{"id":1614,"date":"2019-01-07T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-07T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2019-01-07T06:00:12","modified_gmt":"2019-01-07T10:00:12","slug":"three-reasons-why-women-have-more-stress-and-what-they-can-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/three-reasons-why-women-have-more-stress-and-what-they-can-do-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Reasons Why Women Have More Stress and What They Can Do about It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t
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Brenda is my coaching client, and\nfor two years she almost always began sobbing as soon as we started our\ncoaching sessions. \u201cMy stress level is so high,\u201d she would tell me between\nsobs. \u201cI just can\u2019t go on like this.\u201d Brenda is passionate about her work, is\nthe manager of a team that provides direct services, and is the mother of two\nyoung children. \u201cI can\u2019t sleep at night, I am short-tempered with my children\nand husband, I have no time to see my friends, and I\u2019ve stopped exercising,\u201d\nshe explained to illustrate her stress level.<\/p>\n\n\n

Unfortunately, Brenda\u2019s experience is not unusual. Kristin Wong of the New York Times<\/em> writes<\/a> that a 2016 study published in The Journal of Brain & Behavior<\/em> shows that women who work are twice as likely to suffer from severe stress and anxiety as men. Why? Wong notes that scholars Dr. Erin Joyce and Silvia Federici offer three reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n

  1. Women do more unpaid domestic work<\/em> <\/strong>than men. It\u2019s not that men don\u2019t feel stress in terms\nof fulfilling responsibilities at home and work, but, Dr. Joyce explains, \u201cthe\ndifference . . . is in the nature and scope of these responsibilities in the\nhome environment.\u201d For example, Wong notes, \u201cThe United Nations reported that\nwomen do nearly three times as much unpaid domestic work as men.\u201d<\/li>
  2. Women do more emotional labor at home and at work.<\/em> Wong cites\nresearch from Nova Southeastern University showing that women managers are\nexpected to do more \u201cemotional labor,\u201d such as showing calmness and empathy and\nattending to relationships with employees, even when they don\u2019t feel it or\nprefer to manage in a more masculine, less relational style. My own research,\npublished in my book New\nRules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together<\/a><\/em>,\nfound that if women managers do not invest time in emotional labor, they are\njudged harshly by both women and men in performance reviews and other forms of\nfeedback. Because of socialized gender role expectations, emotional labor is\nexpected of women and not of men in the workplace. Both domestic and emotional\nlabor are exhausting.<\/li>
  3. Women expect to be able to \u201cdo it all\u201d<\/em> and can\nfeel guilty and even more stressed when they cannot.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n

                Why\ndo we still have such a large gender gap in unpaid domestic labor? So much has\nchanged over the past fifty years as the opportunities for women in the\nworkforce have expanded. Claire\nCain Miller of the New York Times<\/em>\nreports<\/a>, however, that while \u201cAmericans have grown increasingly\nlikely to believe that women and men should have equal roles at work . . . a\nsignificant share still say that men\u2019s and women\u2019s roles should be different at\nhome.\u201d She cites a new study, soon to be published in Gender and Society<\/em>, based on a national survey covering data from\n1977 to 2016. This study shows that roughly one-quarter of people\u2019s views\nreflect a different opinion about equality at work versus home. Specifically,\nthe findings reflect a belief that women and men should be equal at work but women\nshould do more of the homemaking and child rearing. Other research reflects\nthat while women are doing more paid work than in the past, men are not doing\nmuch more domestic work. <\/p>\n\n\n

    In a global study, Miller reports that the United States was found to have much lower levels of family-friendly policies and supports than in twenty-two comparable English-speaking and European countries. In countries with family-friendly policies and supports, the relative happiness of people with children versus those without is significantly higher than reported for Americans with children. This could be one more reason why American women experience higher levels of severe stress. <\/p>\n\n\n

    Chronic levels of severe stress have potentially dangerous consequences, such as the following:<\/p>\n\n\n