By Alyshia Korba
Displaced homemakers are people, often women, who have been dependent on someone else’s income and find themselves in need of financial independence. In 1979, a group of displaced homemakers who found themselves in an Ithaca’s women’s kitchen began networking and helping each other start their careers, not knowing that this would be the beginnings of the Women’s Opportunity Center.
The Women’s Opportunity Center (WOC) has helped approximately 20,000 women become financially independent and fulfill their career aspirations since its founding. The center offers career resources to any female-identifying person who approaches or is referred to WOC.
The WOC’s work includes assistance in:
Job searches
Writing resumes and cover letters
Preparing for interviews
Building a startup
Personal financial planning
Finding free education opportunities
Executive Director of WOC Jan Bridgeford-Smith said the organization focuses on three areas of development which she calls the “ABCs” of the WOC: Action, Building networks and Change.
“First and foremost when a woman makes contact with us, we do a lot of work just probing ‘what is she interested in?’,” Bridgeford-Smith said. “The other reason a woman might come to the Women's Opportunity Center is because she's starting a job, and she needs professional clothing.”
The WOC sponsors the Mary Durham Boutique which offers secondhand professional clothing. Bridgeford-Smith said women are often referred to the boutique to find affordable work clothes. Women also have the opportunity to work at the boutique and at the WOC to get retail and management experience.
Bridgeford-Smith said organizations like WOC have become especially important amid the “Great Resignation” in which many people left the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. Women left the workforce at higher rates than men, and Black and Hispanic women left at higher rates than white women.
This could be because women of color more commonly occupy jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector than white women or men. This sector has seen significantly more job losses during the pandemic than other sectors with approximately 4 million jobs lost between March 2020 and January 2021.
Bridgeford-Smith said this could also be because women are disproportionately responsible for caring for children which became more difficult when schools and childcare centers went remote during the pandemic.
“Childcare, without a doubt, just really hampered who could participate in the workforce, and oftentimes it meant women stayed home.” Birdgeford-Smith said. “In all of my decades of being up close and personal with services and the plight of women, childcare is something in this country that we just have never seemingly been able to really get it right.”
Bridgeford-Smith said she thinks that since the pandemic, people and especially women are looking for more flexibility in their jobs in terms of when and how they work. Because of the unpredictability of the COVID-19 pandemic, jobs that offer remote or hybrid work have become more favorable. She said employers who are struggling to find staff should consider implementing flexible schedules and paid sick leave to accommodate challenges resulting from the pandemic.