Mastodawn

Great article about the kinds of mental load involved, for women, in domestic labour.

Sadly, this is old news.

Twenty years ago I completed a PhD thesis that unpacked & examined these aspects of domestic life.

By interviewing parents & kids separately, asking the same open ended questions - ‘what gets done, who does what, is it fair, & how do you think it should be?’, which I ran through 3 times, first for domestic tasks, then for the work of identifying what needs to be done & making sure it happens, then for noticing how everyone is feeling & keeping every happy in the process - then taking the family as my unit of analysis, I showed that men & kids were unaware of much of the physical & almost all of the intangible work women did in their homes. Boys & men thought everything was fine. Girls did not want to assume, as adults, the domestic servant role they saw their mothers placed in but had no strategies to achieve this beyond ‘I’ll just tell them’.

There was a hierarchy of work in these families in which men’s work & leisure time had highest priority, then kids’ schooling & leisure, then domestic work of all kinds. Womens paid work & leisure was lowest priority of all.

The families that lived without conflict were those in which the hierarchy of work was not disputed. Where women sought to disrupt the hierarchy there was conflict - which became another part of the domestic load she was expected to manage.

My findings showed that contrary to popular narratives of ‘progress’, this dynamic was not likely to change until men as well as women recognise the dynamic & choose to shift it.

This argument was not popular.

Twenty years later, here we are.

I wish I had been wrong.

#DomesticLabour #EmotionWork #MentalLoad #sociology #research #women #mothers

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-02/the-four-stages-of-the-mental-load-explained/106348264?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

Women carry bulk of the mental load, but men are active in one stage

While research has found mothers do more in all four stages of cognitive labour, there was one stage where men were more active than others.

TL Jordan Mar 2

This right here:
"If I was someone's secretary — this [work] is exactly what I am paid to do."

My spouse appreciates my efforts, but when it comes to the world outside our household, my decades of unpaid labor mean nothing because I don't earn a paycheck. It has no value because I can't put it on a resume as a skill or brandish it as an accomplishment.

quackademic Mar 2

@dulcedemon So unjust. Also so hard to manage the big feels ❤️‍🩹

@26pglt I would be interested to read your thesis. Is it available somewhere?

quackademic Mar 2

https://figshare.swinburne.edu.au/articles/thesis/Who_cares_anyway_negotiating_domestic_labour_in_families_with_teenage_kids/26276368?file=47639362

@26pglt thank you 🙏

@26pglt your summary points are completely spot on. And I’ve learned that IF I specifically inform the adult male here as to what needs to be done, the answer is “It’s not that bad”. Apparently I am the only one who will pick up a piece of trash from the floor, or clean the toilet, Change a lightbulb, put TP on the dispenser, clean the sink, or use glass cleaner on mirrors.
Also related:

The worst insult is daily seeing all the dishes that must be washed still in the sink at 6 am. Even when I specifically ask for the adult son to do them or do them in the dishwasher overnight. It’s just a soul-killing grind over and over for me. And so upsetting that I can’t even just try to ignore them because I need to use the sinks to make my coffee right away.

I’ve tried the strategy of not giving in to do them when promised they will be done. Turns out every piece of silverware and most dinnerware can be dirty and the man here will just ignore the mess. “There is no bottom” is a phrase to describe when a man thinks we need to get the dishes done. I have not yet tried the strategy of homicide.

@cobalt123 @26pglt 🫂

quackademic Mar 2

@cobalt123 I’m sorry this is happening to you. Heartbreaking & so common. How can our grown up kids learn to be adults if their dad does not behave like one ❤️‍🩹

@26pglt Yikes, how did you guess their dad was this way? I would have thought since I raised them that they would see what I daily or at least weekly cleaned.

But, nope. I do think that common issues has their first point: they really are oblivious and then: they don’t feel it’s that important to clean. And I’m not known for being a super picky cleaner. I just get enraged that bending over to pick up an errant potato peel would just not happen unless I pointed it out and asked them to pick it up.

