In daily life, between children, the couple, the chores of the house, the work and now the management of masks, the mental load is strongly present. Fortunately, speech is released, finally, via social networks on this mental load which tires and exhausts a life.
Stock up on masks, look for the youngest at the nursery, get rid of the last bills to pay, finalize a PowerPoint for work, do not forget the household chores of his dear household … The mental burden of women at work and at home has been at its peak for a long time. Stress, or even burn out, there are times when letting go becomes decisive. Mental overload has reached its peak. Let's not even talk about the sharing of household chores. But what is the mental load? In the book The Mental Charge of Women… and that of Men, the psychiatrist Aurélia Schneider recalls that, "in 1984, the French sociologist Monique Haicault evokes the concept and develops the notion of 'two universes, the professional universe and the universe domestic, which coexist and encroach on each other. 'The mental load is thus the fact of having to think in one area while we are physically in the other. A STOP is needed!
In 2019, cartoonist Emma launched a meaningful appeal to men: "message for dudes: taking your share of the mental burden is not asking what you can do, but it is also not finishing our task once we get started! It's knowing FOR YOURSELF what to do. Just take 10 seconds to look around? A good resolution for 2019, right? "
Housework
The problem arises initially in the intimate universe. "At the moment, we would have thought that there is a division of household chores in the couple. But no. Women do 70% of the housework. According to an Ipsos study, 49% of couples say they argue over these tasks and what is worrying: 40% of young boys admit that it is their future spouse who will take care of the laundry", explains Isabelle Magyar, adviser to UN Women, on the HeForShe movement.
In an OpinionWay / La Boulangère study, in May 2017, nearly one in two women in a couple believes that their partner is not involved enough in the organization of household chores. And 57% of the women surveyed strongly expect their support. They are the ones who buy back-to-school supplies, enroll the children in extracurricular activities, supervise homework, and give their (so precious) time to preparing files to get the right college.
And what to say about the time during confinement with the arrival of the coronavirus. The sinkhole of household chores has widened.
"The women found themselves at home telecommuting, making dinners, lunches and attending to the children's school. This sphere is linked to education, to culture. Progress is not so easy to make, because we touch on social norms", adds the specialist in mental load.
A survey conducted by YouGov for The HuffPost showed that 85% of women in France say they take care of questions relating to protective masks against Covid-19 themselves (washing them, buying them / making them, making sure that everyone has some in their bag …).
"The feminine is indeed still connected, and this for millennia, to the private sphere, to the family, to the education of children. Women are associated with the world of reproduction, and men with that of production. Even though women have become individualized, these hierarchical representations persist.", explains Christine Castelain Meunier, sociologist at the CNRS, to the magazine Psychologie.
"My intern told me that when it comes time to clear the table, her brother always leaves the assembly very quickly to leave her alone to help their mother," says Isabelle Magyar.
The Inequalities Observatory has shown that women spend an average of three and twenty-six hours a day on household chores, compared to two hours for men.
All these little accumulated things are these trees that hide the forest of the parity of the mental load between man and woman. Let's break this image of the multitasking woman (babysitter, housekeeper and Working Girl) who must remain feminine at all times.
Fortunately, there is a new generation of men who are increasingly involved in household and family chores, but they still find it difficult to accept blame. Let's rebalance the responsibilities in the couple, it is a necessity.
What is the mental load at work?
This mental load represents all the demands of the brain during the performance of work. And if you get up thinking about work and you also go to bed thinking about work, the signal is strong. Most of the time, overwork is not perceived. Anger, weariness, irritability and impatience are the signs that should not be overlooked.
How to free yourself from the mental load?
First, you have to breathe. Let go of this emotional charge that oppresses us daily. Let go and above all be positive. To get out of this red zone, you first have to set accessible goals, communicate and give back a place to your private life. Knowing your limits is not a bad thing, on the contrary. The perfect woman does not exist.
Psychiatrist Aurélia Schneider gives as a trick to get rid of these endless to do lists the creation of a did list: an exact list of all the things done during the day and its reading of this list which should cause a little shock. "It is only by writing that one realizes the aberrations that make up our life and yet seem quite commonplace in everyday life." "Taking time for yourself does not mean 'doing nothing.' It's actually choosing an activity that makes you happy, like a simple hour of reading, a cultural activity, a sport. What matters is having decided to give yourself time. ' she testifies in her book.
The question of extending paternity leave (currently limited to 11 days and supplemented by three days of birth leave financed by the employer) would also help to balance the mental burden. The Observatory of Inequalities says that a reform of paternity leave would result in advancing parity at work.
Moms aren't the only ones with a mental load on their shoulders. In her essay The Mental Load of Children, Aline Nativel Id Hammou speaks of a global exhaustion that can be found in young children who are subjected to too much stimulation and stress (school, extra-curricular activities, etc.). Another subject not to be overlooked. Children, parents, the mental burden spares no one. Today, mental health is at the center of the debates. She no longer gets stuck in niche psychological studies. It is important for society to review the distribution of household chores within households, the brain time given to its business and to make it a point of honor to end mental overload.
Simone de Beauvoir, in The Independent Woman, retorted: "it is within the given world that it is up to man to make the reign of freedom triumph; to achieve this supreme victory, it is among other things necessary that, beyond their natural differentiations, men and women unequivocally affirm their fraternity. "
Burn out, stress, guilt are terms to be banned. Let's stop the situations that worsen relationships in a couple, a family, between man and woman and between parents and children. Life is not a mad rush with a huge list of items to buy or things to accomplish.
WHO officially recognizes burnout as a disease