On Friday, the U.S. Senate voted against Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $15. One of the votes that helped knock down the progressive proposal came from Arizona’s Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. But Sinema didn’t just vote to keep poverty wages in place — she actually dressed up, carrying a Lululemon bag, and brought a cake.

Yes, the senator literally carried a cake to the Senate floor to give a proud “thumbs down” to keeping the $15-per-hour wage provision in the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan, a video of which quickly went viral. Following the incident, a spokesperson tried to clarify that Sinema brought the cake for Senate staffers who had been working all night — not as an homage to Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake.”

But no one online is buying these excuses, and sure enough, “Marie Antoinette” started trending on Twitter after Sinema’s vote. “She’s decided she’s going to be a media darling as Marie Antoinette of the establishment. Dress in a super fun way, do performatively hip thumbs downs as she votes to kill higher wages & now rub it in with symbolic cake we can all eat instead of higher salaries. #CorporateTool,” Cenk Uygur, the host of The Young Turks, tweeted. A former senior advisor to Sen. Sanders tweeted: “839k people in Arizona make under $15 an hour. They need a raise, and they deserve a better Senator than [Kyrsten] Sinema.”

Actual video of Senator Sinema voting no to the minimum wage amendment: pic.twitter.com/930vltqK2n

— 🌻The Official New York Socialist ✡️ (@TheNYSocialist) March 5, 2021

Remind me what happened to the last rich, powerful white woman who got a cutesy “let them eat cake” attitude while her country was starving https://t.co/7dDsCBbgUY

— Hayley Farless McMahon (@McMisoprostol) March 5, 2021

Honestly until Krysten Sinema bisexual women were often represented in popular culture as straight or suicidal. Hoping now we can get some representation for keeping Americans in poverty!

— Kate Willett (@katewillett) March 5, 2021

She’s decided she’s going to be a media darling as Marie Antoinette of the establishment. Dress in a super fun way, do performatively hip thumbs downs as she votes to kill higher wages & now rub it in with symbolic cake we can all eat instead of higher salaries. #CorporateTool https://t.co/IvbzF7NfOj

— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) March 5, 2021

Following the vote, Sinema tweeted: “I understand what it is like to face tough choices while working to meet your family’s most basic needs. I also know the difference better wages can make.” She added that the Senate should hold an “open debate” on raising the minimum wage. “I will keep working with colleagues in both parties to ensure Americans can access good-paying jobs, quality education, and skills training to build more economically sound secure lives for themselves and their families.”

The only problem here is that none of this is actually possible unless the national minimum wage is no longer a “starvation wage,” as Sen. Sanders has put it. Maybe if Sinema made $7.25 an hour instead of the Senate’s almost $200,000-a-year salary, she’d understand this a little better.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Bernie Sanders Wants Us To Start Dating Again

Republicans Criticize Biden For Saying "Nance"

Cuomo Should Be Held Accountable By His Own Party

Long, glossy dirty-blonde hair has been Gigi Hadid’s signature look for a while now, so when she switches things up, we notice. The model and new mom has recently made a few subtle changes, including taking curtain bangs for a spin in December, but her latest look is her most transformative yet.

On Friday, Hadid returned to the runway for Versace’s Fall/Winter 2021 presentation, where she debuted bright ginger-red hair — and we’re not talking about a wig. Celebrity colorist Panos Papandrianos is responsible for Hadid’s new hair color, which he dyed back in February. “She is dedicated to everyone responsible for the Queen’s Gambit,” the model wrote on her Instagram Story, referring to Beth Harmon’s hair in the hit series. “Ginger for Gigi,” Papandrianos wrote of his client’s look, alongside a video of Hadid showing off her new color.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Panos Papandrianos (@panosphair)

While drastically different for Hadid, the vivid auburn shade is a bold way to say “I’m back,” as she goes back to work after giving birth to daughter Khai last fall. Most model hair changes that happen during fashion month don’t last long beyond the runway (remember Kendall Jenner’s stint as a platinum blonde?), but this is one that might have real staying power.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Bernie Sanders has been hard at work fighting for workers rights, among other things. On Friday morning, Sanders proposed an amendment to the $2 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 — which he called a “starvation wage” — to $15. The Senate ultimately rejected the demand for a $15 minimum wage.