@cobalt123 @26pglt Very relatable. Strategic incompetence .

quackademic Mar 3

@daliazygas @cobalt123 yup!

Pinchy63 🇨🇦Mar 2

@26pglt
I’ve been trying to explain this to my husband for 36 yrs. His contribution to the house has always been to take the kids to the playground while I clean up or cook. Now he’s doing it with the dog. The house would fall apart without me.

quackademic Mar 3

@Pinchy63 such a common experience ❤️‍🩹

@26pglt
reminds me of this article

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/

Women Aren't Nags—We're Just Fed Up

The unpaid job men still don't understand.

Harper's BAZAAR

quackademic Mar 3

@MsMerope thank you that's a great article.

I like the idea of framing rules & feeling rules when thinking about emotional labour. Both come from the work of American sociologist Arlie Hochschild.

Framing rules set out what is permissible to say. Feeling rules set out what is permissible to feel. Framing rules + feeling rules = ideology.

Sociologists have argued that unwritten rules about domestic work sit within an ideology of intensive mothering. A good mother is this. A bad mother is that.

When we feel upset about domestic labour we're breaking the feeling rules. When we name the division of labour as unjust we're breaking the framing rules. We're nagging. We're upsetting family harmony. It's our fault.

This is not an individual problem.

Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary Mar 3

@MsMerope @26pglt
My roommate insists that their own tendency to act like this is ADHD, that it's all an executive dysfunction thing.

That doesn't stop me from feeling like I'm stuck in a housewife role, expected to do the work of two and a half people with only half the necessary tools. It just makes me feel like arguing against it is impossible because they've got a way to frame it as something other than sexism.

quackademic Mar 4

@pteryx @MsMerope The neurodivergent framing is an interesting overlay. At best it can help us to be kinder to ourselves & each other. At worst it end up like Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ - easy code for ‘oh he just doesn’t see that stuff’.

@MsMerope @26pglt this Harper's article deserves a *boost*

quoting from ⬆️:

„The families that lived without conflict were those in which the hierarchy of work was not disputed. Where women sought to disrupt the hierarchy there was conflict.“

This is what women face in so many other areas as well. Workplace, clubs, politics: it’s fine for them to participate and even hold an office as long as the hierarchy isn’t challenged. Decisions are in line with what a man would have done. No uncomfortable questions that would disrupt privilege, please.

quackademic Mar 3

@erdstern big Yup

Jim Hubbell Mar 2

@26pglt
What does your research show when the wife is disabled by accident or illness?

quackademic Mar 3

@Dougfir that was outside the scope of this study, sadly

Over There Mar 2

@26pglt I was horrified by my mother’s life, and planned to completely avoid something similar. And completely failed

quackademic Mar 3

@oftencalledcathy ❤️‍🩹

@26pglt I mean, we were describing the same things *40* years ago!

quackademic Mar 3

@acm_redfox 🔥🔥🔥

Karakteristika Mar 3

@26pglt sadly true even in equal countries like Finland. In one of my friends family, they have listed everything in Excel and divided tasks equally between the parents. Sounds extreme, but makes work visible.

ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘Mar 3

@26pglt On the invisibility of domestic labour: In one family, the mother decided to redistribute some of the domestic tasks. One son was assigned cleaning the bathroom. He objected, justifying his position with, "But the bathroom never gets dirty!" Completely oblivious to his mother's work keeping the bathroom clean.

Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary Mar 3

@26pglt
The four-step process as outlined here reminds me of how it's more effort than it really should be to just... make supper.

Planning doesn't just include recognizing that we'll need to eat, but making sure that both of us aren't trying to do it at the same time. It took longer than it seems it ought to have just to make clear to my roommate that we need to actually coordinate and communicate to decide whether I cook, they buy from a restaurant, or we heat up prefab things.

