116. The 8 Hour Workday is sexist
While designing my Not Your Average Productivity Course, I discovered that most of the productivity courses out there are written by men! The teachings reflect this; they disregard domestic activity, as does the historical development of the 8-hour workday.
The 8-hour workday was crafted to allow 8 hours of work, 8 hours of free time, and 8 hours of rest, but women never received this. They continued to care, work, and execute all the needs of the home and family. Why is this important? The 8-hour workday has set up unrealistic societal expectations at home and in the office.
Learn about the history of the 8-hour workday, why it is sexist, and how to reframe your understanding of productivity. We discuss the importance of advocating for policy change and why your value is not linked to the amount you accomplish at work.
Ready to think differently about your productivity? Click here to join the Not Your Average Productivity Course where you will get 1-on-1 trainings, guided video lessons and more.
What You Will Discover:
History of the 8-hour workday.
Why the 8-hour workday is sexist.
How to advocate for policy change.
Why your value is not linked to your productivity.
Resources:
Sign up for Not Your Average Productivity Course
Sign up for a Curiosity Call to find out if individual coaching can help you!
Learn more about my 1:1 coaching program here!
Follow me on Instagram!
Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you! Email me at info@mckoolcoaching.com
Join my weekly mailing list
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for Public Health Professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Hi, everyone. I’m so glad you’re here. What’s going on? How’s your summer going? I know a lot of you I’ve been seeing on Instagram and LinkedIn, you’ve been taking vacation. You’ve been going to Europe and to the beach and it’s looked like so much fun. And if you’re not connected with me on Instagram or LinkedIn, please come connect with me. You all get to listen to me in your ear and learn about me. But I want to learn about you. I want to know who you are. I want to get connected to you. I want us to get to know each other in a bidirectional way, not just this one directional way.
Feel free to come follow me on Instagram @publichealthcoach or on LinkedIn, Marissa McKool. I try to, anyone who follows me or connects with me on either of those platforms to message you and say, “Hey, so glad to meet you.” I don’t always get to it so if you had connected with me and I didn’t send you a message, do not take it personal, it’s not personal to you. It just depends how many I get and what I have going on.
But I try my very, very best because I truly do want to get to know all of you and have a connection and start that conversation and be available on those platforms, if you have questions, if there is something you’re struggling with and I can give support. So if we haven’t connected yet please come say hello on Instagram or LinkedIn. There has been a lot happening here at my apartment. So hopefully there are no interruptions during this episode.
There has been fire alarm testing. There has been construction out at the pool. So fingers crossed this all goes well. I’m a little behind my schedule today. Jared and I are meeting with our musician for our wedding to talk about songs, what we want to do and all that. We’re not having a traditional wedding. We’re doing a very small intimate, less than 20 people shindig. But I still wanted some of those nice touches like music and catering and all of that stuff. So that’s exciting. I have been taking [inaudible] on her walks in the morning.
I went on a morning walk before work today because it’s been so hot in the afternoon and that’s been really nice, actually very restful to start my day that way. So it’s a nice change of routine. So I hope you all are doing well. And before we get into the episode I do want to share about an exciting new course I've been actually teasing the past, I don’t know, couple of weeks, maybe even month or so, if you’ve been listening, which is our new Not Your Average Productivity course. It’s opening for enrollment starting today.
So many of you tell me you struggle with time and productivity, feeling like you have too much to do and not enough time and it's really getting in the way of you working towards your personal goals. Whether it's to enjoy time with your kids while they’re young or start a side hustle, a side business I should say as anti-hustle culture. Maybe it's to read more or train for a marathon or start dating.
Whatever it is, those personal goals, those things you've wanted to do more of, that have been neglected because you feel so overwhelmed both at work and home, balancing it all, trying to figure out this thing we’re all chasing called a work life balance. I got you. I've heard you. I’ve connected with you all. And I have created this course just for you. Now, this is a semi live course which means it’s slightly different than the prior course that I had out, if you got that which was called How to Delegate to Reduce Your workload. That was just a 15 minute mini masterclass you got emailed to you.
If you didn't take that, no worries, that course is not necessarily available at this time, it might be at a later time. But this Not Your Average Productivity course actually includes a whole lot more in it. You get way more bang for your time and for your buck. And it will really transform your experience at work far beyond delegation. I’ve created this course to really help you reduce your overall stress, get more things done efficiently and effectively so you have time back for more than just work.