But that’s not all that Sen. Sanders has been advocating for. He has also apparently taken up young people’s romantic futures as a cause. “@SenSanders on the Senate floor saying we must crush COVID-19 so that young people can start dating again (among a long list of other reasons),” Tara Golshan, a reporter for the Huffington Post, tweeted yesterday.

That’s right: Bernie is advocating for us to get back to dating. The politician’s statement on Thursday summed up the mass devastation and suffering that the pandemic has caused — which goes beyond just financial instability and into mental health and well-being.

“COVID has not only caused massive death and illness, it has resulted in social isolation … All over this country, you’ve got old people, elderly people, in their homes, they can’t interact with their grandchildren, with their own kids, with their friends,” he said. “You’ve got young people, [who] want to go to school, want to socialize, want to date, want to do things that young people do. And they can’t do that or have been unable to do that for the last year, and that has resulted in a very sharp increase in mental illness in this country, something, by the way, this legislation also deals with.”

As a result of Sanders’ pro-dating stance, many Twitter users voiced support for the Senator, who is truly looking out for our sex lives, as it turns out. “Glad Bernie believes in my dating potential even if I don’t,” one responded. But that’s Bernie, for you: always believing in our potential. And that’s been true since before 2021 and for the duration of the pandemic.

Sanders has continued to advocate for a more robust stimulus package, as well as higher minimum wage for workers. Last March, he largely shifted his political focus into advocating for pandemic relief and has continued to stress the bipartisanship of COVID-19 aid in the Senate.

What’s clear is that Bernie’s support extends beyond just what’s in our bank accounts or pockets: He wants us to have our summer of love, too. (And maybe do so in some custom-made mittens).

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Bernie Sanders Is Once Again President Of Memes

Bernie Sanders Has Entered The Stimulus Chat

What Joe Biden Could Learn From Bernie Sanders

On Thursday, Caroline Giuliani, the daughter of defamed Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, shared her experience with polyamory and monogamy. In an essay for Vanity Fair, Giuliani spoke out about being bisexual and having sexual experiences with multiple people at one time on her path to polyamory, shedding light on how the lifestyle has opened her up to new ways of thinking about relationships. 

Giulani, who is 32, explained what it was like to be a “unicorn”: someone who joins couples as a third partner in the bedroom. “Finding the strength to explore these more complicated, passionate aspects of my personality became the key to harnessing my voice and creative spark, which in turn helped me better cope with depression, anxiety, and the lingering cognitive effects of adolescent anorexia,” she wrote. Sexual non-monogamy, she says, helped her cope with lack of fulfillment in past relationships.

Coming out of a particularly unsatisfying relationship, Giuliani said she finally realized what she was looking for and “immediately began to make up for lost time” by having sex with different people and practicing uninhibited self-discovery. “At the time, I didn’t fully understand what was missing from that relationship, but I did know that my partner loved me despite my weird wildness, while I yearned to be with someone who loved me because of it.”

She explained that finding her “wildness” as an adult felt more peaceful than when she was growing up. “It was not reacting or crying out but intentionally searching,” she said, explaining that she’d known she is bisexual for a while but hadn’t fully explored her sexuality with others at that time.

Despite her happiness in sharing her experiences, candidness about her lifestyle has also resulted in slut-shaming, she said. Still, this only served to help her see that she’s an “empathetic, radically open-minded, profoundly adventurous” person who is “fiercely committed to telling stories that reduce the stigma surrounding sexuality and mental health — including this one, right now.”

Giuliani — who is a filmmaker, political activist, and writer as well as politician Rudy Giuliani’s daughter — has already been the subject of media attention after she openly disagreed with her father’s political ties to Trump. Giuliani began her career as a production assistant in Hollywood, and has since worked her way up in the world, more recently working as the director’s assistant on Netflix’s 2019 romantic comedy Someone Great. In 2020, she created the psychological thriller film Or (Someone) Else, which follows a woman struggling through an abusive relationship, and the implications and ramifications of her anger and her mental health.

As for her relationship with her father, in 2016, when questioned about her political beliefs completely contradicting her father’s, she stated in another Vanity Fair essay: “he knows and is fully comfortable with it and thinks I have a right to my opinion.”

Rudy has not yet commented on his daughter’s latest writing on polyamory at time of publication. But Caroline says that she hopes by sharing her experiences with polyamory, more people will be open to the lifestyle and that she can shed light on harmful misconceptions and myths about it. 

