The Mental Load of Women in Science

Every year around this time, I catch myself saying the same thing: "I really need a break." And every year, I don't take one.

This isn't just a personal failing. It's the mental load of being a woman in science—of being in a profession that historically excluded us, only to expect us now to overperform as the price of admission.

I had a conversation recently with my co-host that left us both feeling like we needed to name something we've been dancing around. So here we are, talking about the structural and cultural forces that make it so damn hard for women in science, medicine, and academia to rest, recharge, and ask for the support we need…and what it means when we keep going anyway.

The Unpaid Labor of Overachieving

There's this particular kind of exhaustion that comes with being a woman in a field that wasn't built with you in mind. We’re not just doing our jobs: we’re constantly proving we deserve to be here. The internalized pressure to be three steps ahead, overprepared, and unshakably competent never lets up. Just me?

We both noticed how common it is for women (ourselves included!) to feel like taking time off is somehow a sign of “laziness” or lack of ambition. It's more than guilt: it's this deeply rooted sense that if you're not doing it, no one else will.

For those of us who are self-driven, self-funded, or self-employed, that fear isn't always irrational. This is how I’ve ended up hacking my own brain. In order to stop and reflect on my own business, I have to book an Airbnb in a different town to physically remove myself from my normal work space. If I don't pay for a pause, I won't take one.

Angela is no different: often, if she doesn’t physically leave the country, she’ll end up working through her so-called "annual leave" from her university position. Sound familiar?

This need to “do it all” and “just work harder” happens all throughout our lives: at work, at home, in volunteer roles, etc. As women, we’re raised to believe that we’re the ones responsible for managing ~everything~.

As I write this, I’m looking at the breakfast dishes my male partner—love you, Greg!—left in the sink this morning and the two bags of his groceries that have been sitting on the living room floor for three days. It takes every fiber of my self-control to not tidy up after him, and as I think about why I refuse to do so, the phrase, “I’m not your mother” comes to mind.

See that? Even in my attempt to own my independence as a grown woman in an equal partnership, I’m justifying it with a nod to patriarchal notions of “women’s work”. And around and around we go.

Gender Gaps in Professional Confidence

We've both seen it happen over and over: male colleagues who have an uncanny ability to get promoted for doing what feels like the bare minimum. Meanwhile, many women are still waiting to feel "ready" before they even apply for anything.

Often, this happens because our male colleagues are simply better at asking for that promotion or self-promoting their own achievements. People assigned male at birth are more often raised to take charge, to be confident, to “just go for it”.

There’s an old stat running around the internet that claims women won’t apply for a job unless they meet 100% of the qualifications, while men may apply with as low as a 60% qualification match.

Let’s be clear: the quantitative data doesn’t support this statistic. Like many statistics, it’s fun to bandy about, but it doesn’t have strong data behind it. However, an interesting study in the European Journal of Social Psychology showed that women do feel a need to be significantly more prepared and qualified for a given job than the male applicants.

The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this discussion, but suffice it to say that the female bias towards overpreparation and overachievement shows up everywhere, from our hiring decisions to how we distribute workload.

The Quiet Bias Against the Child-Free

As women and feminists who support other women, this is something we hesitated to bring up, but felt we had to name: child-free women often get saddled with the invisible labor of covering for everyone else.

Let me be perfectly clear: we support parental leave. We believe in better systems for parents of all kinds. Childcare, school schedules, and sick days are logistical nightmares that need better societal-level support.

But what happens in the meantime? What about the colleague who doesn't have kids, the woman who’s constantly asked to stay late, to take on more projects, to meet with clients during the evening hours because "she's available"?

Perhaps "child-free woman" should be its own protected characteristic under employment law.

What if she's child-free because of infertility or medical trauma? Because she simply chose differently? In many workplaces, people who don’t have “traditional” caregiving responsibilities get saddled with extra work, while others only get support when their non-work responsibilities fit a very specific mold (i.e., having kids).

Invisible Care Work

Elder care is a perfect example of care work that falls outside the mold. A colleague of ours recently asked for just one hour of scheduling accommodation to support a parent with dementia. Her employer’s response: Only parents of young children qualify for that type of flexible work. If you need leave for this sort of reason, reduce your contract to part-time.

Never mind that other colleagues with kids come into work at 10 and leave at 2 for personal errands without anyone batting an eye. Never mind that elder care is legally recognized as a caregiving responsibility. If it doesn't fit the dominant script of what "working parenthood" looks like, it doesn't count.

These decisions aren't just frustrating. They're discriminatory and dehumanizing, both for people with children and those without.

Menstruation Meets "Productivity"

In 2024, a woman in the US asked to reschedule a job interview because she was in severe pain from endometriosis. The high-end fitness company with which she was interviewing cancelled her application entirely, citing concerns about how her menstrual cycle might impact productivity.

She sued and eventually won a lawsuit for discriminatory hiring practices. Good for her.

Most employers would never dare do this to someone with another chronic condition or physical disability. But when the condition is gynecologic (or simply coded as "female problems”), we're told to tough it out, keep quiet, and not expect accommodations.

The stigma around menstruation, reproductive health, and mental health is alive and well in hiring, promotions, and workplace culture. We're told to disclose "honestly”, but then we’re punished for doing exactly that.

Gender Equity Signposting in the Workplace

A great example from academia: In the UK, many universities promote their commitment to gender equity through the Athena SWAN charter—a certification program with bronze, silver, and gold levels meant to assess institutional support for women and underrepresented groups.

It sounds great on paper. It's a start, but getting that certification doesn't necessarily mean women's lived experiences on campus match the mission statements.

Plenty of departments have silver awards and still make it nearly impossible for female faculty to access scheduling accommodations, promotions, or protected time for caregiving. Athena SWAN programs may help with accountability, but they're not a replacement for actual structural change.

In the U.S., where DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) has become a political punching bag, even these basic accountability tools are under attack. The government has frozen or denied grant applications simply for containing the word "bias", even when the word is used in a purely statistical sense.

Why Do We Bother?

Despite all the bullshit, we're still here, doing the work, showing up for our patients, students, colleagues, and communities. We know we're not alone.

But we're also done normalizing the burnout, self-erasure, and inequity that so many women in science endure as “just part of the job”. We don't need more "resilience training." We need better systems, better leave policies, and better equity practices. We need more recognition of the many forms of labor we do, both seen and unseen.

This blog, and our forthcoming podcast, is a place for these conversations.

If you're a woman in science, healthcare, or academia who's felt these frustrations in your bones: we see you. We're building something that honors your experience and demands more from the systems around us.

If you have stories that reflect these experiences, please share! We’re here to amplify your voices.

That’s Gynomite,

Caitlyn & Angela