It's going to help you stay focused and on track rather than jumping tasks to tasks and having things fall through the cracks and falling behind. You’re going to be able to manage interruption so those don’t throw off your day, whether it’s a colleague or your kids. You’re going to be able to reduce your procrastination so you can finish work on time or early. You’re going to stop feeling so rushed and overwhelmed and even guilt and shame about struggling with all this.
You'll be able to get things off your to-do list even if you have back to back meetings all day or have little to no help in your job or at home. So as I said, this is a semi live course. It starts Monday, August 7th through Friday September 8th. So it’s five weeks long. Each week you get a recorded video lesson that’s on demand, meaning you can watch it at a time that works for you. You also get one-on-one private coaching calls with me. You get three of them during this five week course to work through challenges in real time, to work through barriers to being productive in real time.
And really practice implementing some of the strategies I'm going to teach you to have confidence, to feel more empowered, to stay focused and on track. And you’ll also be getting the weeks we’re not doing one-on-one coaching, you'll be getting some implementation worksheets to apply what you are learning from the videos to your day-to-day life. So you get all of this for only $500. That's only 10% of the cost of my three month one-on-one coaching program. And it’s less than half the time commitment.
This is a huge opportunity if you’ve been curious about coaching, if you’ve wanted to get more help or you're not sure if you're ready to invest the time or the cost for my more intensive one-on-one three month program. This five week course is perfect for you. So each week is focused on a different topic. Week one we talk about redefining productivity because I promise the way you are thinking about productivity is not helping you get more done. And in fact, it’s having the opposite effect where you’re getting less done than you could be and feeling shame about it.
Week two is on how to reduce your overwhelm, whether you're overwhelmed by your kids interrupting you or how long your to-do list is or how many meetings that are taking up your time. Week three, we’re going to be talking about creating motivation to help you stay focused and on track, limit your procrastination or your distraction so you don’t fall behind. And this will help you if you feel stressed and burnt out. And I also know some of you, I’ve heard from some of you that some of your struggle with motivation is that you feel a little bored at your job, you’re not inspired, you’re not super passionate about the current work you’re doing.
I promise, this week is also going to help you feel more motivated at your job and then feel more driven so you can reduce how much you have to do and use more time and energy for the things that do inspire you, that you are passionate about. Week four we’re going to talk about how to use productivity to achieve your personal goals without hustling, without overworking, without burning out. This includes how to reduce your workload at home and get more time so you have the energy and capacity to contribute to your goals.
And we’re also going to talk about how you can set up working on personal goals so you don't give up part way through, you don't ‘fall off’ when things get busy or life gets a little hectic. So you can continue to be committed to your goals no matter what's going on. And the last week, week five is dealing with the guilt of rest, what comes up for nearly everyone I work with on productivity is that once they get good at being efficient and effective and not wasting time and getting things done. And then they have all this extra time they’ve been wanting, they’ve been waiting for, they finally get it and then they actually struggle to use that time because you feel guilty.
You feel guilty not working more, it feels uncomfortable, it feels weird to have free time during the work day. So you’re going to learn how to get rid of that guilt and that discomfort so you can use that time for what you actually want, whether it’s personal goals, resting, spending time with family, anything else rather than just falling back into the hustle and the busyness that many of us fall into that trap. So August 3rd is the last day to join. I know that seems far away but it's not, that’s right around the corner. That’s going to go by in a flash. So make sure you sign up now.
There are limited spots available because this includes one-on-one coaching. So it depends on my calendar and my capacity. So grab your spot now after you listen to this episode to make sure you reserve a space for you before it sells out. The link is in the show notes or you can head to mckoolcoaching.com/courses to sign up now.
Okay, with that let’s get into the episode, which we’re talking about how the eight hour work day is sexist. This is a slightly different format type of episode than typical. But I think it’s going to be really fascinating and actually really helpful. When I was creating the Not Your Average Productivity course, I was looking at what other productivity courses existed, were out there in the market, what was missing from them. And what I found was so fascinating.
The overwhelming majority of courses on productivity are taught by men. And why does this matter? When I was looking at them one other thing that was so apparent to me was it was really missing addressing the specific challenges people socialized as women in the workforce face. Our society operates under the patriarchy. People are socialized around productivity differently based on their gender or assumed gender.
