Narrator: Imagine a society built on a grand illusion: the idea that anyone can succeed through sheer will and hard work, a "do-it-yourself" culture of rugged individualism. Now, imagine this entire structure is a pyramid scheme. At the top, engineers and profiteers reap the rewards, their success appearing to be a product of their own merit. But at the base, holding the entire precarious structure aloft, are America's women. They are the invisible, unpaid, and unsupported foundation, absorbing the risks and patching the holes in a system with no real safety net. This is the searing argument at the heart of sociologist Jess Calarco's book, Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net. Calarco dismantles the myths that sustain this system, revealing how women are systematically trapped, blamed, and exploited to maintain an illusion that is drowning them and leaving society sicker, sadder, and more stressed.

Narrator: The American ideal of the "DIY society" is not a testament to individual strength but a system propped up by the invisible labor of women. Calarco argues that the United States has effectively decided it can get by without a robust social safety net because it has something else: women who will step in to fill the gaps. This system functions like a pyramid scheme, where the success of those at the top is made possible by the sacrifices of those at the bottom.

This reality is starkly illustrated through the story of Akari, a woman whose life demonstrates the fragility of the existing support systems. Between 2018 and 2022, Calarco's research team followed families like Akari's in Indiana, documenting their struggles. Akari and her family depend on a patchwork of programs—welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, rental assistance, and subsidized childcare—just to survive. Her story is not one of laziness, but of a constant, exhausting battle against a system that provides just enough to prevent total collapse but never enough to truly thrive. Akari’s experience reveals a fundamental truth: the American social safety net is not designed to lift people out of precarity, but to make that precarity just barely bearable. The immense effort required to navigate this broken system, a burden that falls disproportionately on women like Akari, is the hidden engine that allows the myth of self-reliance to persist.

Narrator: Women are not simply choosing to become society’s safety net; they are often coerced into it through what Calarco calls the "motherhood trap." This process begins in childhood, where girls are socialized to be "mothers-in-waiting," groomed for caregiving roles. The system is then reinforced by a lack of structural support, forcing women into motherhood or into roles that prioritize caregiving over their own aspirations.

Consider Brooke, a young woman who never wanted children until she could provide a stable life for them. An unintended pregnancy in college set her on a different path. Influenced by an ultrasound and her mother's promise of support, she chose to have the baby. But that support quickly proved inadequate, and Brooke found herself trapped. The high cost of childcare made working low-wage retail jobs a financial wash. Her only viable option was to take a job at a childcare center, which offered free care for her son but came with low pay and no path for advancement. Brooke was not lazy or lacking in ambition; she was a victim of a system with no affordable childcare, no paid family leave, and limited opportunities, a system that effectively forced her into a caregiving profession to solve her own childcare crisis.

This coercion also extends to family size. Audrey, a mother already struggling with postpartum depression, became pregnant a second time when her husband, Colby, ignored her wishes during sex. Trapped by her reliance on a church community that opposed both abortion and divorce, and by the fear of losing health insurance and facing crippling childcare costs, Audrey felt she had no choice but to continue the pregnancy. She described it as a choice that was made for her, not by her. These stories reveal that for many women, motherhood is not a free and joyous choice but a corner they are backed into by a society that fails to provide genuine options.

Narrator: While all women are affected by the lack of a social safety net, privilege offers a seeming escape route. Calarco explains that in a DIY society, the only way to avoid precarity is to "dump the risk downstream." Affluent women can outsource the work of care—hiring nannies, cleaners, and tutors—which allows them to compete in the professional world. However, this solution is morally fraught, as it often relies on the low-wage labor of other, more vulnerable women.

Holly, a PhD candidate in a same-sex marriage, and her wife Kathleen could afford to pay for childcare. Yet they were consumed with guilt, recognizing that their ability to work depended on an industry built on the backs of underpaid women of color. "We have all these women of color watching our kids and we’re not really taking good care of them," Holly lamented. Even with financial resources, they could not escape their complicity in an exploitative system.

