"What if the reason why we're all burned out is because the productivity norms of our profession are based on white men whose wives who took care of everything"

[flashbac]

Not my words. Saw it on Twitter and it made me think.

twitter.com/AmyAchenbach/status/1470394756844957702?t=K01WWVnQE2WPIQl80rZUyw&s=19

I think this is very true.

Very true

So true

And that's where a five day working week came from

I don’t really see the relevance on highlighting race but yes our productivity levels are based on one person working and one person looking after the worker.

Today life is extremely stressful because there is no one looking after the workers.

Especially the woman who usually gets lumbered with all of it.

Partly true but also due to rocketing expectations in the last 3 decades. In my industry after serial reorganisations and streamlining we're all doing the jobs of 2 people. We're also constantly being asked to step up and take on work above our level. People used to be allowed and encouraged to coast and be a safe pair of hands. Now that looks dangerously unambitious.

Sort of true but not completely.

I think it's true of office based productivity. But actually in terms of domestic tasks technology has reduced our workload for many things. Vacuum cleaners, online shopping, large supermarkets so we can get everything in one place, cars so we can get to the shops quickly, easily available ready made clothing, shoes etc, lots of quick easy food.

I think modern lifestyle needs one person to work only 3 or 4 days out of the home, it doesn't need one person working and the other at home 5 days a week

This is part of it (although I am also puzzled about the reference to race), but mainly it’s caused by people with a race to the bottom mentality - people who will vote for cuts to everything and worse employment rights. People who will put up with any shit from their employers on the basis that they are “working hard”.

Until this changes, Sir Bufton Tufton will carry on getting richer and the rest of us will be working harder for less. We all have a vote - we need to stop voting Tory if we want this to stop.

True, but we cannot negate that a crazy drive for “productivity” is making us unhappy. The targets that workers face today are much much higher than the ones of our grandparents and the prize of meeting your targets is having the bar raised as soon as you do.

Performance reviews are the work of the devil. You mention about the times you went the extra mile one year and that become part of the minimum expectations you get for the next year.

That is really interesting and will be why I'm bloody knackered

Yes absolutely. Have often remarked on this, especially with one friend with a Big Job (partner in a big law firm) who also has two young kids and whose husband works full time in a Quite Big Job. Her job was absolutely designed with a wife in mind.

Nope. It’s a racist and sexist statement. It is also white supremacist as it suggests that productivity norms are too high for nonmale, nonwhite workers...as in nonmale, nonwhite workers are inferior to white men in productivity. I hope twitter deletes it.

Race is relevant because if you are in the favoured group in your society you have less shite to deal with and so more time/energy/mental bandwidth to get on with your work.

What I dislike is that we seem to tolerate all the benefit of the the technology productivity gains of the last 50 years flowing to capital owners.

The technological changes should be allowing us all to do less labour for the same output, in reality corporate owners simply require more and more output thus reaping all the reward.

Someone starting my job 50 years ago would have had to write or type up manually lots of documents, would have had to perform lots of work now done on excel manually. You would have needed four or five people to do the work I can do, yet relative to cost of living I am paid less.

Weelllll, yes and no.

I've talked about this before under different names but I come from a former mining village where - famously - the women also went down the pit. People from the area still have a rep for being dirty because other communities looked down on us for that and believed it was impossible to 'keep a clean house' when the woman was out at work.

That societal expectation, all the way back into the 1800s, that one person would work and one person would look after the worker, didn't come from a 'white man productivity norm'. That's such a recent thing, I'd say it's only come with globalisation and digitalisation.

I think it's true of office based productivity. But actually in terms of domestic tasks technology has reduced our workload for many things. Vacuum cleaners, online shopping, large supermarkets so we can get everything in one place, cars so we can get to the shops quickly, easily available ready made clothing, shoes etc, lots of quick easy food.

Technology may have reduced the amount of work a woman needs to do at home but then we sent the woman to work as well, for a lower salary than a man even if doing the same job, while the man is still working and only taking a half arsed attempt to have a 50/50 distribution of childcare/house chores.

@GrandmasCat

I think it's true of office based productivity. But actually in terms of domestic tasks technology has reduced our workload for many things. Vacuum cleaners, online shopping, large supermarkets so we can get everything in one place, cars so we can get to the shops quickly, easily available ready made clothing, shoes etc, lots of quick easy food.

Technology may have reduced the amount of work a woman needs to do at home but then we sent the woman to work as well, for a lower salary than a man even if doing the same job, while the man is still working and only taking a half arsed attempt to have a 50/50 distribution of childcare/house chores.

Yup.

I work part time and am lucky that we can get by on my dh's wage and my part time wage. I actually work full-time if you count unpaid labour around the home and childrearing. It seems obvious to me that if both parents work full time then life is going to be very stressful as all the work that has to be done is still there - either you get grandparents to do it (if they are willing and local), pay someone or do it yourself in the evenings and weekends.

My dh is a university professor and in the generation above him it was very common for the professor's wife to help out with admin, hosting, networking etc. I do none of that! What's more, professors in his department used to have assistants to apply for grants, do admin etc. They have all been cut and so he spends a lot of his time doing this work which doesn't actually "count" as his work.

EmpressCixi, I didn't get that from the statement. I thought I was saying almost the opposite in that white male productivity is a result of their abundant privilege at that time and not something inate about that group.

Capitalism is a mess for all but the fat cats. But we all lap it up" coz communism."

Totally agree. It cannot be natural for humans to have to fit all their rest, socialising, parenting, chores, hobbies, self-care, fitness, family time etc into the sparse hours left over by the 9-5 model.

Race is relevant because if you are in the favoured group in your society you have less shite to deal with and so more time/energy/mental bandwidth to get on with your work.

That's pretty offensive. How do you know what shite others are dealing with?

Never thought about it this way but it certainly makes sense. Maybe not entirely but goes some way to explaining it.

Thinking back to last year, DP was furloughed while I was working (NHS). I felt less stressed knowing DP was at home, the cooking, washing, childcare etc was all taken care of so when I got home, I could relax and not worry about that stuff. Since he has been back at work, I've had a lot more to do and ended up signed off sick with stress. I much preferred him at home but we couldn't feasibly manage long term on just my income.

Yes. I work in quite a traditional profession. I would say 95% of my senior male colleagues have a stay at home wife who does everything or only works on a very part time basis - but most don’t work. This means my male colleagues only have one job - the one they are paid to do. I am a lone parent so have two jobs - my paid job and then everything else. I struggle.

@EmpressCixi

Nope. It’s a racist and sexist statement. It is also white supremacist as it suggests that productivity norms are too high for nonmale, nonwhite workers...as in nonmale, nonwhite workers are inferior to white men in productivity. I hope twitter deletes it.

It’s saying the exact opposite. It’s saying that professional white men traditionally had the luxury of spending 40 hours a week at work without getting burned out because they had the luxury of a wife at home to look after the cooking, cleaning, child rearing, housekeeping etc.

We now assume that standard of productivity is the norm, without considering the fact that most people in work are also trying to juggle all those other things alongside it.

And because we know it is still women who overwhelmingly bear the brunt of household tasks and child rearing, while men often contribute much less outside of work, women risk being viewed as less productive than men when the reality is they’re just doing more than their fair share of the unpaid work in a family.