight in one of those many $10,000 checks written to you, of why you came out and became an activist in the first place.
ZackFord at Pam’s House Blend and Monica of TransGriot have great posts addressing why this criticism of Choi is unfair, and why we need to support activists getting paid. As a feminist writer/activist who makes the majority of my income from speaking (in fact, sometimes it’s my sole source), I wanted to weigh in. Because this is an issue that goes beyond individual activists’ fees or income sources – it’s about the way we value (or don’t value) activist work. And it’s a problem I’ve seen time and time again within the feminist movement: We’re expected to do the work for free, because if we were really committed, it wouldn’t be about the money. So here are some reasons why we all should support paid activist work…
We don’t want to limit who can speak for our movements: Ouch mentions speakers who travel to events with “their own money.” Zack rightly asks, “Where does that money come from? It seems to me there is an incredible assumption of socioeconomic privilege in that statement. There’s just this expectation that people should have money (from where?) and all the activism should be on them.” If we rely only on speakers that have enough money to pay for their own travel and lodging and those who can take the substantial amount of travel time off to work for free – the only people speaking for social justice will be those with money.
Not all activists are rich: Pam, in Zack’s comments section, mentions the common assumption that well-known activists already have money. In my own case, people sometimes think that because I’ve had books published, I must be rolling in it. For serious, feminist book writing does not make you money. The advances are generally very small, the royalties mostly nonexistent, and you can spend up to two years writing, editing and promoting a book that brings you less than a living wage. All of the authors I know hustle for their income through consulting, freelancing, speaking, and other gigs; the same is true of bloggers, even those of us at highly trafficked sites. For many activists, speaking is our bread and butter: it’s what allows us to blog every day for free, to write books and articles for little to no money, and to tirelessly organize and speak out.
Since Ouch is primarily offended with the fact that Choi’s fee is 10k, I also think it’s worth mentioning that the money is most likely not all going in Choi’s pocket. An agent can take anywhere from 20-30% of that fee, travel and lodging is often deducted, as are taxes. And I’m betting that Choi, like myself and most of the activists I know, also does some events for free.
Our time and labor is worth money: Ouch writes to Choi, “Think about those in Lubbock, Texas, and other cities who couldn’t ‘afford’ you and how you could have changed their lives.” The notion that activists should work for free because we owe it to the movement is common, especially in feminism. (After all, women’s work is often undervalued – by others and by ourselves.) While I understand the frustration students like Ouch must feel when they can’t raise the funds to bring in a speaker who would make a difference in their community, the assumption that activists must forgo payment is simply unfair and unrealistic.
And beyond the basic fact that activists need income too, it’s also important to recognize that this work is hard. Even the speaking is difficult – it’s not glamorous jet-setting. A normal week for me this past Spring involved speaking at two or three schools, taking at least four flights (because there’s no direct flights to smaller towns) in small, uncomfortable propeller planes that – in my first trimester of pregnancy – meant I was throwing up constantly. You don’t stay in shmancy hotels or eat dope, or even good, meals (believe me). And the job is not just about speaking for an hour. You’re doing afternoon workshops, hobnobbing with students and teachers, and just being generally available to your sponsors for the day and most of the evening. Now, these aren’t complaints – speaking on college campuses is my absolute favorite part of the work I do. I get to connect – in real life! – with amazing young activists, see what’s going on with feminism in different parts of the country, and get energized by the work that so many amazing college organizers are doing. But it is still work – hard work – and it is still valuable.
Our activists are not public property: While the vast majority of experiences I’ve had as a public feminist have been amazing – I thank my stars every day that I get to do this work – there are troubling expectations put on well-known activists. We are expected to do things for the “good of the movement” to the detriment of our own personal lives, boundaries, finances and more. We’re expected to write or speak about whatever issue people demand of us at any particular moment (for me, it’s suddenly being expected to talk about motherhood). We’re expected to be constantly accessible by email, Twitter, and Facebook. I just had someone send me a nasty Facebook message, for example, when I suggested they “friend” me at a public fan page rather than my personal account. Again, this work is rewarding and wonderful – and being a professional activist is a privilege in and of itself. But activists like Choi are people – they’re not owned by the movement and they don’t owe us anything.
