Welcome to the Waves, Slate's podcast about gender, feminism, and unapologetic, transformative life shifts.

Every episode, you get a new pair of feminists to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds.

And today, you've got me, TK. Dutest, and I'm on a mission to renew my spirit in the face of unchecked

capitalism and all the other isms that plague us. For inspo, I'll be joined by Patty Lynn. She's a former

television screenwriter, producer, and author of the new book End Credits, How I Broke Up with Hollywood.

Now, I'm not a television writer, and not many of us are.

But there are certain cultural attitudes that transcend many workplaces, toxic bosses,

hustle culture, quote, earning your keep, all that bullshit.

And for many of us, we hit a breaking point and we start to

ask ourselves, do I need to make a big change? I'm kind of in that spot myself, actually.

Earlier this year, I sat with my friend and we talked about what it would take to go on sabbatical.

I had been recently laid off.

I was grieving a recent loss,

and I was trying to come to terms with a string of exploitative experiences

that spanned several years in a field that I loved.

Eventually, the stress caused mental health and physical issues that I couldn't ignore.

To say it was a good time to take a break was putting it lightly.

Where did all the workers go?

Millions of women are still missing from the workplace and the situation actually got worse when

schools reopened in September. Natural black hair is often unfairly looked at as inappropriate

in places like the work environment, school and even on camera. However, legislation first

passed in 2019 is hoping to make that discrimination illegal. Labor Day returned to office

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