The Inherent Sexism in Claims That Working From Home Hurts Women More Than Men....

With International Women’s Day just around the corner on March 8th (I know because I have to write a speech for it), and literally over 100 years into what is now the 4th wave of this movement, I am gobsmacked when I see articles like this one with the headline working from home hurts women more than men.?

I've linked to the article at the bottom but it ended up by saying that one solution would be to give male employees more flexibility. What?

Remote Work Is Sometime the ONLY Option Women Have

I own a company of mostly women, where the ONLY reason many of them are able to work, is for over a decade, we’ve given them the opportunity to work from home (or for that matter, from anywhere they want).??And, whether they are just returning from parental leave and can only work 5 hours a week, or have managed to put the kidlets into daycare and can manage more hours, we flex to accommodate them.?

We’ve built a thriving successful business with happy engaged employees because people don’t have to spend hours commuting or leaving their communities and families for the cities in order to make a good living (and afford a house). ?The passion behind this business originated with watching my incredibly gifted and brilliant older sisters removed from the workforce because of limited employment opportunities between the school hours of 9AM to 3PM.?

I left the office behind in 1994, after doing my master’s thesis on telecommuting, because as an introvert who wanted a LIFE, offices with their interruptions, constant illnesses and all too depressing 2 weeks a year away from them was not the life I wanted.?78 countries later, having worked pretty much the entire time – I can tell you (and 65% of employees apparently agree) that it has been an awesome way to spend the last three decades.

I think the current worker revolts at some large tech companies echo what I’m saying.

And While We're At It, Remote Does Not Equal Work from Home

This is a quote from the article:

One of the most significant drawbacks of remote working is its impact on women, who are bearing the brunt of domestic duties and facing more interruptions than men.

?Working from home is a subset of remote work, not the same thing at all.?Remote work has been a viable option for decades and encompasses a variety of working arrangements, including office-to-office or office-to- home, or in my case office-to-Everest Base Camp.??

From home is just one way to work remotely.?Whether you are in the office 3 days a week or full time, inevitably you are going to be interacting “remotely” with someone who is not in the same physical location that you are.?Unfortunately, the conflation of remote work with working from home with studies from the pandemic has led to the false assumption that women, burdened with domestic duties and disruptions, are disadvantaged by remote work.

Unpacking the Studies

So, let’s unpack the studies that the headline above is based on.?The first study of 549 pandemic-era newly home-based workers in the US came to the conclusion that it was a stressful experience.??Of course, it was stressful!??There was no school or daycare, our homes were packed with people who normally would have been out during the day, we had aged relatives locked inside care home ill-equipped to deal with them, going to the grocery store was an exercise in bare shelves – or lines of masked people trying not to get sick.

?On top of this, employers ill-equipped to deal with a completely remote workforce made everyone be on camera all the time, hauled us back on camera to watch everyone eat lunch or after work cocktails and pizza and scrambled to adjust to a temporary blip.?On top of that you had statistically 25% of the population being unsuited (the ‘extroverts’) to being alone who were absolutely miserable.

Of Course, It Was Stressful.

?The other study of a whopping 249 people had this quote:

Women reported a greater increase in interruptions, particularly with regard to nonwork interruptions of all types, in addition to work-based intrusions, multitasking, and surprises, uncovering an important source of gender inequity.

Of course, they did.?Everyone was at home.?Office space wasn’t set up.?Families were coping with an unprecedented situation.?This has nothing to do with work from home, this is how women disproportionately feel the burden of family responsibilities.???It has nothing to do with where they work from.

?The article concludes:

Organizations and managers should give their male employees more flexibility when possible so they and their families can better adapt to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

?You’re going to give male employees more flexibility because working from home is so difficult for females. Nice. I'm sure the males will appreciate it.

To me, it feels almost like propaganda to discredit remote work. The site appears to only have started publishing less than a month ago. So who's really behind this story?

What do you think??