This is a movement-wide problem: Expecting activists and feminists to work for little to no money isn’t limited to speaking. Anyone who has ever worked in feminist nonprofits knows that the pay is minimal; this is especially true if you’re a younger person or in an entry-level position. Now, low pay for nonprofit work is to be somewhat expected. A lot of organizations, especially smaller ones, don’t have large budgets and struggle for funding. But there are a lot of bigger, mainstream feminist orgs that do have money. And I heard the argument from higher-ups more than once ““ particularly when people were asking for raises ““ that this was about the work, not the money, and that working for peanuts was just “doing your part” for the movement. (Never mind that many high-level employees at these organizations had trust funds and/or rich partners that allowed them to work for the sheer joy of it.) It’s the same argument I hear from feminist orgs and publications that expect bloggers (again, mostly young women) to write for free – that we should be happy to be associated with the movement, and to have access to an audience and to this very important work. The feminist movement’s work is done on the backs of unpaid and underpaid young people, volunteers and interns – and it’s not right.
At the end of the day, it’s about how much feminism is worth to you, and not just in the financial sense. Do we really want to support a system that only allows a privileged few to speak for our movements? Do we want a model of activism that devalues feminist labor, or one that takes it seriously – ideologically and economically? The truth is, if we want a movement whose internal workings mirror our external values, then we need to do everything in our power to ensure that feminist work is valued and that activists’ work is sustainable.
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25 Comments
thanks, jessica, for this blog entry. completely and utterly agree with your arguments and outrage. thanks for capturing how many of us feel in this movement, but don’t have the platform to say, “WE NEED TO GET PAID.”
I’ve had the same difficulty as this person, to try and bring a speaker to my University (actually it was Jessica) I wrote letters and proposals as to why it would be a great opportunity for her to come and speak and WHY it was worth it to spend the money…I got no help from the administration, but I NEVER would have even dared to think that she/you should come for free because its her job, one day that might be me (one can dream), that might be my job.
@zoritsa Thank you so much for trying to bring me out – I’m really sorry that it didn’t work out!
The thing is, I KNOW how much work students do to bring speakers out – they fundraise, organize with other groups, and work with administrations that are often anti-feminist or unhelpful. Which is why I’m so appreciative of the labor that students put in trying to make these things happen – it’s awesome. That’s a whole other set of activist labor that we need to shine a bigger light on!
“It’s the same argument I hear from feminist orgs and publications that expect bloggers (again, mostly young women) to write for free – that we should be happy to be associated with the movement, and to have access to an audience and to this very important work. The feminist movement’s work is done on the backs of unpaid and underpaid young people, volunteers and interns – and it’s not right.”
It’s true that money would make a world of difference. I currently blog (for free) for an established feminist magazine and support myself by working as a secretary during the day. Money from blogging would translate into time — more time to write, to promote myself, to perhaps escape underemployment.
I do not think you can truly respect the activist you want to bring to your school (or wherever) if you expect them not to get paid. If activist were in different professions, we would not expect them not to get paid for their work. If they were in another profession, we would be appalled if they were not getting paid. A lot of activist work does go unpaid or they are paid next to nothing, which is a shame because the work is incredibly important. We do need to respect feminist activist and activist in general more. Activism is not easy and no matter how much you love your work, you can’t do it for free unless you have another job. Even then it is still hard. I have the most respect for the feminist who are able/willing to make this their full time job or volunteering/interning with feminist organizations and I cannot thank them enough.
Thank you, Jessica, for putting this out there.
For another perspective on this, I am a 36 year old divorced mother of one who is no longer doing professional full-time activist work. Want to guess why? Because devoting my life and time to activist causes left me broke as hell and unable to support a dependent. I’m FINALLY clawing my way out of the resulting financial hole. There is NOTHING progressive about being another divorced woman in poverty.