“In these sexually-limiting pandemic times, reliving my spicy threesome memories has been a much-needed, COVID-free crutch for a single gal and her vibrators,” she wrote.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

How Polyamorous People Are Surviving The Pandemic

Watch This Old Video Of Trump Motorboating Rudy

Rudy Giuliani Might Be A COVID-19 Superspreader

Gossip Girl costume designer Eric Daman could tell we were already mentally preparing looks for the weekend. On Thursday, Jordan Alexander, one of the stars of the forthcoming reboot, was spotted filming in NYC wearing the perfect Saturday afternoon look. 

For the scene, Alexander, who is playing influencer Julien Calloway on the show, combined her Constance Billard uniform with athleisure, creating an enviable duet of sporty and preppy. She paired colorblock track pants and chunky Fila sneakers with an oversized trench coat, a men’s button-down, and a cropped Cinq A Sept sweater. Around her neck was a ribbon, in Constance Billard’s blue, that matched the Dior Saddle bag looped around her forearm. 

Like the outfits we’ve caught a glimpse of since filming began for the reboot — which included Schutz boots, Adidas sneakers, and bike shorts— Alexander’s latest, minus the designer handbag, is easy to recreate. Most people already own a trench coat, track pants, and sneakers. All we needed was Daman’s eye for styling to realize we should combine them all. And maybe add a tiny sweater for good measure. 

Ideal for the confusing is it winter or is it spring? time of year we’re in right now, the transitional weather look is just waiting to be copied. And if you choose to wear it to spend the weekend rewatching old episodes of Gossip Girl in anticipation of new ones, so be it. 

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Alice + Olivia's New Line Is Gossip Girl-Inspired

Get Spotted In A Varsity Jacket This Winter

Gossip Girl 2.0 Is Full Of Fall Trends

Laura* had been a fully employed member of the workforce since 1985, and at her most recent job as an office administrator since 1999. In August of 2020, however, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and with no other job lined up — or even a plan to find one — she made the decision to quit. 

“For 21 years, I had been commuting 90 minutes each way to my job,” Laura tells Refinery29 “This was eating away at what little personal time I had.” She had long contemplated making a change — perhaps moving or reducing her hours — but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit, and she was furloughed for two months in the spring of 2020 that she actually committed to acting on her feelings. “I finally had the opportunity and the luxury of time to reevaluate my priorities, spend time with my family and with myself,” she says. “My partner and I really enjoyed being home together, spending time with each other and my daughter.”

At the start of the pandemic, countless workers around the country were in a similar position, and while temporarily losing your job can be stressful and dire, for some — particularly those with a certain amount of economic privilege — it can provide an epiphany. Like Laura, Olivia was furloughed from her job in digital content at the end of March 2020. After three months, she was asked to return to work in June. “Being out of the business for that amount of time — which I know is a lot shorter than some furloughed folk have experienced — really made me realize what was important to me,” she says, “and opened my eyes to just how unhappy I was.” By September, without a backup plan in place, Olivia had also quit. 

Last October, Dr. Erin Cech, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, surveyed college-educated workers in the U.S. for her forthcoming book The Trouble with Passion: How the Search for Fulfilling Work Fosters Inequality. She specifically asked survey participants — all of whom were employed — whether they had lost their jobs or were furloughed as a result of COVID, and the results were surprising. “There’s this sentiment that people who go through employment instability are automatically going to become more economically rational and that they’re going to prioritize finding a job and salary,” she explains. “But, what I found is people who encounter this kind of employment instability as a result of COVID are actually more likely to value passion and value work-family balance in a job.”

Of course, it isn’t just those who were furloughed who chose to leave their jobs without another lined up in the last year. As the world changed due to the pandemic, so did the way we work. While some companies adjusted to allow employees more flexibility, others took advantage of the illusion of constant availability that working from home created and tried to maintain productivity and profitability, even with fewer resources and reduced headcounts. Dan left his job as a credit analyst in August 2020 in part because the highly bureaucratic job felt “meaningless,” but also because the worsening economic environment had made the job even more stressful. Dan was already in pursuit of a career change and was working on another degree in order to make the switch, but he had originally intended to wait to quit until he found another job in his new field. The pandemic made his day-to-day work and working conditions intolerable. “With everything going on, including serious orthopedic problems exacerbated by the lockdown and management’s unreasonable attitude, I reached my breaking point before finding another job,” he shares. “Also, once there was a crisis and we started talking about essential workers, it made me feel even more fundamentally embarrassed to be part of an organization where about 40 people got paid six-figures each just to hop through bureaucratic hoops and write empty words in an expensive Midtown office, while people with actually necessary jobs couldn’t pay their rent.” 

