WOMEN’S “MENTAL LOAD”: REFLECTIONS ON INEQUALITY AND VIOLENCE IN THE SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOR TODAY

Abstract

Over time, women's work has received less social significance, while women are given greater cognitive effort and greater responsibilities regarding care and family management, which act daily to favor female discrimination and inequality in the workplace and in society as a whole. This invisible violence, almost never mentioned, continues to oppress and even make many women sick in Brazil and in several other countries. For a more in-depth analysis of the so-called “mental burden” on women and its repercussions, it is necessary to consider, in addition to the current norms, the historical sexual division of labor, especially at home, where an asymmetry in the distribution of domestic services and family chores persists, and to reflect critically on the persistent hierarchies in social relations, with their physical and mental repercussions. Through a bibliographic and documentary analysis, we seek to demonstrate how the social, cultural and historical construction of the need for women to act in the management of family life, combined with the “innate” attribution to the gender of domestic work and care, is, at the same time, the cause and consequence of inequalities that are still present today, including direct implications for health, productivity and the reduction of the social value of paid female work, all of which consider aspects of race and social condition, from an intersectional perspective.