For example, people socialized as women are taught that being productive in the home determines your value and worth, that you always have to have a clean home and be on top of the laundry and the meals. That your role is to always do for others and never do for yourself. People socialized as men often don't get the same message. I remember growing up with my parents. My mom was constantly worried about the house being clean and everything being in its place and how it looked.
My dad was not, he did stuff, he did the dishes, he helped out, but he wasn’t as worried or concerned about it. He wasn't so socialized that he had to hyper fixate on that, that it determined, it said something about him whether it was clean or messy. And women get that socialization. In addition, for hundreds, if not thousands of years in many cultures it was expected that women do all the domestic labor. And while we’re in modern times now, many women are working in the workforce, most if not all of you listening are.
We still carry consciously or not this internalized expectation that on top of that, we have to be in charge of everything in the domestic space. We have to get it all done. And if we don't or if it’s not well done, it says something about us. And this includes parenting, if you’re a parent. So looking at these productivity courses and looking at what’s in them and then recognizing who created them. It was so obvious to me that there's no real understanding by these creators how the patriarchy, how our history in hustle culture, specifically impacts women, women in the workforce.
And how that contributes to overworking and stress and feeling behind and struggling with productivity. And this really got me thinking about how the origin of the eight hour work day itself is sexist. So a little history for you all. Before the industrialized revolution, which was a period in the mid late 1800s, early 1900s, where there were major shifts made across the world in many countries including the US. That the economic functioning, which for hundreds, if not thousands of years, really functioned and occurred in individual homes shifted to city centers, shifted to places like factories.
Prior to the industrialized revolution, economic activities were largely in the home or on a farm. Farmers and other agricultural activities happened often where or near where people lived. People made goods in their homes, whether it was food, canning jam, clothing, baskets and then traded or sold. Even for different periods of time, education, schooling happened in a home rather than a schoolhouse. And then different technology was created that mass produced certain things and led to factories which were built in city centers.
And people moved from rural country areas to the city to work in these factories, and not just factories, the coal mining industry expanded, the train was invented. That was a huge economic boom and that made mass movement so much easier for folks of all different economic incomes. And during the industrialized revolution a lot of these industries and jobs had horrible working conditions, long working hours, no protections, no benefits, not really any time off. Some of them were very dangerous. While it was largely men who worked in these industries it wasn’t only men.
There were women who did work, poor women, women of color. And these women were paid a third to a half less than men based on the justification that men were stronger and more productive. And this is important history because so many women feel so much shame about not being more productive, we’re chasing productivity. But there’s a history here where we’ve been told and actually punished or not paid equally because the world thinks we’re not as productive and we’re not as valuable at our job or good at it.
And at the same time there was still the belief that the woman's role was in the home and child rearing. And that men were not responsible for that. They did not have to bear the brunt of those domestic responsibilities, it was not their job. And of course there were horrible child labor things happening which we’re not going to get into today. And during this period unions started to form to fight against these conditions. But much of the advocacy was really by and for men, not really with women in mind.
This union uprising really advocated for eight hour work days. And they justified this by what they called an eight by eight by eight rule. Eight hours of work, eight hours of free time, eight hours of sleep. Who got those eight hours of free time? Who got those eight hours of sleep? Not women. The women who were working in the factories when they were done, guess what, they were expected to cook and clean and take care of their children, which don't happen in a nice eight by eight box.
And who was making it possible for men to benefit from the eight by eight rule? Women, because they were doing the cooking and cleaning and child rearing, men weren’t, they weren’t expected to. So men got those eight hours of free time and eight hours of sleep but women did not. Domestic labor, child rearing can’t exactly be split into eight hours on and off. So the creation of this eight hour work day was really not with women in mind, not really considered as a beneficiary. Their needs and experiences weren’t really a part of the advocacy.
Now, does that mean there weren’t women advocating or in the unions for this year eight hour work day? Probably not because even for the women in those factories working eight hours a day was better than 14 hours a day. This is just to illustrate that really the design of that change didn’t really keep the experience of women and their needs in mind. So what does this have to do with your experience today?
This history is so important because whether you’re aware of it or not, the resistance we see particularly in the US to provide paid childcare, paid maternity leave, shift to four day work weeks which you’ve probably been seeing all over the news lately, where some companies are, but there's a lot of resistance. There’s also companies that are resisting 100% remote work options and trying to force their employees back into office. There’s still companies that really are not flexible with their hours.