For Grace, who worked in television production before quitting in July 2020, the pandemic also intensified workplace issues. For several months, she had been expected to work more hours without additional pay. “The office had been a pretty toxic place up to the pandemic — I was harassed by another member of staff for my first four months on the team without any recourse by HR, my supervisor, or his boss — so I had been aiming to get out for a while, but, obviously, the 11.5-hour days and minimal pay were big contributing factors to quitting,” she says. “Plus, the only reason I was allowed to start working from home was that, as I was told at 5:30 p.m. on March 18: ‘You may have been exposed to COVID-19 and we don’t want you getting anyone else sick.'”

Rielle, who quit her job at a media charity in December 2020, had a similar experience. As her team worked to adapt to the changes caused by COVID-19, her role steadily expanded and demands became difficult to keep up with. “The crazy workload started to snowball for me. My boss was super-impressed by how much we were getting noticed by the community and kept bringing up his expectations, and they became unreasonable. He started becoming very rude during meetings, especially when his deliverables weren’t being met. This caused a lot of anxiety for me,” Rielle says. “I felt like I couldn’t escape from work or say no to additional tasks that were falling on my plate, because I didn’t have an excuse. I was just home. It didn’t help that, because of the pandemic and my toxic boss, all my workmates were also always on edge about everything. Working remotely has definitely hindered my team from bonding and creating relationships that help in collaboration, too.”

According to Cech, the pandemic has acted as a “destabilizing moment” in most people’s lives, which has prompted or even required us to stop and think about the things that we most value in society. “There is a vein of cultural evaluation that says: ‘Get as much money as you can; get as much economic success and prestige as you can.’ But, there are all these other countervailing cultural perspectives, like: ‘Love your work even if it doesn’t make as much money’ and ‘Prioritize time with your family and friends,'” she explains. “So we’re seeing this moment where the pandemic has allowed some people to step back and ask themselves, What do I really value? What’s really important to me? How do I align my decision-making with that?” However, she also says it’s important to point out the huge caveat in all of this: a financial safety net.

Every person I spoke with about quitting their job acknowledged that privilege played a huge role in their ability to do so. Some had partners or other family members who could support them during their time off, while others dipped into savings or retirement funds. Even those who had to rethink their spending habits and tighten their budgets had enough of a cushion to get by without bringing in a steady paycheck. Brisa, who just put in her two weeks notice and plans to spend her time off taking care of herself and dealing with a chronic illness, says that one of the main reasons she was able to quit was because she still lives with her parents. “I’ve had so many complicated feelings about having the privilege to leave my job,” she says. “At the same time, I don’t have the privilege of living in a healthy body. I didn’t have the privilege of working somewhere that was willing to make the necessary adjustments for me. All these details made a difference. Ultimately, my body’s limitations and the stress of the role outweighed the experience I was getting and any other positives of the job.” 

Though the pandemic has clearly been a catalyst for many people to re-evaluate their relationship with labor for a variety of reasons, many of those who chose to take a break from work during this time of economic uncertainty were still concerned about how others would react to their decision. Olivia said she was “absolutely terrified” to tell anyone that she was quitting her job without something else lined up. “After a couple of weeks of tears that ultimately led up to me handing in my notice, my manager came across as quite sincere and understanding, but also told me that I would find it hard to get another job in the current climate and would be lucky to find something that suited my skill set,” she says. “This was something that stuck with me and did make me feel nervous and somewhat question whether I should be quitting, but I knew that I didn’t want to find another job straight away.” Though Olivia’s colleagues were supportive and understood why she had decided to quit, there was still a noticeable shift in many of her daily conversations with them: “It went from the usual ‘what are you having for tea?’ to ‘have you found another job yet?'” 