Furthermore, even privilege is not a complete shield. Virginia, a high-earning tenure-track professor, still found herself as the default parent. Because her job offered more flexibility than her husband's, she was the one who managed childcare during COVID-19 quarantines and took on the invisible labor of managing her aging mother's care. When overwhelmed, she was told by her institution to practice "self-care," a response she called a way for institutions to "offload the responsibility of enacting humane work practices." These accounts show that whether women dump the risk or drown in it themselves, the system forces them into an impossible position.

Narrator: To justify this unequal system, its engineers and profiteers promote a series of powerful myths. The most pervasive is the meritocracy myth: the idea that success is a direct result of "good choices." This narrative suggests that if women just get married, earn a college degree, or enter a STEM field, they will be saved from precarity. Calarco systematically debunks this, showing that these paths are not the silver bullets they are purported to be.

Jocelyn’s story is a powerful refutation of the idea that marriage saves women. Raised to believe in the "success sequence"—marry first, then have children—she ended up in a financially unstable and eventually abusive relationship. Her second marriage also led to financial precarity, leaving her with six children and reliant on government assistance. Her attempts to follow the "rules" did not protect her.

Similarly, a college degree is no guarantee of security. Lillian, who held a master's degree, found herself working a low-paying government job and relying on WIC to feed her family. The rising cost of education and stagnant wages mean that even highly educated women are not immune to the pressures of the DIY society. These stories prove that individual "good choices" are no match for systemic failures. The meritocracy myth serves only to blame women for their struggles while absolving society of its responsibility to provide a real net.

Narrator: Another key justification is the Mars/Venus myth, the belief that men and women are biologically hardwired for different roles—men as competitive providers and women as nurturing caregivers. This myth, Calarco shows, has its roots in the biased science of the 19th century but persists today, allowing men to benefit from the current arrangement while feeling like "good guys."

This dynamic is clear in the story of Dennis and Bethany. Dennis, a political moderate who supports gender equality in theory, encouraged his wife to quit her job to become a full-time homemaker because it "just kind of worked out that way." He opposes universal childcare, arguing that his wife is happier at home, a justification that conveniently allows him to maintain his patriarchal perks: a dedicated domestic manager and less competition in the workforce. The Mars/Venus myth gives men like Dennis a moral shield, allowing them to oppose policies that would create a more level playing field by framing the status quo as natural and beneficial for everyone. It also silences women, who become reluctant to complain about partners who exceed the myth's incredibly low bar for male participation in domestic life.

Narrator: The final myth Calarco deconstructs is the Supermom myth, which portrays children as being in constant danger and mothers as their sole protectors. This narrative weaponizes fear to keep women in their "proper" place, focused on intensive, all-consuming parenting. This myth manifests in both religious and secular forms.

Kara, an evangelical Christian mother, sees herself as a "Supermom versus Satan." Her primary mission is to protect her children's souls from damnation, a fear that leads her to homeschool them and use strict physical discipline. For her, the stakes are eternal, and she is the only one who can ensure her children's salvation.

In a secular context, mothers like Chloe feel immense pressure to be "Pinterest-perfect" parents while also succeeding in demanding careers. Influenced by corporate "lean-in" feminism, Chloe believes she must "have it all" without showing any weakness. She internalizes her struggles, feeling guilty for being tired or needing help, because the Supermom myth tells her she should be able to handle it all. Whether the perceived threat is Satan or a competitive global economy, the result is the same: mothers are isolated, exhausted, and pitted against one another, which prevents them from uniting to demand the societal support they actually need.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Holding It Together is that the struggles of American women are not a series of individual failings, but the predictable outcome of a systemic choice. The United States has built its society on the fiction of self-reliance, a fiction sustained only by the relentless, uncompensated labor of women. The myths of meritocracy, biological difference, and super-motherhood are not harmless cultural beliefs; they are tools used to justify an exploitative system and to divide women from one another, preventing them from demanding the change they desperately need.

The book challenges us to see that our fates are linked. The struggles of a low-income mother like Akari are connected to the guilt of a privileged mother like Holly and the burnout of a professional mother like Chloe. The only way forward is to reject the DIY illusion and build a "union of care"—a collective movement to demand a real, universal social safety net. The question Calarco leaves us with is not whether women can hold it all together, but why they should ever have to.