1/2

Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary Mar 3

@26pglt
It took more effort than I think my roommate recognizes to get to the point where we can usually manage steps 1-3 of 4. I don't think they understand that when, after I've cooked, I ask how it is, I'm not just asking for a polite platitude, but trying to figure out if I've done things well or if there are any adjustments I should make (either fully or finding a compromise). They often come off as paying so little attention to their food that I wonder if they care at all.

2/2

@26pglt My wife and I talk about this all the time, but the cognitive load is hard to manage. We‘re a classic family - I work full-time to support the family, my wife works part-time and manages our calendar and our daughter. I try and help with chores as much as I can in my spare time (work days for me are usually 8am - 6pm), but sometimes that is not enough. We don’t have much support from our immediate family, so the only free time we both get is during school holidays.

@26pglt The struggle is real and it is draining both of us. But we hold together and make the best of it - it’s what keeps us afloat. But every now and then it seems that the mountain of stuff that needs to be taken care of is insurmountable.

@chrisn @26pglt It's good you're working at it. I mean that. I'm struck, though, by the use of language.

"I work full-time to support the family" If "support the family" means 'enable them to live and grow,' your wife is doing that too. She just doesn't get the recognition of being paid.

Plus she "works part-time." I assume that means has a paying job in addition to everything else. Yet the phrasing somehow gives the feeling that what she does is lesser, even though I'm sure that's not how you meant it. But there it is, the same aura that seeps into everything.

(Could you hold down a full time job and do your full share of all the unpaid work? Probably not. Paying work was structured by men embedded in patriarchy; it assumes a wife at home to take care of 7 days a week worth of unpaid labor. Gender equality would require restructuring work as well as everything else!)

@quixote @26pglt I'm not perfect by any means - the phrasing is so ingrained into society that I did not think twice before writing it. But I would never regard my wife's work as lesser, or anything she does in fact.
The point I was trying to make is that even if you have a family that supports each other - modern life can be draining, it is hard. You must help each other out, or it may overwhelm you. 'It takes a village to raise a child' as they say.

@chrisn @26pglt Exactly. I was sure, given what you were saying, that you meant the right things. It's just always boggling, to me anyway, ^how^ we say things is so steeped in the mindset being rejected. And there's no lack of research showing that how we say things has influence on us without us even noticing. So we're bamboozled into doing The Man's work while trying to do the opposite. 😵‍💫

Yes, absolutely, re the village. In my ideal world (really, https://molvray.com/govforum/2010/05/economy/#Labor ) the work week is 24 hours long, parents/caregivers get different shifts, child care is a right, and everybody (gets to?) take part in all the different kinds of work. Just that brief sentence, though, shows how much restructuring would be needed for an equal society.

Reimagining Democracy » Money and Work

Terminally shy Mar 4

Really great article.

I boosted the posts out of order to highlight how prevalent that hidden opposition to women trying for equality is.

Most women working anywhere less than 100% gender stratified would recognize it.

I. L. Villiam Mar 7

@26pglt "There was a hierarchy of work in these families in which men’s work & leisure time had highest priority, then kids’ schooling & leisure, then domestic work of all kinds. Womens paid work & leisure was lowest priority of all."

I feel this on such a deep level. It's ingrained into me.

It's difficult to fight against those beliefs/habits.

quackademic Mar 9

@Drude we need each other for this ❤️‍🩹

Neville Park Mar 7

@26pglt thank you for sharing your insights, and the article!

In so many little ways, both implicit and explicit, one is trained in this kind of labour from childhood. Like getting a stern look or whispered reminder (or criticism afterwards) if you don't offer to help with the dishes after dinner, etc. And whether it eventually comes naturally to you or not, if you live as a woman you get held to those standards in a way men aren't, so you just have to suck it up and do it.

LillyLyle/Count Melancholia Mar 10

@26pglt Religions tend to teach and reinforce this patriarchal structure.
I honestly don't think we'll make any progress until we rid ourselves of religion.