I wonder if the student would be as outraged if Choi’s speaking fee had been less expensive. Yes, speaking on a college campus is work. Yes, the activist’s work should be paid. Yes, all travel, hotel and dining expenses should be paid. But ten THOUSAND dollars, really? Even if Choi spent three days traveling to campus, four days traveling home, spent the entire day leading workshops, spent the entire evening giving a lecture and signing autographs, ten THOUSAND dollars is a lot of money. Hell, even if he spent the entire MONTH working at Texas Tech, that’s a lot of money. What kind of activist who isn’t in the public eye can expect to make $10,000 each month? A teacher? A social worker? A rape crisis hotline worker? A community organizer? No. They are lucky to make $10,000 in six months! I agree with all of your points, Jessica, about the necessity of valuing feminist and activist work, and I understand that speaking fees are FAR higher for pop stars, comedians, etc. whose work (in my opinion) isn’t as groundbreaking or important. Sure, if I had to decide who gets the millions of dollars per speaking event that Sarah Palin charges, it would go to Choi, but I still think that Choi sits on an incredible amount of privilege by expecting $10,000 for one lecture event, regardless of how much time, intention, energy he puts into it, and I think it’s okay for this young activist to see that and question it. I think that both the student and I can truly value and appreciate the work that activists like Choi and yourself do while rejecting the notion that a few days of that work is worth ten THOUSAND dollars.
@Sarah, I hear what you’re saying. Several years back I heard of a feminist speaker making that much and I was taken aback. But after working on the speaker’s circuit for a while I’ve come to see how these kinds of fees are pretty standard. But let’s break down what 10k actually means.
If Choi’s agent takes 30% of the fee (which is standard), then we’re left with 7k. Deduct travel and lodging – let’s make it on the low end, say $500. So that’s $6500.
Then take away food and other expenses Choi has to pay for – let’s say $100. So, $6400. Then let’s say about 25% gets taken for taxes – so Choi is left with $4800 total.
If Choi does 10 events a year, and that’s his sole source of income (again, as it is with many activists) – he’s making 48k a year. A decent living to be sure, but hardly outrageous.
Jessica, thank you for breaking that down for me. While I was doing similar math in my head I completely forgot to factor in the cost of an agent, and 30% is a substantial portion that I ignored. Thank you, also, for the hard work that you do as a feminist activist!
The question then becomes, is 10 events a year typical?
And why on earth are you deducting taxes? He’s making $64,000 a year, and taxed on it like a normal person. How much you earn is a year is how much you ear, or do you believe people who make salaries don’t pay taxes?
Sorry, I agree with you that activists should be paid, I even agree that they should be paid decently, but pretending that only after-tax income counts when saying how much someone earns a year is just misleading.
I absolutely think the “you would do it for the good of the movement” thing is crap. It’s the same with the whole “artists should never make money and do it for free” thing. Also crap. (And like another commentator above, I am still paying off the debts that come from having interests in both activism and artistic endeavours.)
The dilemma, of course, is the one you point to by noting that if we pay our activists nothing, then the only people speaking for social justice will be those with money. Unfortunately, the audience for social justice is all-too-often, the audience without money, and therein lies a dilemma.
@LC, no need to get nasty with me. Yes, I’m well aware that people who make salaries pay taxes (seriously?). I was just trying to demonstrate that his actual take home pay isn’t anything close to 10k per event. (And you’d be surprised how many people forget that freelance work is taxed)
As to the question of whether 10 events is typical – I don’t really know, I read that he did 11 last year which is why I picked 10. It varies by speaker, I’m sure. And as I said in the post, I’m betting he does a lot of free speaking as well. Which I think also gets to your question about the audiences for social justice not having money to pay speakers…lots of speakers I know (myself included) will do free talks for nonprofits or somehow otherwise volunteer our time, give books, etc. Paid work from places like schools – that absolutely do have money – makes those events possible.
Jessica–Thank you for writing about this important subject. I’ve gone on many a rant about this very topic! I’ve found that it’s hard enough to convince the non-activist world that feminist activists should be PAID, but even more disheartening to have people question that need within our own movement. I agree with @Amy that there is nothing progressive about feminist activists who find themselves broke and lacking financial security after “putting in their dues” with the movement.
Thank you for this post. I needed to hear it as one of those barely paid interns myself. When you see everyone around you sacrificing so much to be part of the movement, it gets to feel presumptuous that you expect a living wage for your work.
A note about Self Employed taxes/take home pay: I have to point out that when you work for someone, your employer pays half of your taxes and when you work for yourself you pay it all. This truly does make a huge dent in your yearly pay. And this doesn’t even take into account fringe benefits of having an employer. If I added my yearly fringe to my take home pay I would be making about 11,000/year more than I make now.
Great article.
This is a fantastic post.
