If you spend the majority of your time at work, it’s safe to say your career definitely has an impact on your life. Even if you’re working reduced hours or part-time, the quality of the hours spent working is bound to have an indelible effect on you. This is especially true if you’re a working woman and/or mom, as you may already handle the mental and emotional toll from all the other areas of your life, including motherhood, marriage, and caregiving, just to cite a few…Considering more women tend to be more prone to depression and other mental health conditions, a career that exacerbates the latter could literally turn deadly…Does this mean women may have to choose between work and mental health?
Research shows 18% of employees aged 15 to 54 report symptoms of mental health troubles. However, due to the stigma attached to mental health issues, there may be a general reluctance by employees to admit to these or seek treatment. Furthermore, mental health disorders tend to be concealed in the workplace for fear of retaliation or judgment, when they’re not flat-out overlooked. Among these mental health disorders, depression is prevalent and affects more women than men, at a rate of eight women for each man affected. Other disorders such as anxiety, sexual trauma-related PTSD and bipolar disorder also tend to affect more women, or have different effects on them. Married women particularly appear to be more at risk for mental illnesses, mostly stemming from husbands’ negative reactions to their partners’ paid work and lacking participation in childcare.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has literally created a mental health epidemic for most, women have suffered acute mental health challenges as a result of bearing the brunt of childcare, home and work responsibilities. Nearly three million women have exited the workforce as a result, compounding the already existing issues of pay inequity, lack of childcare and caregiving, and undervalued employment. Over half of school children’s mothers admit to having been dealt a “major” mental health blow, with only 16% of them even seeking mental health care.
The reality is, unless you have found a career aligned with your purpose, schedule and values, or are striving to build one, your career may be undermining your mental health. Even if and when you are fortunate enough to work in a career you love, there may still be societal, relational and other ramifications of it, from the backlash effect suffered by women who dare to go against traditional gender norms, to the stigma often plaguing working women and moms.
While some of the threats to your mental health may be directly related to your work and professional environment, many other factors, including your mental load, your childcare and caregiving responsibilities, your family and personal environment may also play an important role in literally destroying your mental health.
What then is the alternative for working women and moms? Is it to give up on the prospect of purposeful professional fulfillment and settle for less? Or is it to brave numerous and sometimes unforgiving career obstacles seeping into our personal lives at the high cost of our mental health and balance? I don’t believe there is an “either or” answer to these questions. What there is, is the reality of the purposeful battle for gender equity in and outside of the workplace, and that of the heated, century-long opposition against us. In the midst of it all, stands the flaming hope that the many women’s (and men’s) voices loudly and blazingly uncovering this brewing female mental health crisis will succeed at awakening the dormant public consciousness to the mental plight of working women and moms.
In the meantime, we shall keep sounding the alarm, loudly, unapologetically, relentlessly…
The Corporate Sis.