All of that is rooted in sexism, not creating policies or structures or opportunities to help all people but especially women contribute to the paid workforce and complete all their other responsibilities in life, domestic responsibilities, personal responsibilities, if you have children, child rearing responsibilities, parenting responsibilities. For some folks this also includes taking care of an elderly parent or a sibling or something else.
And we know this isn't just sexist, it’s ableist too. People with disabilities, all kind of disabilities, don't always operate or function optimally working eight hours straight five days a week, or work better with different structure, different hours, different days, need flexibility and support in order to contribute to their job sustainably without making their health worse or burning out. And while there are many more households where domestic labor is shared or better, split, there are many households where it’s not and there are many single parent households.
And some of these things are an outcome of other sexist or racist policies. Think about the school prism pipeline that has left so many women to raise their kids without their partner. So with all this knowledge, with understanding the roots of the eight hour work day and how it is sexist, what do you do with this? What's the point of knowing this, how is this helpful, to just feel depressed? No, of course not. One piece, of course, is to keep advocating for policy structural and organizational changes.
Because I think when we get a lot of these messages of companies pushing back we just think they just struggle with change. And part of that might be true but I actually think there’s more there connected to the sexism, which makes it more necessary and urgent to really fight for these changes.
The other piece, which is really why I wanted to create this episode is I think so many of us, myself included, don't realize how we unconsciously beat ourselves up for not meeting these unrealistic standards, to do it all at work perfectly. To be the perfect employee and then get everything in our personal life in order. Have a perfectly clean home. Be the best friend you can be, the best daughter. If you’re a parent, parent perfectly. So much pressure we end up putting on ourselves without realizing it.
When history has told you and shown you that the expectation is that you do it all without support and on top of that society doesn't think that you do a good enough job or you’re as valued so you’re going to get paid less, you’re not going to get support. But then you also get in trouble when you ask for help. You get questioned. You get doubted. What happens?
You internalize that. When society tells you your worth and value is based on how much you do, that it’s a measure of your success, capacity and ability, how much you do for others, then what happens? You beat yourself up when you don't do it all. You feel shame for having a messy house. You judge yourself for not being a ‘good enough parent’. You don't believe you can achieve your personal goals and dreams or career goals and dreams because you struggle to balance it all.
You feel embarrassed like a fraud or imposter in your job. Now, of course this doesn't just affect women, and this affects all of us at our various intersecting identities. When you’re disabled and can’t sit at a desk for eight hours, your internalized ableism might be telling you you’re worthless. When your brain is neurodivergent and you don’t work well in a linear fashion, rather you have spurts of innovation, but your office requires a nine to five.
Your internalized ableism, that voice inside your head might be saying something like something's wrong with you. You need to just force yourself to do it their way. When you're a single parent trying to get your degree and work full-time and then you get in trouble for leaving work early to pick up your kids because you don’t have anyone else. That little voice in your head might be telling you, just quit school, it’s not worth it. You’re not worth it anyways, you’re not going to make anything of yourself.
When you ask for time off for Eid or Yom Kippur, and you get pushback but you see other colleagues not have to ask for time off for their religious holidays because it's government given. That message might be telling you that you’re only valued, the only reason they care about you is what you produce for them and that your life outside of work, they don’t care. They don’t see you as a whole human and many, many, many other examples.
So here's what I want to leave you with. While we work to change all this bullshit, I want you to remember you are born worthy. You are inherently worthy no matter how much you do or don't do, no matter how messy or clean your house is. Your value is not dependent on the time you spend working. Your values, your brain, your intellect, your creativity, your experience and so much more, even if there are people out there or society does not see it, does not recognize it.
And there's nothing wrong with you for feeling overwhelmed, for overworking, for having anxiety, for stressing out, for struggling to balance it all because the system has been set up for you to fail, for you to struggle, for you to burn out. It’s not designed, especially in the US with your responsibilities, with your needs, with your life and being a whole human in mind. And the eight hour work day is a perfect example of this. It’s impossible to get it all done.
Yet, when we aren’t able to, we feel a lot of shame. We make it mean a lot of stuff about ourselves. But when you don’t get it all done, it doesn’t mean anything about you, your value, your future, your potential, your ability or your worth. I want you to remember that.