And to echo Laura above, as someone who has been self-employed some years and worked for an employer other years, taxes do take twice the bite when you’re footing your own bill. Then you pay for your own health insurance (if you can get it), and dental, and etc. Then you fund your own retirement because you don’t have a 401K or 403(b) or pension plan like you might at a corporate or public sector job. Then you also pay for your office space, your business phone/fax, your web page (and the design and maintenance of it), your bookkeeping (unless you do it yourself in which case figure that time into the hours spent on any given job), your tax filing (ditto), all the furnishings and supplies and services for your office, every book and magazine and journal you need to do research for your work, every conference you attend for professional reasons to network and keep yourself updated, etc. etc.
I have filed many a Schedule C (self-employment income/expenses) come tax time, and watched my gross income shrink to almost nothing when I balanced it against my expenses. And I was just providing a service locally, not traveling nationally as a speaker and organizer.
Agreed! Three cheers for the price system; the people who want to see Choi speak can pay for it.
For those saying that 10K is a lot of money: yes, it is. Take Jessica’s estimated figure of $6400 in pre-tax income. Even if Choi spends two whole days on one speaking engagement, that’s still over $100/hour. So what? Lawyers bill more than that all the time. If Choi is inspiring/famous/whatever enough for groups to pay that much, he should be paid accordingly.
It strikes me that in many ways, public-sphere activists seem to support themselves on the same business model as the music industry: release most content for free and charge for appearances (concerts or speaking engagements).
I don’t think Choi should feel bad for turning down a speaking engagement at Texas Tech because they wouldn’t pay his fee. Maybe he decided it just wasn’t a pro-bono worthy cause. The inability of Ouch to raise the needed funds could speak to how much his message would resonate on that campus, and maybe he’d just rather spend his time speaking to people who seem more interested in his message, especially if it isn’t yielding income.
I’m a freelancer, so I absolutely sympathize with the notion that people doing activism, non-profit, or non-traditional work should be paid a living wage. I also think that in our capitalist society, how much someone pays you directly reflects how much they think you’re worth (not how much you’re actually worth.) So in some ways, having feminists and other activists command higher pay also raises the perceived value of their work in society, a noble goal.
That said, even 48k a year is pretty close to the median household income. Earning enough to support the median family doing 10 speaking gigs a year is still a pretty sweet deal.
I’m sorry, but $ 10,000 is a hell of a lot of money for one speech!
Especially when Lt Dan Choi is grubbing this money from broke college students!
I was a left wing activist for the better part of 26 years (from my sophomore year of high school in 1982 until I retired/got burnt out from doctrinaire leftism in my early 40′s in 2008) and I never collected nary a dime.
I supported myself the old fashioned way BY WORKING
I paid my bills with regular jobs; as a supermarket clerk in my teens, a factory worker in my early 20′s, a carpenter from my mid 20′s until my late 30′s, as a teacher/writer/part time carpenter from my late 30′s to my early 40′s and now I make my living as a painting contractor.
And when I went to conferences or protests out of town I PAID FOR IT OUT OF POCKET
Lt Choi (who has a God damned AGENT like some Hollywood bigshot) is running a hustle here, folks – and his grinding for money like a common ganef!
Look, I could see if he was asking for air fare and hotel expenses – but, HONESTLY, that is AT MOST $ 1,000 (assuming he flies coach and stays at the Ramada inn out by the airport – which is how most working class and lower middle class Americans travel) – the other $ 9,000 is just Lt Choi (and his AGENT) being greedy.
GREGORY A. BUTLER
New York, NY
@Gregory You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. Not everyone can afford to be an activist by paying out of pocket – and no one should have to, it’s valuable work. What you’re suggesting is that Choi speak for free or lose money to speak. (even if they pay for air/lodging he’s getting no money for his time and likely losing money since he could have spent that time working).
And sorry, most speakers have agents. I have one; I also have a book agent – I hardly think that makes me some sort of Hollywood bigshot wannabee.
Thank you Jessica for your post. Well spoken and a much needed critque for Ms. Ouch.
Anyone interested in a perspective (insider) from another GLBTQ activist living and working in Lubbock TX that is Ms. Ouch?
