Invisible work

Warm-up
1. Who does the chores at your house?
2. Do you consider home chores as work? Do you think it should be considered
when you talk about working hours?
3. Usually who does this work?
4. Read the following two infographics. What is the comparison made? What does
it say about our society?
5. Do you think in Brazil is similar?
Listening

1. Match the words to their definitions.

1.the mental and emotional burden of managing tasks, responsibilities, and decisions
2.causing severe, overwhelming, and destructive harm or emotional distress
3.a responsibility, or obligation that can be physically or emotionally exhausting
4.the tendency to not remember things
5.to meet or exceed expectations or standards
6.to have a negative impact on something or someone
7. to show understanding and tolerance by not being overly critical or demanding
8. completely used up or exhausted, often referring to resources, energy, or reserves
 a) Mental load
b) To live up to something
c) To cut someone some slack
d) Burden
e) Forgetfulness
f) Devastating
g) Depleted
h) To take a toll

2. Now watch the video and pay attention also to the pronunciation of the
following words:
- Ansiety
- Migraines
- Though society
- Overwhelmed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swa5FmNqdHk

3. Then discuss the following questions:

a) According to the video, why are women, and especially moms, under a lot of
pressure?
b) What does the video refer to as the "mental load"?
c) How does the video describe the concept of perfection?
d) What is Kelly Hausman's advice regarding the mental load?
e) According to the video, what is the impact of the mental load on women?
f) According to the research mentioned in the video, what percentage of women
reported feeling stressed due to the mental load, compared to men?

Reading

1. In our country are the responsibilities of a mother the same as the

responsibilities of a father to their families?
2. Read the following article from Seattle News and discuss:
a) Is it just home chores that are considered the invisible unpaid work that usually
women do?
b) What is the female recession?
c) Does race and ethnicity have a share in that too?
d) Do the different forms of family share the same idea and organization of the
unpaid labor?
e) According to the text, what is possible to be done to change it?
f) Do you agree with the text? Would you add something else?

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

May 17, 2021 at 6:00 am

By Naomi Ishisaka

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.
But who does those extras? Usually women, and it doesn’t benefit their careers.
Laura Hazard Owen wrote in response to Merrill’s piece in Nieman Lab,
“Working remotely for the last year has revealed just how much of office culture is
accidental, arbitrary, and sexist. Much of what’s lumped in with unpaid ‘culture’ should
be identified and divided equitably.” The blowback to Merrill’s piece was swift, with
the staff of the magazine refusing to publish for a day in response. But Merrill’s view is
not outside the norm.
The workplace and societal structures that consider care of all kinds to be
undervalued “women’s work” have led to what some economists are calling the “female
recession.” According to the news site The 19th, mothers reduced their work hours four
to five times more often than men to care for children during the pandemic, leaving
female unemployment in the double digits for the first time since 1948. For women of
color — particularly Black women and Latinas — the unemployment rate was even
worse.
The lack of affordable and available child care is a key driver of this inequality.
As Emily Peck wrote in The New York Times, child care is critical national
infrastructure — as important as bridges and roads — but is treated as just a nice thing
to have, versus an economic necessity.
The role of child care as critical economic infrastructure is finally getting some
real attention. In March, President Joe Biden included funding for child care, paid
family leave, universal pre-K and care for older adults and people with disabilities in
his $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, which faces opposition in Congress. Part of
shifting that opposition will be ending the expectation that women are just “naturally”
supposed to take on a disproportionate share of the burden of invisible labor in our
homes and workplaces.
There is nothing biological or inherent about women taking on a disproportionate
amount of hidden labor or for one half of a couple to bear a higher burden than another
when both work outside the home. In dual-income families, for example, a study by the
Families and Work Institute showed that only 38% of heterosexual couples shared child
care duties. In contrast, in same-sex relationships, the study showed 74% of couples
shared responsibility for care.
Interestingly, even with decades of studies and hordes of evidence about the
“second shift” of unpaid labor that falls on women, men in heterosexual relationships
seem to live in a state of denial about how much they are actually doing. In study after
study, men consistently say they share equally in the housework, and women
consistently disagree.
Overhauling our child care system so there is free, universal care would be a great
first step to leveling the playing field. But to create a broader cultural and paradigm
shift, the invisible labor that falls on women needs to be called what it is: labor. And
just because “learned helplessness” — the belief that men are less capable of household
tasks or child care because many haven’t had to do them — may make it seem that
women are somehow inherently better at it, the truth is we are not.
Caring for children, caring for older adults, cleaning, cooking and organizing
office celebrations are examples of the kind of hidden work that in some cases need
greater support and resources from the government and in others, need a more equitable
division of labor. Until that happens, women will not have the equality at home or
opportunities for advancement in our careers that we deserve.
Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/its-more-than-past-time-we-talk-
about-the-invisible-labor-of-women/

Listening

1. What is maternity leave? What are the laws in Brazil about that?
2. Should dads have paternity leaves too? What are the laws in Brazil about that?
3. Watch the following video from Today and discuss:
a) What is the problem here?
b) What did this dad do to have this right?
c) How did his wife react about that? And the society in general?
d) Is it common to have to go to legal process to have it?
e) What is your opinion about it?
f) Why do you think paternity leave is not something natural in our society?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g00-5fRZfE

4. What are the benefits of paternity leave?

5. Watch the following video and discuss:
a) What is his context and how does it see paternity leave?
b) What are some benefits of paternity leave according to him?
c) Do you agree with him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCLoio-8d48