What is the mental load?

How does the mental load affect women?

Is the mental load a real thing? And if it is, what is its impact on women?

The mental load is all the “invisible work” that needs to be done to keep daily life going

This includes cognitive and emotional needs as well.

Cognitive labor involves thinking of all the practical needs and logistics and emotional labor involves managing and regulating everyone’s emotions to create the most successful outcome for everyone. 

Four components of the mental load:

• Anticipating needs
• Finding solutions to meet them
• Making decisions
• Monitoring progress

What is the effect on women?

Health:

• Anxiety disorders
• Burnout
• Depression

At work:

• Stalled careers
• Judgement: that we’re distracted 

Economically:

The wage gap literally exists because of the mental load. Women are paid less than men and women of color are paid less than white women.

Relationships:

Kids - we teach our boys that women carry the mental load for them and we teach our girls that they're responsible for doing invisible labor. We're less present with our families, simply going through the motions of managing a family rather than participating in the family.

Husbands - when they don't help shoulder the mental load, they miss out on opportunities to bond with their children. Their partners/wives become resentful and everyone's happiness takes a nose dive. At the end of the day, women are less intimate and less likely to want to have sex with their husbands because they resent them for not carrying more of the load.

Friendships - we lose the closeness of our friendships when we're too busy to coordinate regular meet-ups with our friends.

Why are any of these things a problem?

We're teaching our kids the same generational cycle we resent and women end up feeling unfulfilled in their own lives. They get lost in motherhood.

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