Read my blog post: Cleaning Up “Disappointment” – Why I would be proud to work with Lt. Dan Choi.
http://pennygirlpearl.blogspot.com/2010/08/cleaning-up-disappointment-why-i-would.html
Really great points. I think that in terms of the feminist movement, this also relates to women having a difficult time demanding to paid what they’re worth (in general). We’re so used to being paid less for our work (or not receiving any pay for the domestic labor we perform), it’s not surprising that our activism is also taken for granted. Obviously this is a problem for all activists – everyone deserves to expect fair compensation for their work. But I think that it is statistically more relevant for women.
I think people don’t realize that say, authors who go to speak at public libraries, also require speaker fees that range in the $10,000 or more range. From what I know, that’s actually the going rate for a nationally known person. Not to mention *any* speaker that comes to your university (I’m guessing commencement speakers as well) costs your university money.
Universities pay for a lot of stuff that goes on campus–this is problem with the university, not the speaker.
I totally agree that speakers, of any type, should be compensated. If no artists of any type were ever paid, there would be very little art at much lower quality, everyone has to eat after all. But speaking agents really take double to triple what SAG (acting) agents take? Speakers are getting ripped off then in my opinion.
Also, taking taxes at 25% off the top, and then expenses is misleading. This guy is undoubtedly set up at the very least as a sole proprietorship of a small business and files a schedule C. Meaning, you are essentially deducting business expenses from gross income and then paying taxes only on net income. Making $50k a year and filing this way can easily get your effective tax rate down to 15% or less, this is how nonsalaried folks live to make up the difference of the self employment tax and no benefits!
I agree with everything you wrote but I do understand why people might be upset. I work at an agency that advocates for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, we provide services to the families, etc… It’s activism, in a different sort of way. We advocate for inclusion of people of all abilities in the community, we host conferences and trainings. I personally train staff and speak to parent groups and I make 34,729 dollars a year before taxes working 40-50 hours a week. So the idea of being able to make 48k after taxes by doing ten 2-3 day events a year? Sounds like absolute heaven to me. It’s not that I don’t think it’s hard work- I know it is! What you described doesn’t sound like a walk in the park at all. But… I used to make 27k a year working 70 hours a week ( I was a residential manager for a group home where we took care of people with developmental disabilities who weren’t able to live independently), and I worked 16 hour days through my first trimester of pregnancy, including overnight shifts when I really should have been sleeping because someone needed to be there to take care of the people we serve. So I could see being upset that someone expected to make almost a third of what I make in a year for one speaking event. I think expecting someone to do an event for free is wrong, I do think that all of those things that you mention need to be taken in to account- but I also think that sometimes it’s worth looking and realizing that asking people to raise the money to pay someone a half or a third of what they make in a year seems like an awful lot to ask.
This resonates with me, as I teach at a university, and I work in economic development. It has long bugged me that people criticize for example employees of international organizations or development workers for living in decent hotels in the countries they work in, getting relatively high salaries, and so on. All, of course, from the comfort of their couch at home.
I do see that in the case of development work there is an issue of cultural sensitivity. I also understand that it may be grating for many who work as activists that their pay is even smaller than, say, Choi’s pay. But Choi has certainly not earned 10k from the start. Rather, he has for long years made next to nothing, until he got more prominent and is now able to support himself (plus his agent and possibly other employees) with the work he does.
Compare this to a typical corporate career: what he would earn there, after a career of comparable length, is probably about three times what he is making now (assuming he really only does those 10 speaking engagements a year). Add that up over a lifetime and you don’t even want to think about the difference.
Why do we assume that someone who does great, demanding, and important work – possibly greater, more demanding and more important than your average corporate job – should do it for much less than the corporate guy? Why do we think that activists cannot have a career, and make more when they get older, unlike almost anyone else in the world? Why do we assume that you should not only start out in activism making under 30k a year, but should stay there forever — is that some sort of moral law, the more good you do, the less you should earn for it? This is an argument, by the way, that designers and architects often hear, too, “if it’s something you like doing, you shouldn’t be charging so much!”
Why is it inacceptable that someone like Choi eventually may want to buy that house, drive that car, or have that family that you can simply not afford on 30k, but that everyone else gets to have? I think it’s not fair to judge someone like him for making below the US median wage, and I think incentives should be such that the great people who work in activism can afford doing what they do, not just scraping by every day, but looking back at their careers later on and not have to regret them because they are dirt poor and have no savings and no health insurance. And that means paying them a decent wage, just like any bank manager, doctor, or shop owner gets to have. Even if it’s hard to come up with the money.
Just my two cents.