And if you want help making things a little bit easier for you to get things done, be efficient and effective without burning out, to stop feeling shame and guilt for not being perfect, not being able to balance it all or juggle it all. Without denying the very real challenges we all face, I want you to come join the Not Your Average Productivity course. You’ll get tools, skills and support to make juggling this act of life a little bit easier, not perfect, but easier. So you can work towards your personal goals. So you can undo some of that internalized self-doubt.
So you don’t give up on what you truly want to do with your life, how you want to spend your time. So you stop feeling so behind and so bad about yourself, so you feel more confident and in control of your life and in belief of yourself. So I want you to head to mckoolcoaching.com/courses to grab your spot. Enrollment closes August 3rd. We start August 7th and there’s limited spaces so go on over there, register, we’ll have a link in the bio and until next week, bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Hi, everyone. I’m so glad you’re here. What’s going on? How’s your summer going? I know a lot of you I’ve been seeing on Instagram and LinkedIn, you’ve been taking vacation. You’ve been going to Europe and to the beach and it’s looked like so much fun. And if you’re not connected with me on Instagram or LinkedIn, please come connect with me. You all get to listen to me in your ear and learn about me. But I want to learn about you. I want to know who you are. I want to get connected to you. I want us to get to know each other in a bidirectional way, not just this one directional way.
Feel free to come follow me on Instagram @publichealthcoach or on LinkedIn, Marissa McKool. I try to, anyone who follows me or connects with me on either of those platforms to message you and say, “Hey, so glad to meet you.” I don’t always get to it so if you had connected with me and I didn’t send you a message, do not take it personal, it’s not personal to you. It just depends how many I get and what I have going on.
But I try my very, very best because I truly do want to get to know all of you and have a connection and start that conversation and be available on those platforms, if you have questions, if there is something you’re struggling with and I can give support. So if we haven’t connected yet please come say hello on Instagram or LinkedIn. There has been a lot happening here at my apartment. So hopefully there are no interruptions during this episode.
There has been fire alarm testing. There has been construction out at the pool. So fingers crossed this all goes well. I’m a little behind my schedule today. Jared and I are meeting with our musician for our wedding to talk about songs, what we want to do and all that. We’re not having a traditional wedding. We’re doing a very small intimate, less than 20 people shindig. But I still wanted some of those nice touches like music and catering and all of that stuff. So that’s exciting. I have been taking [inaudible] on her walks in the morning.
I went on a morning walk before work today because it’s been so hot in the afternoon and that’s been really nice, actually very restful to start my day that way. So it’s a nice change of routine. So I hope you all are doing well. And before we get into the episode I do want to share about an exciting new course I've been actually teasing the past, I don’t know, couple of weeks, maybe even month or so, if you’ve been listening, which is our new Not Your Average Productivity course. It’s opening for enrollment starting today.
So many of you tell me you struggle with time and productivity, feeling like you have too much to do and not enough time and it's really getting in the way of you working towards your personal goals. Whether it's to enjoy time with your kids while they’re young or start a side hustle, a side business I should say as anti-hustle culture. Maybe it's to read more or train for a marathon or start dating.
Whatever it is, those personal goals, those things you've wanted to do more of, that have been neglected because you feel so overwhelmed both at work and home, balancing it all, trying to figure out this thing we’re all chasing called a work life balance. I got you. I've heard you. I’ve connected with you all. And I have created this course just for you. Now, this is a semi live course which means it’s slightly different than the prior course that I had out, if you got that which was called How to Delegate to Reduce Your workload. That was just a 15 minute mini masterclass you got emailed to you.
If you didn't take that, no worries, that course is not necessarily available at this time, it might be at a later time. But this Not Your Average Productivity course actually includes a whole lot more in it. You get way more bang for your time and for your buck. And it will really transform your experience at work far beyond delegation. I’ve created this course to really help you reduce your overall stress, get more things done efficiently and effectively so you have time back for more than just work.
It's going to help you stay focused and on track rather than jumping tasks to tasks and having things fall through the cracks and falling behind. You’re going to be able to manage interruption so those don’t throw off your day, whether it’s a colleague or your kids. You’re going to be able to reduce your procrastination so you can finish work on time or early. You’re going to stop feeling so rushed and overwhelmed and even guilt and shame about struggling with all this.
You'll be able to get things off your to-do list even if you have back to back meetings all day or have little to no help in your job or at home. So as I said, this is a semi live course. It starts Monday, August 7th through Friday September 8th. So it’s five weeks long. Each week you get a recorded video lesson that’s on demand, meaning you can watch it at a time that works for you. You also get one-on-one private coaching calls with me. You get three of them during this five week course to work through challenges in real time, to work through barriers to being productive in real time.
