I think every single woman I know is functioning on this fear that she isn’t doing enough right now.
If you’ve never heard of the cartoon is called ‘You Should’ve Asked’ by French artist, Emma, pause and go have a look now.
https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/
Emma (who, rightfully is so prolific they don’t need a surname) visually captures the concept of mental load. I describe this as all the tabs I have open in my brain at any given time - all the mental work, the organising, list-making and planning and life admin that needs to happen for ourselves and our dependents. Feminists note that the real crux of the burden of mental load is equality (or lack there of) in distribution of household labour.
In Emma’s comic there is a visitor (Emma) around for dinner. The mother is feeding the kids and making the dinner while the father sits with the guest instead of helping. Dinner then boils over and the father questions what happened. The mother explains that she was trying to do everything and the father says “you should have asked for help.”
Emma explains that by expecting to be asked, the father is setting up the dynamic where the mother is the manager. The expectation is that the mother is then responsible for knowing when things need to be done. Mental load is always having to remember.
Creating systems
Is there a ‘perfect’ way to organize life admin? How can we make things more manageable?
