Women are good at multitasking: myth or reality?

A day in the life of Superwoman

6 am: Superwoman’s alarm rings… exhausted from lack of sleep she rolls over, turns it off and falls back asleep… 💤

7:00: her 5-year-old daughter comes into her bedroom, telling her it’s time to get up. Bewildered, she looks at her alarm, realises she’s overslept and, in a panic, jumps out of bed. A guilty voice in her head tells her that she won’t have time for her daily ½ hour workout… she’d sworn to herself that she was going to look after her physical health…

7:30: she’s managed to wake up her 7-year-old son (ironically, it was her younger daughter who woke her up!), got both children washed and dressed and sat them down for breakfast (the healthy breakfast she’d prepared the evening before – no quick cereals and milk for supermum’s children 😇).

7:50: she’s had a quick shower and thrown on her work suit… makeup will have to be put on while she’s sitting in the traffic jams on her way to work, after having dropped off her children at school.

9:00: arrived at work 15 minutes late for her 8.45 meeting… stressed and apologising profusely with her feeble excuse of the traffic being particularly bad this morning.

9:30-18:30: back-to back meetings, emails answered during her meetings, dentist appointment made for her daughter, son enrolled for tennis lessons and romantic weekend away with hubby organised for their 10^th wedding anniversary, all done during her lunchbreak sitting at her desk eating a sandwich. Moreover, romantic dinner booked in new trendy rooftop for her boss and his wife… hang on, she’s head of HR, not his assistant, so why’s she booking restaurants for him? Well, she’d happened to mention this great new rooftop she’d heard of so he, coaxingly, asked her to book him a table there… 

19:30: home late… blasted traffic jams again. Children sitting eating supper in front of the TV while the Au Pair is posting TikTok videos of herself 😡 Superwoman promises herself that she’ll do something about this Au Pair but she’s too exhausted to deal with the problem right now.

20:00: children showered and teeth brushed (meant to be the Au Pair’s job but her children are refusing to listen to her so Supermum takes over).

20:30: bedtime story read, children settled for the night and now it’s time to prepare supper for herself and her hubby, as well as tomorrow morning’s healthy breakfast.

21:00: eats dinner, by herself, her hubby having texted to say he’s working late – again -tonight.

21:30: dinner eaten, dishes washed up and she sits down to prepare her PowerPoints for tomorrow’s presentation.

00:30: collapses into bed… feeling guilty for putting her alarm on for 6:30 instead of 6:00, meaning that, once again, she won’t have time for her ‘daily’ workout… 😴

… welcome to the multitasking life of Superwoman!

Multitasking and women: a myth to be broken

We easily joke about women being multitaskers and men being unitaskers but this is actually an injunction imposed on women: put others’ needs before your own, get on with it and keep quiet.

When a woman has a family and a career, she often feels the pressure to excel in all areas, to be the perfect loving mother (and wife) while successfully managing her professional life. Most women have been educated to “Please others” *(1) and to place their own needs secondary, so they find themselves taking on enormous amounts of responsibility. In our modern-day society, women have won the right to work but there are still societal expectations that they should have the main responsibility of the family. For example, when a child gets sick, who does the school primarily call? The mother of course… after all, the father mustn’t be disturbed at work! *(2) What’s more, it’s an injunction we place on ourselves because, having seen our mothers and grandmothers do everything at home, we think we should do the same, which can lead to the unfortunate situation of, maybe, not letting our spouses take their place in sharing the chores.

Moreover, you may well ask: where’s Superwoman’s partner in all this? Well, he’s a man so our society only expects him to unitask. We mustn’t forget that, often, he himself has the injunction to be strong and provide for the family, placing his career above all else.

Except that maybe one day Superwoman will collapse from sheer exhaustion and she’ll suffer a burnout. Maybe this will make her, and her partner react, and they’ll discuss doing things differently, with a real sharing of the tasks and responsibility. Or maybe, she’ll pick herself back up, go on anti-depressants and return to work… until the day her body says “no” and irreparable physical damage will occur (cancer, heart attack, stroke…). Or maybe one day superwoman will get tired of doing everything around the house, without feeling supported by her husband, their relationship will gradually deteriorate and she’ll end up leaving him.

Let’s be clear about this, there is no natural or genetic reason for a woman to be better at multitasking than men, it’s merely a social construction that does harm to women’s mental and physical health. It’s an injunction of our modern, Western society. Before industrialisation (and also in other societies today), people lived more in communities, families were not so broken up and, as a result, women received help in bringing up their children and looking after their homes. In our modern society, women are left to fend for themselves because their parents often live far away and there is no longer the same support between neighbours, especially in big cities. Our modern Western society has become more self-centred. As a result, as women, we have won the right to work, but we no longer have the same support systems as before, and we find ourselves even more alone.

Another difficulty for women is that we can feel pressure to do everything perfectly ourselves, cf. “Be perfect” and “Be strong” drivers *(1). We then find it difficult to accept our own vulnerability by asking for help from our partner or refusing to do unreasonable tasks at work. And yet, by expressing our needs and our vulnerability, we might be pleasantly surprised to discover that our partner is prepared to accept their share of the household chores, or even that they thrive on being more involved in the family! Or that we gain greater respect from our manager by being more assertive at work. As women, it’s important to learn to let go of the societal injunction to be the perfect wife, mother and employee and, instead, give ourselves permission to take time for ourselves, to ask for help and to say ‘no’ to unacceptable demands.

In a society of true gender equality, women wouldn’t be expected to be multitaskers any more than men are. Responsibility within the family would be shared. Women wouldn’t be expected to be the note-taker or coffee-maker in meetings any more than her male colleagues are. The glass ceiling wouldn’t exist and we’d have the same career opportunities as men, as well as the same salary.

Say “STOP” to being Superwoman

The superwoman of our story is called Olivia. Let’s stop calling her superwoman and give her the permission to be her authentic self, dealing with one task at a time and showing her vulnerability by asking for help when she needs it.

I dedicate this article to all the women out there who are, or have been, multitaskers and who are joining me in saying “STOP” to their role of superwoman!

*(1) The 5 Drivers of Transactional Analysis: 

 

• • Please Me!

• • Be Strong!

• • Hurry Up!

• • Try Hard!

• • Be Perfect!

See my blog article on this subject.

*(2) For more information on this subject, see this article “Schools often default to calling a student’s mom instead of dad, study suggests”:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/study-schools-call-moms-not-dads-1.7013951

Would you like to learn how to let go of the limiting beliefs and injunctions that are holding you back from achieving your true potential? Please do get in touch for a free consultation to discuss your needs and see how my specific coaching approach can help you to reach your objectives.

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