And really practice implementing some of the strategies I'm going to teach you to have confidence, to feel more empowered, to stay focused and on track. And you’ll also be getting the weeks we’re not doing one-on-one coaching, you'll be getting some implementation worksheets to apply what you are learning from the videos to your day-to-day life. So you get all of this for only $500. That's only 10% of the cost of my three month one-on-one coaching program. And it’s less than half the time commitment.
This is a huge opportunity if you’ve been curious about coaching, if you’ve wanted to get more help or you're not sure if you're ready to invest the time or the cost for my more intensive one-on-one three month program. This five week course is perfect for you. So each week is focused on a different topic. Week one we talk about redefining productivity because I promise the way you are thinking about productivity is not helping you get more done. And in fact, it’s having the opposite effect where you’re getting less done than you could be and feeling shame about it.
Week two is on how to reduce your overwhelm, whether you're overwhelmed by your kids interrupting you or how long your to-do list is or how many meetings that are taking up your time. Week three, we’re going to be talking about creating motivation to help you stay focused and on track, limit your procrastination or your distraction so you don’t fall behind. And this will help you if you feel stressed and burnt out. And I also know some of you, I’ve heard from some of you that some of your struggle with motivation is that you feel a little bored at your job, you’re not inspired, you’re not super passionate about the current work you’re doing.
I promise, this week is also going to help you feel more motivated at your job and then feel more driven so you can reduce how much you have to do and use more time and energy for the things that do inspire you, that you are passionate about. Week four we’re going to talk about how to use productivity to achieve your personal goals without hustling, without overworking, without burning out. This includes how to reduce your workload at home and get more time so you have the energy and capacity to contribute to your goals.
And we’re also going to talk about how you can set up working on personal goals so you don't give up part way through, you don't ‘fall off’ when things get busy or life gets a little hectic. So you can continue to be committed to your goals no matter what's going on. And the last week, week five is dealing with the guilt of rest, what comes up for nearly everyone I work with on productivity is that once they get good at being efficient and effective and not wasting time and getting things done. And then they have all this extra time they’ve been wanting, they’ve been waiting for, they finally get it and then they actually struggle to use that time because you feel guilty.
You feel guilty not working more, it feels uncomfortable, it feels weird to have free time during the work day. So you’re going to learn how to get rid of that guilt and that discomfort so you can use that time for what you actually want, whether it’s personal goals, resting, spending time with family, anything else rather than just falling back into the hustle and the busyness that many of us fall into that trap. So August 3rd is the last day to join. I know that seems far away but it's not, that’s right around the corner. That’s going to go by in a flash. So make sure you sign up now.
There are limited spots available because this includes one-on-one coaching. So it depends on my calendar and my capacity. So grab your spot now after you listen to this episode to make sure you reserve a space for you before it sells out. The link is in the show notes or you can head to mckoolcoaching.com/courses to sign up now.
Okay, with that let’s get into the episode, which we’re talking about how the eight hour work day is sexist. This is a slightly different format type of episode than typical. But I think it’s going to be really fascinating and actually really helpful. When I was creating the Not Your Average Productivity course, I was looking at what other productivity courses existed, were out there in the market, what was missing from them. And what I found was so fascinating.
The overwhelming majority of courses on productivity are taught by men. And why does this matter? When I was looking at them one other thing that was so apparent to me was it was really missing addressing the specific challenges people socialized as women in the workforce face. Our society operates under the patriarchy. People are socialized around productivity differently based on their gender or assumed gender.
For example, people socialized as women are taught that being productive in the home determines your value and worth, that you always have to have a clean home and be on top of the laundry and the meals. That your role is to always do for others and never do for yourself. People socialized as men often don't get the same message. I remember growing up with my parents. My mom was constantly worried about the house being clean and everything being in its place and how it looked.
My dad was not, he did stuff, he did the dishes, he helped out, but he wasn’t as worried or concerned about it. He wasn't so socialized that he had to hyper fixate on that, that it determined, it said something about him whether it was clean or messy. And women get that socialization. In addition, for hundreds, if not thousands of years in many cultures it was expected that women do all the domestic labor. And while we’re in modern times now, many women are working in the workforce, most if not all of you listening are.
