Gendered Labor - Tumblr Posts

Women’s unpaid and often unacknowledged labour literally props up just about everything and it’s so taken for granted it’s rendered nigh invisible, to the point everyone, including the women doing the work, reproduce these systems automatically without even realizing it’s happening.

And even in leftist/progressive spaces and homes,falling into gendered divisions of labour can happen insidiously even when there’s a concious effort to avoid it.

I encourage everyone, not just men, to think about how this plays out in our everyday lives both in the labour around us we take for granted and in the labour we’re actually performing.

And this includes mental and emotional labour as much as physical. If you and your wife split physical housework 50/50 but she’s the only one keeping track of your family calendars, picking out gifts and remembering cards for birthdays, making the grocery lists, doing social and emotional work to maintain your social/familial relationships, etc, then it’s not truly 50/50.

And contrary to popular belief, this mental work is exhausting and tolling, and not something that women are naturally more innate to have the capacity for. It’s often something that falls to us/on us.