I have gone about a lot of my life at the same speed. My feet touched the ground, and it’s been one speed ever since—full speed. I am not an anomaly, as a female in American culture we have assumed this role. Especially as moms, women in the workforce, female identified domestic partners. The roles society has taught us, fed us, labeled us into, are ones of striving and service and sacrifice.
As a working mother, and just a person who gives a damn, I have found this to be particularly true. Wake up before dawn to start the day, not to slow down again until the sun is long set and the world sleeps around you. Spending every hour trying to catch up, keep up, not trip up. And maybe occasionally even remembering to stop and take in the fleeting moment with your child who has a very important slimy worm to show you in his pocket.
Balancing the never-ending pressures and expectations to not fall, and instead excel, on the treadmill that is steadily accelerating at an incline while you juggle all the things; being a total babe, accomplished and thriving, icing cakes while you balance budgets, and changing diapers with a smile and ease. Proving oneself at work and at home, in the school pickup line and the platforms around us. This is us. This is the American woman, the dream that we have continued to uphold even in its deeply dysfunctional and damaging ways.
We have been taught this by our mothers and their mothers and their mothers’ mothers. For many beautiful reasons women have stepped up and stepped in, time and time again, generation after generation. They have met the need and met the moment that communities and countries called them to. But with time, patriarchal ways have thwarted and taken advantage of the beauty and led women to a whole different way of being in the world. One that circles the edge of burnout at all times.
You may know it well, that constant feeling of just trying to keep your head above water. You knew it pre-COVID-19, but now, now it is something more.
The recent Women in the Workplace report notes that women are even more burned out than they were a year ago, and the gap in burnout between women and men has almost doubled. In the past year, 1 in 3 women have considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers—a significant increase from 1 in 4 during the early months of the pandemic. High stress levels are not surprising, given the labor force is knee deep in the second year of complex pandemic workplace conditions, unrivaled workforce shortages, and a child care crisis that weaves through it all. This doesn’t even touch on the experiences of those who are full-time caregivers, or the significant complexities added when the woman is low-income, a single parent, or part of a group that faces systemic discrimination every day.
President Joe Biden has proposed a significant investment in child care in hopes of offering parents some support. But as we wait on the government, women are reaching yet another critical moment as more and more exit the workplace due to unrealistic demands, inequity in promotions, the continued drastic pay gaps, and ingrained expectations to assume primary caregiver. The number of women on payrolls fell last month for the first time since the winter COVID-19 surge in 2020, and this drop was even more stark for those aged 25 to 44, who are more likely to have school-age children. Without women in the workforce, we all lose. We will have weaker economies, communities, companies, and families. There is no winning by continuing to systematically burn out women.
The change we are waiting for isn’t coming quickly enough, and in truth, the world is fine with keeping women where they are. No one is lighting a flame under this issue unless the 166 million women in America do. But there is no silver bullet. Systemic problems require systemic solutions. Policy alone can’t deconstruct the narratives and job descriptions that society has written women into, nor is self-care the solution to unrealistic expectations.
This collective problem calls for collective solutions. We need a new level of investment from companies and leaders and individuals to push beyond important but smaller wins in the representation of women, and do the deep work necessary to shift our culture to one where all women, all people, are valued, belong, and are supported to carry the burden together.
You, reader, are a part of the collective solution we are talking about. If COVID-19 has taught us anything (and it has taught us many things), when change is critical, we are capable. Change is critical now. If you are an employer or a leader or in any position of power, it is time to reexamine the practices that keep us here. If you are a spouse or partner, time to redistribute the burden. And, if you have been subject to systematic gender inequities that leave you on the brink, reclaim your time and redefine what it means to be a woman in America.Δ
Quinn Brady (she/her) is a community advocate, organizer, and mother on the Central Coast. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 7, 2021.
Good grief. You live the way you want and others will live the way they want. Why are you so obsessed with wanting people to live the way you do. You progressives are somewhat delusional to think you can change anybody’s heart. What a waste of time. Live your life, be a nice person and life will seem much more pleasant.
It’s a shame your ears, eyes and heart are so closed to her message of truth. Continuing to whip us to produce while simultaneously stepping on our necks to hold us back has been in evidence for generations.
You don’t even have the guts to use your real name on the internet, “Doctor Potion”. You hate us because you could never be us. April
I weep for your First World ordeal. At a time when much of the planet’s population is trying to get enough to eat, or to maintain even rudimentary shelter, or dying of curable yet untreated disease, this tale of your desperate struggle to care for the children you chose to have, or to “be a total babe”, or the “burn out” you feel from life, reduces me to tears.
John Donegan doesn’t have any needs. He is fed, and has no diseases (that he knows about). That’s why he comes here on a daily basis to tell us about his opinion for how to not change anything at all.
Oh, but he doesn’t like the tone that younger people use with the boomers.
https://www.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/…
I guess that’s a real problem though? Because it happens to him?
I suppose first world problems are just problems that John doesn’t have. Cool!
If you are a single parent or just single both by choice, then you may consider a suitable husband? I’m sure both you and your children will benefit, if you use good judgement in finding one with financial stability.
@Neighborhood: Who’s complaining? I have a great life, secured by a lifetime of hard work and avoiding doing dumb things. As to “diseases”, don’t ask a geezer about his health unless you want to hear a long “organ recital”. You would be surprised just how long we old timers can carry on, in exquisite, unrelenting detail, about the various afflictions of old age. But unlike kids like yourself, we don’t whine and blame others. We don’t insist on treating our life choices as a failure of society that we are entitled to be compensated for. Unlike you and the author of these piece, we don’t demand immense amounts of taxpayer paid benefits to rescue ourselves from the predictable results of our choices (I spent a lifetime paying large amounts into Social Security and Medicare). And unlike you and the other emotionally delicate kids, I don’t demand that the opinions of others be suppressed or cancelled in order to give me a “safe place” of ideological homogeneity, or that”trigger warnings” be provided to warn me of upsetting ideas. Reread my “OK Boomer” column. There is no whining, and only a suggestion to other Boomers to keep things in perspective.
John. Johnathan. I’m not trying to cancel or suppress your bad opinions. I just came here to say that they’re bad and dumb opinions. My emotional state is just fine. And, please, continue.
Also, I’m excited that you once upon a time learned about the term “trigger warning” and swiftly adopted it as your number one rhetorical tactic. Happy for you. I know how much you like and depend upon blinding countering that you, a man who wrote a whole piece about “OK boomer”, simply triggered the kids.
You’re a good boy, John. You did the hard work. You did it good. Real good, and hard. Wish we could all do the work as hard and good as you. Was college tuition over 50% lower then (inflation adjusted)? Sure. Was the minimum wage higher (inflation adjusted)? Absolutely! Did you benefit from government handouts like the GI Bill which weren’t afforded to others in our society based on race and gender? Good chance! But you, John – beautiful, strong, non-diseased, bootstrapping, John. You made it. So why would we ever change a thing?
Anyway, here’s another piece where John doesn’t blame others:
https://www.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/…