We still carry consciously or not this internalized expectation that on top of that, we have to be in charge of everything in the domestic space. We have to get it all done. And if we don't or if it’s not well done, it says something about us. And this includes parenting, if you’re a parent. So looking at these productivity courses and looking at what’s in them and then recognizing who created them. It was so obvious to me that there's no real understanding by these creators how the patriarchy, how our history in hustle culture, specifically impacts women, women in the workforce.
And how that contributes to overworking and stress and feeling behind and struggling with productivity. And this really got me thinking about how the origin of the eight hour work day itself is sexist. So a little history for you all. Before the industrialized revolution, which was a period in the mid late 1800s, early 1900s, where there were major shifts made across the world in many countries including the US. That the economic functioning, which for hundreds, if not thousands of years, really functioned and occurred in individual homes shifted to city centers, shifted to places like factories.
Prior to the industrialized revolution, economic activities were largely in the home or on a farm. Farmers and other agricultural activities happened often where or near where people lived. People made goods in their homes, whether it was food, canning jam, clothing, baskets and then traded or sold. Even for different periods of time, education, schooling happened in a home rather than a schoolhouse. And then different technology was created that mass produced certain things and led to factories which were built in city centers.
And people moved from rural country areas to the city to work in these factories, and not just factories, the coal mining industry expanded, the train was invented. That was a huge economic boom and that made mass movement so much easier for folks of all different economic incomes. And during the industrialized revolution a lot of these industries and jobs had horrible working conditions, long working hours, no protections, no benefits, not really any time off. Some of them were very dangerous. While it was largely men who worked in these industries it wasn’t only men.
There were women who did work, poor women, women of color. And these women were paid a third to a half less than men based on the justification that men were stronger and more productive. And this is important history because so many women feel so much shame about not being more productive, we’re chasing productivity. But there’s a history here where we’ve been told and actually punished or not paid equally because the world thinks we’re not as productive and we’re not as valuable at our job or good at it.
And at the same time there was still the belief that the woman's role was in the home and child rearing. And that men were not responsible for that. They did not have to bear the brunt of those domestic responsibilities, it was not their job. And of course there were horrible child labor things happening which we’re not going to get into today. And during this period unions started to form to fight against these conditions. But much of the advocacy was really by and for men, not really with women in mind.
This union uprising really advocated for eight hour work days. And they justified this by what they called an eight by eight by eight rule. Eight hours of work, eight hours of free time, eight hours of sleep. Who got those eight hours of free time? Who got those eight hours of sleep? Not women. The women who were working in the factories when they were done, guess what, they were expected to cook and clean and take care of their children, which don't happen in a nice eight by eight box.
And who was making it possible for men to benefit from the eight by eight rule? Women, because they were doing the cooking and cleaning and child rearing, men weren’t, they weren’t expected to. So men got those eight hours of free time and eight hours of sleep but women did not. Domestic labor, child rearing can’t exactly be split into eight hours on and off. So the creation of this eight hour work day was really not with women in mind, not really considered as a beneficiary. Their needs and experiences weren’t really a part of the advocacy.
Now, does that mean there weren’t women advocating or in the unions for this year eight hour work day? Probably not because even for the women in those factories working eight hours a day was better than 14 hours a day. This is just to illustrate that really the design of that change didn’t really keep the experience of women and their needs in mind. So what does this have to do with your experience today?
This history is so important because whether you’re aware of it or not, the resistance we see particularly in the US to provide paid childcare, paid maternity leave, shift to four day work weeks which you’ve probably been seeing all over the news lately, where some companies are, but there's a lot of resistance. There’s also companies that are resisting 100% remote work options and trying to force their employees back into office. There’s still companies that really are not flexible with their hours.
All of that is rooted in sexism, not creating policies or structures or opportunities to help all people but especially women contribute to the paid workforce and complete all their other responsibilities in life, domestic responsibilities, personal responsibilities, if you have children, child rearing responsibilities, parenting responsibilities. For some folks this also includes taking care of an elderly parent or a sibling or something else.
And we know this isn't just sexist, it’s ableist too. People with disabilities, all kind of disabilities, don't always operate or function optimally working eight hours straight five days a week, or work better with different structure, different hours, different days, need flexibility and support in order to contribute to their job sustainably without making their health worse or burning out. And while there are many more households where domestic labor is shared or better, split, there are many households where it’s not and there are many single parent households.
