Female Exhaustion Syndrome: When Fatigue Is A Sign
For many decades now, pro-equality and women’s liberation movements have made an impact in Western countries.
Thanks to them, women are less and less obliged to stay at home and sacrifice for a family life in which, years ago, they were supposed to invest all their forces. However, complete equality has not yet occurred, and gender roles continue to demand double responsibility from women: working to earn money and taking care of the house and family. This is how the call is born female burnout syndrome.
The first thing to keep in mind to understand this concept is that it is not a disease. As can be read in this article about the difference between a syndrome, a disorder and a disease, The first is simply a set of symptoms and signs that often occur together. This means that in female burnout syndrome there does not have to be a biological cause that causes the person’s entire body to malfunction.
In fact, it is most likely that this syndrome is not caused by something that happens in the woman’s body, but rather the opposite: what’s around you. Specifically, a cultural model that causes many women to become exhausted by having to dedicate their time outside of work to most household chores.
In other words, what generates female exhaustion syndrome is the way in which the woman and her environment (including the people who live there) relate.
One of the factors that makes female burnout syndrome so persistent is that its causes have been culturally normalized. This means that, because of the way of thinking that we tend to by the simple fact of belonging to a culture that for centuries has strongly defended the segregation of roles depending on gender, many of the customs that produce the female burnout syndrome.
A clear example of this is found in family dinners, in which, at the end, the women automatically get up to collect the plates and cutlery, wash the dishes and clean the table while the men rest or remain seated at the table.
Another classic example is home cleaning. These types of activities continue to be carried out mainly by women, something that is significant considering that a single apartment has many parts that can be cleaned. Carrying out this activity is not just mopping: you also have to vacuum, put on the washing machine, hang and iron, remove dust, etc.
A broader problem
Examples like these are just small plots of the same reality.: household chores continue to be a responsibility mostly associated with women while the professional field that was previously reserved for men is now also a sphere of tasks that women must address. Taking into account that the job market is increasingly competitive, this translates into strong exhaustion.
In this way, female burnout syndrome arises as a consequence of this crossover of responsibilities on the part of women: they continue to be required to take care of the home, and now they also need to dedicate several hours a day to competing in the job market.
Thus, female burnout syndrome is, in part, a social and economic problem. Before, life was not so expensive, and with the paid work of a single person you could maintain a home. However, if women now also carry out professional tasks, it is not only because a pro-equality movement has been promoted: it is because now both husbands and wives are forced to work for money. However, this scenario of equality has not reached household chores, which are still something that women are expected to perform.
The other facet of the problem is psychological: women are prone to making their self-esteem and self-image as a mother or wife depend on satisfactorily completing all the tasks required of them, without realizing that on many occasions they must work more. hours than the husband. That is why psychology must adapt to this new reality and offer solutions.
