Happy Friday! Welcome to our Media Round Up. Each week we’re collecting and sharing our favorite gender + politics stories. Here’s what caught our eye this week:

Women were the first brewers, yet the history of alcohol comes with a double shot of sexism

Mallory O’Meara, The Guardian

Women have largely been left out of the history of alcohol and bar culture, despite being the first brewers. In the early middle ages, a woman named Hildegard of Bingen was the first person to write about hops and the preservative properties they had in beer. Her writings helped to popularize the practice and afterwards beer became more commercialized, turning into one of the world’s most lucrative products at the time. Other contributions women have made in the alcohol industry: internationalizing the champagne market, inventing the remuage sur pupitres method of removing yeast debris from wine bottles, and more.

Read the full story here.

A new gender gap surfaces. Men recovered all jobs lost during the pandemic. Women have not.

Paul Davidson, USA Today

Last month, the U.S. added 528,000 jobs to the market, now recovering the 22 million jobs lost during the pandemic. While this is an exciting milestone, the data highlights a new gender gap. According to the Labor Department, men have regained the 10.1 million jobs they lost during the pandemic, and even surpassed their February 2020 level by 132,000 in July 2022. However, women lost 11.1 million jobs during the pandemic and are 100,000 jobs shy of their pre-pandemic mark. A separate survey of households shows that within the overall unemployment rate of 3.5%, women are further behind than men.

Read the full story here.

Why women are dancing in solidarity with Finland’s prime minister

Juliana Kim, NPR

Within the past week, women across the world have been posting videos of themselves dancing and singing with friends in solidarity with Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. Marin has been under public scrutiny after videos of her dancing with friends surfaced on the internet. Some demanded that Marin be drug tested, and questioned her competency and maturity for the position. The reaction to Marin’s leaked video has caused debate about whether women are held to a higher standard when it comes to the intertwining of their personal and political lives.

Read the full story here.

Women have always been key to the labor movement

Amy Mackin, Washington Post

Over the past year, workers have been forming unions in a historic wave of labor organizing. Retail stores, cafes, and museums have been the main businesses at the center of this year’s unionization. Most front-line employees of these businesses are women, making them key players in the movement.

While men have long dominated the labor rights movement, women first laid the foundation for it by organizing the largest pre-Civil War labor demonstration in the United States—in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1860. This early milestone could have been the first step in steady progress toward workplace equity, instead it marked the first in a series of setbacks for women.

Read the full story here.

Women — particularly women of color — stand to benefit most from Biden’s student loan relief plan

Nadra Nittle, The 19^th*

This week, the Biden administration announced that they will provide student loan relief for up to 40 million borrowers. President Biden is forgiving $10,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers making under $125K, and $20,000 in student debt for Pell Grant recipients. Supporters say this announcement is life-changing for millions of people, especially women, who hold two-thirds of student loan debt, and women of color whose loan debt is the highest in the nation. In addition to this, President Biden is also extending the student loan payment pause through the end of 2022.

Read the full story here.