And some of these things are an outcome of other sexist or racist policies. Think about the school prism pipeline that has left so many women to raise their kids without their partner. So with all this knowledge, with understanding the roots of the eight hour work day and how it is sexist, what do you do with this? What's the point of knowing this, how is this helpful, to just feel depressed? No, of course not. One piece, of course, is to keep advocating for policy structural and organizational changes.
Because I think when we get a lot of these messages of companies pushing back we just think they just struggle with change. And part of that might be true but I actually think there’s more there connected to the sexism, which makes it more necessary and urgent to really fight for these changes.
The other piece, which is really why I wanted to create this episode is I think so many of us, myself included, don't realize how we unconsciously beat ourselves up for not meeting these unrealistic standards, to do it all at work perfectly. To be the perfect employee and then get everything in our personal life in order. Have a perfectly clean home. Be the best friend you can be, the best daughter. If you’re a parent, parent perfectly. So much pressure we end up putting on ourselves without realizing it.
When history has told you and shown you that the expectation is that you do it all without support and on top of that society doesn't think that you do a good enough job or you’re as valued so you’re going to get paid less, you’re not going to get support. But then you also get in trouble when you ask for help. You get questioned. You get doubted. What happens?
You internalize that. When society tells you your worth and value is based on how much you do, that it’s a measure of your success, capacity and ability, how much you do for others, then what happens? You beat yourself up when you don't do it all. You feel shame for having a messy house. You judge yourself for not being a ‘good enough parent’. You don't believe you can achieve your personal goals and dreams or career goals and dreams because you struggle to balance it all.
You feel embarrassed like a fraud or imposter in your job. Now, of course this doesn't just affect women, and this affects all of us at our various intersecting identities. When you’re disabled and can’t sit at a desk for eight hours, your internalized ableism might be telling you you’re worthless. When your brain is neurodivergent and you don’t work well in a linear fashion, rather you have spurts of innovation, but your office requires a nine to five.
Your internalized ableism, that voice inside your head might be saying something like something's wrong with you. You need to just force yourself to do it their way. When you're a single parent trying to get your degree and work full-time and then you get in trouble for leaving work early to pick up your kids because you don’t have anyone else. That little voice in your head might be telling you, just quit school, it’s not worth it. You’re not worth it anyways, you’re not going to make anything of yourself.
When you ask for time off for Eid or Yom Kippur, and you get pushback but you see other colleagues not have to ask for time off for their religious holidays because it's government given. That message might be telling you that you’re only valued, the only reason they care about you is what you produce for them and that your life outside of work, they don’t care. They don’t see you as a whole human and many, many, many other examples.
So here's what I want to leave you with. While we work to change all this bullshit, I want you to remember you are born worthy. You are inherently worthy no matter how much you do or don't do, no matter how messy or clean your house is. Your value is not dependent on the time you spend working. Your values, your brain, your intellect, your creativity, your experience and so much more, even if there are people out there or society does not see it, does not recognize it.
And there's nothing wrong with you for feeling overwhelmed, for overworking, for having anxiety, for stressing out, for struggling to balance it all because the system has been set up for you to fail, for you to struggle, for you to burn out. It’s not designed, especially in the US with your responsibilities, with your needs, with your life and being a whole human in mind. And the eight hour work day is a perfect example of this. It’s impossible to get it all done.
Yet, when we aren’t able to, we feel a lot of shame. We make it mean a lot of stuff about ourselves. But when you don’t get it all done, it doesn’t mean anything about you, your value, your future, your potential, your ability or your worth. I want you to remember that.
And if you want help making things a little bit easier for you to get things done, be efficient and effective without burning out, to stop feeling shame and guilt for not being perfect, not being able to balance it all or juggle it all. Without denying the very real challenges we all face, I want you to come join the Not Your Average Productivity course. You’ll get tools, skills and support to make juggling this act of life a little bit easier, not perfect, but easier. So you can work towards your personal goals. So you can undo some of that internalized self-doubt.
So you don’t give up on what you truly want to do with your life, how you want to spend your time. So you stop feeling so behind and so bad about yourself, so you feel more confident and in control of your life and in belief of yourself. So I want you to head to mckoolcoaching.com/courses to grab your spot. Enrollment closes August 3rd. We start August 7th and there’s limited spaces so go on over there, register, we’ll have a link in the bio and until next week, bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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