It’s more than past time we talk about the invisible labor of women

As we tentatively look toward a post-pandemic world where the masks begin to come off and the offices start to reopen, it’s past time we start having some tough conversations about the invisible labor of women.

Like so many things the past year, the pandemic yanked back the curtain on what has long been true in our society: Women do the vast majority of the unpaid, unrecognized work in families and in workplaces.

At home, women in heterosexual relationships do the majority of child care, household chores and household management. At work, women are 44% more likely to be asked to volunteer for “unpromotable” but time-consuming work tasks, according to research published in the Harvard Business Review. Further, the research showed that when asked to volunteer, men said yes only 51% percent of the time where women said yes 76% of the time.

This disparity at work was highlighted recently when the CEO of Washingtonian Media, Cathy Merrill, wrote a Washington Post op-ed arguing for workers to return to the physical office, writing that 20% of an employee’s job are the “extras” you can only achieve in an office, such as celebrating birthdays and supporting junior staff.   Read the full article at the Seattle Times