This year’ theme for International Women’s Day is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”.  It’s hard to talk about equality without talking about ‘mental load’.

According to UN Women, the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women: “Women stand at the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, as health care workers, caregivers, innovators, community organizers and as some of the most exemplary and effective national leaders in combating the pandemic. The crisis has highlighted both the centrality of their contributions and the disproportionate burdens that women carry.” 

These ‘disproportionate burdens’ have exacerbated since the start of the pandemic. They also span a wide range of issues, each of which requires concerted effort to ameliorate. Here are a few of the most formidable: 

*A 25% increase in reports of domestic violence globally 

*Limited access to healthcare systems in low-income countries 

*Unequal employment rights leading to compromised financial resilience

*And unequal representation in leadership and public policy, despite making up the majority of front-line workers

In this article, we’ll look at just one issue: unpaid care and domestic work. It may not be the most attention-grabbing topic in gender inequality, but its impact is pervasive. 

Global research from the UN Women’s International Labor Organization shows that before the pandemic, women were responsible for three times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. The adjustments to life in lockdown, and particularly the transition to work and school from home, have increased those responsibilities and placed a growing emphasis on the concept of mental load.

When mental load meets pandemic (an opportunity for change) 

‘Mental load’ refers to “the total sum of responsibilities taken on to manage the remembering of things” and is related to the concept of ‘emotional labor’. Or the process of managing emotions and relationships with others within a group to maintain healthy functioning.   

The burden of mental load tends to fall unequivocally on female heads of household. In recent years it has surfaced repeatedly in the discourse on gender. 

Importantly, ‘mental load’ contributes to very real mental and physical health challenges that women face.

According to Nicole Avena, professor of health psychology at Princeton University, women are “overworked at our jobs and at home”, and “not being able to step away can lead to mental health issues”. These include almost twice the rate of diagnosis as men in anxiety-related disorders, as well as chronic stress, depression, and physical comorbidities that pose serious long-term health concerns. 

The effects of mental load on women have increased since the pandemic outbreak. Yet so have the opportunities for deep, enduring reform. Below are a few ways in which the new realities of post-pandemic living can serve as catalysts for change.  

Recognizing mental load for women in the home (I see you!)

It’s one thing for women to shoulder the majority of household responsibilities. It’s another to not receive any recognition for the unending effort this requires. 

Feeling undervalued is one of the most difficult aspects that women report in managing mental load within the home. The ensuing resentment, frustration, and oftentimes, rage, deplete vast amounts of mental and emotional energy that are already diminished. They also strain the relationship with their partners. 

In this regard, simply acknowledging the unbalanced load that women carry can support positive outcomes for improved wellbeing in the short term. As confined living conditions bring to light the many thankless tasks that were once carried out ‘invisibly’, they initiate a more balanced share of responsibility. Over time, this encourages women to adopt better self-care practices and improves communication among all family members. In the long term, it also calls into question harmful imposed gender roles, making way for real generational change in equality. 

Less is more: Reducing mental load for women in the workplace

Despite the many new mental load challenges raised during life in lockdown, the pandemic has also opened new opportunities in terms of rethinking work/life balance. These opportunities were discussed in a recent interview for NPR, by Brigitte Schulte, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author of the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time. 

In the interview, Schulte discusses how the pandemic, and the shift to working from home, have forced us to reconsider stigmas about flexible schedules. Ones that used to be reserved for working moms and suggested inferior work quality. 

Schulte says: “The new reality of flexible schedules is an opportunity to ask how can we reshape work? And how will that impact families and gender equality? How can we open up that sense of a whole human being, an authentic human being with work and life? How can we create work systems that provide opportunity for meaningful work — and yet don’t eat you alive, don’t burn you out?” 

Even minor adjustments in allowing more flexible schedules can have far-reaching and cumulative effects on reducing mental load for working moms. The pandemic has made clear that this is in fact possible, and particularly for those employed in office settings.

Workable solutions must also be considered for service-oriented jobs, where flexible scheduling is not an option, and where emotional labor is particularly taxing. For example, in a recent meta-analysis of research that was done on emotional labor in the workplace, harmful effects on employee health were found across different sectors of the economy. While the analyses do not focus solely on women, many of the sectors included were service-oriented ones in which women make up the majority, including: hotel workers, nurses, sales and call center employees, and dental hygienists. These effects range from burnout and fatigue, to dysmenorrhea, disruptions in sleep patterns, and suicidal tendencies. 

As in the home, the first step employers can take in supporting working mothers is to recognize that their mental load, and mental health in general, are issues that must be openly acknowledged at work. This has never been more true than in these post-pandemic times, when employers are increasingly expected to play a role in supporting employee wellbeing. 

Final thoughts for Int’l Women’s Day 2021 

Mental load and emotional labor are themes that are interconnected in women’s personal, professional, and public lives and must continue evolving in all three spheres to create meaningful change. By taking responsibility and redefining the ways in which we choose to engage with these burdens collectively, we ensure greater wellbeing and resilience for all members of society.