Because our capitalist culture places such a high value on work, it’s hard not to pass judgment on or be seriously concerned about someone who chooses to stop working, even if it’s temporary. It simply doesn’t feel natural. According to Cech, this is partly because, for most upwardly mobile adults, there is a strong tie between who we are and what we do. This is, in part, a result of what in sociological theory is called the reflexive project of the self, which posits that we, as individuals, are projects that have to be worked on, refined, and made better. “One of the clearest instructions we’re given culturally for figuring out how to do that is to find a job that aligns with our sense of self and work at it really hard and move up the ranks,” Dr. Cech explains. “So if we don’t have that career or we don’t have that occupation as an anchor, there are not a whole lot of other things that can fill that void.” However, when people leave their jobs, which are viewed as these instruments of self-improvement, they’re often freed from the pressure to constantly produce and grow. Instead, they’re able to simply live.

“I have learned to relax for the first time in my life — this may seem like a throwaway line, but is actually THE most important thing I have accomplished,” Laura says of her time since quitting. “As an overachiever, I never felt I was doing enough, I never sat down, I never had a moment of peace, and the first few months at home, I didn’t know what to do with myself, I couldn’t sit still. I have slowly learned to be a different person, to do what pleases me, to read, listen to podcasts, make art, and do other things which I enjoy.” Olivia, too, began to do whatever she wanted. She started baking again, doing crafts, and sleeping better. “I absolutely loved having time to myself and actually feeling like I had time to myself,” she shares. “My mental wellbeing completely skyrocketed, and I felt so happy and free.” Dan feels similarly. “I like having a break to focus on myself and my health for the first time in a while,” he says. “It’s nice to not have to wear corporate drag every day — both physically and mentally.” Rielle is catching up on cookbooks she bought in the past and never had a chance to use. Grace has been spending quality time with her aging parents. “I really like being able to make my own schedule and plan things on my own terms,” she shares. 

Because of everything that has changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this time has come to be viewed as a sort of cultural reset. Certainly, the people to whom I spoke — as well as many others — have experienced transformations, to varying degrees, in their individual relationships with labor. Still, Cech isn’t convinced it will lead to a lasting change in our collective attitude toward work. “It may cause a shift to a very limited extent in terms of these people having to educate their family members or their friends on why they’re not engaged in the labor force or why they’ve stopped, and I think that will provide opportunities for reflection among the people that they are in conversation with,” she says. “But I don’t know that it would make a very big shift. I think the status quo understanding of who people are in terms of identifying with a career is quite deep.”

And, because most everything costs money, many of those I spoke to mentioned that, despite getting financial support from elsewhere, the one thing they miss about being employed is having a steady source of income. Though they love their newfound freedom, they don’t enjoy the ever-present worry about being able to cover regular expenses or emergencies. That is the reason they’re all planning to eventually return to work. Olivia, in fact, recently started a new role, which is completely remote. “I feel a lot happier than I did in my last job,” she shares. Dan says he’ll probably start looking for something when he feels physically and mentally ready, likely within the next few months. Brisa isn’t in any hurry to find something else, and when she does, she expects it to be part-time or freelance. Grace, who is currently up for a few new positions that she’s hopeful will work out, has also been freelancing and taking on temp work. 

Though none of them decided to permanently stop working, their time away from the workforce, reexamining priorities has prompted changes. Rielle, who is actively looking for a new job, is being more choosy. “If I’ve learned anything in the past year it’s to be very intentional in the next career steps that I take,” she shares. “I’m really pushing myself to get a job that aligns with my goals and also being very speculative about my next company’s work culture. I’ve also learned to embrace the uncertainty, which was really hard to take.”

Laura isn’t planning to return to work until the fall. In order to assure that she’s able to work less and live more, she’s open to restructuring her assets, changing her living arrangements, and even moving away from the expensive city where she currently lives. Her mindset has been completely altered by her time off. “I have lived my entire adult life petrified about not having an income, about not being able to make ends meet, about losing what I have worked hard to achieve. What I feel has been the most profound change is that I now know there are other ways, other options — that I can make choices other than the tried and true,” she says. “I finally feel confident that I can make things work no matter what happens, and that the old model of having to work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, while sacrificing everything else, is not the only model, and may in fact not be the healthiest model… I wish I had reevaluated sooner.”

*Some names have been changed

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Declaring Bankruptcy Is Good, Actually

The Dream Job Is Dead. Did It Ever Really Exist?

How To Tailor Your Job Applications To Right Now