For the past four years, the discourse around remote work has been preoccupied with the impact on city centres and the plight of Pret A Manger. But there is one aspect of the discussion that is curiously absent from these debates: the harm that’s being done to women.
Yes, women are the ones asking for remote or hybrid roles. Recent surveys have found that found that women are 26 per cent more likely than men to apply to work remotely. But guess what? Women who work remotely are also the most likely to quit.
On the surface, it looked like a great opportunity for us, I thought so too. Suddenly, I didn’t have to waste time on commuting, on make-up, on grooming, hell, on showering. I didn’t have to iron my clothes. I could throw on a hoodie and a pair of odd socks.
It meant I had time to do the nursery run, and have dinner ready for my child at five – while also working until five. In my breaks, I could chuck the family’s washing on, load the dishwasher. And I could do pick up. What did it matter what hours I worked?
If I had to take time out in the day for a child’s doctor’s appointment, I could just work until midnight. And get up with them at six am to start the whole thing again. The best part was, as long as I was filing my work on time, no one cared. I could exchange more of my time for domestic labour and I didn’t need my husband to do anything.
But who really benefits from women neglecting themselves to perform more domestic work? Is remote work the only way women can “have it all”? Or did “having it all” always mean “doing it all” – and doing it all by yourself? For men, “having it all” means going to work and coming home and that is it. Studies even show that men do less housework on days their wives work at home compared to in the office, probably because their expectation is that they shouldn’t have to.
On a day my husband and I both worked from home, it really highlighted the issue for me. Our mornings couldn’t have been more polar. He got up at six, made himself a cooked breakfast, hit the home gym, and hit the shower before getting dressed for work and pouring a coffee.
I got up at the same time, made breakfast for our child, sat with her and coaxed her into eating it, gave her the daily medicine she requires, brushed her teeth, got her dressed, and peeled something off the floor for myself to wear before doing the school run. And then I started work.
One of us started the working day refreshed and energised, with three hours of personal time before work began. The other started the day depleted, dishevelled, and ready to vomit pure adrenalin after already doing three hours of labour.
There are obvious impacts of carrying the load alone on employee performance, not to mention mental health. I realised this year that I needed to leave the house and work outside of it to get any kind of balance.
My husband and I had to have some conversations about how our free time would be divided, but I found that even on “my” mornings off the internalised pressure to take care of the family was so great I was doing it all anyway. Physically leaving was the only way to switch this off.
I’ve talked about this with other working mothers, who say remote working is better for them because they don’t need to have “a conversation” with their boss every time they need to take a kid to a dentist appointment.
Or because it means no one can see the absolute chaos that comes with being a working parent, which risks them looking unprofessional. As long as your work is complete, and on time, no one sees what is going on behind the scenes to make that happen.
The thing is, I think they should see what’s going on for us. Instead of employers having to allow personal time off, they can expect us to hand their work in, on time, no matter what. Because we work remotely now.
We have access to work anywhere, so we should be able to do it anywhere, anytime, no matter what family situation arises, which women are left to handle alone. Why would they arrange cover or compassionate leave when remote employees can work at night? Or weekends? Or every hour God sends?
I don’t know if contorting ourselves to take on extra domestic and family duties while also working a remote role at all hours is worth it for us. It means we make ourselves invisible in the workforce. Remote workers are more likely to be overlooked for promotion according to a survey by workingmums.co.uk – a problem that disproportionately impacted women before hybrid work was as common. Issues which tend to arise for us are also more likely to go unheard, which means demanding social change, better childcare options or improved paternity policies so men can better share the load, is much harder.
We have the tasks of the 50s housewife, the hours of the 80s career woman and we’re worse off than both. But we shouldn’t be disappearing from public life to make other people comfortable enough to work with us. We need to be there, in person, taking up space – forcing our employers and the men we love to do more.
Rhiannon Picton-James is a freelance journalist
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