Why “Burnout” is a Dirty Word for Women
Hey friends this is Charlie from charliehornescoaching.com and I hope you've had an awesome week and happy weekend. I hope you've also had an incredible day full of joy and fulfillment. And if you haven't, maybe you need to run over to the website charliehornescoaching.com and jump on my calendar because we might have a little work to do.
So I wanted to just quickly share with you something that I've written about;
why I think burnout for working self-identified women and women in leadership is a dirty word.
So sit back and get comfy for a few minutes and I'm going to provide this short snippet of this work that I'm doing, and it will be a preview of the podcast that I will be launching soon called Breaking Burnout Barriers as well as the YouTube channel I now have up, which you can find @charliehornescoaching.
And if you consider yourself a helpful human, I hope that you will run over there and like, and subscribe, and share, and hopefully help me get the word out so that I can help other women in dealing with issues that we face around socialized patriarchy.
So get comfy and let's get into the world of why burnout is a dirty word
Let's get into it.
What I'm proposing is that burnout, for women is actually a dirty word. Decades and decades and decades of research has been done, and so much of this research points to the same three solutions.
Point number one, admonishments of institutions who need to do a better job of teaching and preparing women for the misogyny and the sexism and the socialized patriarchy that they will inevitably face in whatever field or discipline that they are going into.
Point number two that men need to be better allies.
Well, duh.
But you know what? We've been waiting decades and decades and decades for these first two points. And little solution and practical training is offered.
Other than the third point, the platitudes of a need for women to have more “self care.”
Now, I take issue with that word, which is the whole point of what I'm talking about today.
We have been waiting decades for these changes, but in these decades of writing and researching, little is discussed; while highlighting the glaring and quite frankly, obvious concerns most every woman is already entirely aware of; little is discussed much in the way of actual methodology and practice towards real world practical solutions and implementation, outside of a few groundbreaking feminist scholars who do identify the systemic issues that are more likely at its roots.
Now, the focus of much contemporary writing does not address the illness, just silences the symptoms.
They silence it with a high five and a great work identifying the obvious.
But the pain points that these decades of research have unearthed for women are often swept under the rug, blaming anything and everything but the systemic issues society has all been socialized into… the roles and impossible, contradictory social expectations women are supposed to live into and upto.
These decades of solutions are superficial, and they only point to one thin, external layer of a multilayered and multifaceted socialized problem.
These celebrated, uncovered solutions, while raising the important alarm about urgent issues for women, most all point to parallel issues the majority of CIS-het, mainly white, successful, men in the working world also deal with most every day.
All of these decades of warnings are well and good, but much of the writings put out put the onus on women to take better care of themselves, to have better boundaries, take a yoga class, a long walk, a bubble bath, get a mani-pedi.
Newsflash.
I don't know a lot of working men who are good at “self-care” either. Most are actually worse. Many are overworked to the neglect of their families and their fair share of running a household.
And women generally are more adept at self-care because at least we, unlike our male colleagues, do try to fit it in, when we can get away, even while often working the additional four second shift of running a household. ( 1.)
Generalizing, of course, often what men face in the working world are circumstantial issues. There exists external issues outside of who they are.
The deal went south at work, a personality conflict, a bad boss or a coworker, unhappy shareholders, getting passed over for a promotion or a raise, office politics and the like. Y
ou see, these are external circumstances happening outside and around who men are
Outside of their being.
And these studies take little into account the nuanced and enmeshed depth of the complex and insidious systemic stranglehold of patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, and the gender bias gap that precedes most self-identified women into the field or discipline which they will inevitably face in some form or fashion.
Now, these circumstances for women, they're not external. They are the types of circumstances that pierce the external layers of these surface outside issues; that reside in our blood and our bones; reside in our marrow, our clenched teeth and our bitten tongue.
These both macro and micro-aggressions live in our tendons, in the neurowiring of our brains, sometimes permanently changing it, and it takes deep root in our hearts and in our souls.
For women, the pain points are much more complex than the platitudes.
So much of the research identifies as burnout, now we know in our gut something is the matter. We know it. We feel it in our nervous system, in our physiology. We feel it in our limbic system.
This is not burnout and it cannot be fixed with a yoga class, some bubble baths and nail polish, or playing more soccer with our kids.
As much as that's amazing.
It doesn't fix it.
But often women we can't identify what the problem is, what's the matter? And all of these self-help models of manifestation and of positive affirmation creates what Dr. Carolyn Leaf describes as a “massive gap of cognitive dissonance and gaslighting. It's a gap between what women are told they should be doing, what they should be feeling, how they should be acting and reacting against the realities of the system.” (2.)
They ultimately are victims to consciously or not. So a lot of women that probably don't think they're victims, and I get that and I support that. I just don't believe it. You see my coach, Kara Lowenthiel, she describes it as:
““Well, I can say anything that comes to my mind with human words. I can say I am a lizard king who has come from space and I rule you all.
I can think that, but I don't believe it. It's just gobbledygook in my brain. I can't say that I can jump out of a window and fly. Just because you manifest it, because gravity exists.” (3.)
So what she teaches me is that if it is not true and not believable, no matter how hard we try, we cannot manifested into reality because we don't buy it in our brains.
And these platitudes of manifesting in affirmations, they do a double violence to its victims. Women's very bodies are forced to endure the first violence of patriarchy systems that is so ingrained and socialized into the systemic oppression of women that most may not even be aware of it as the actual root cause of their preventable suffering. But violence is perpetrated nonetheless.
And this first violence is followed by the double violence inflicted upon women's minds and bodies. When told that if they would only do it right, get it right, stop being so sensitive, dramatic. Get some thick skin. Don't take things so personally. Being so angry. They assume that women will figure it out and will conform and will do better.
And if not, well, we just get brushed to the corner and we're told that we just can't hack it in the working world where women are eexpected to, as I shared last time what Rosemary Ruether wrote 41 years ago, [her criticism] that women are to be liberated by becoming incorporated in and enabled to function like men in the public realm. (4.)
When women are told to just jump and fly. The harsh reality hits them like pavement. Gravity exists, and the only analogy here that's appropriate is one of trauma and violence. Nothing else will suffice. And women often do begin to identify that they are in some kind of abusive system, whether it's emotional, verbal, psychological, spiritual, and sometimes physical, that they know there's a problem in their very being.
They feel it. They are competent, talented, educated, beautiful children of God. They're experienced, they're brilliant women, but they are left entirely alone after this double violence, asking themselves what did they do to deserve this? What did they get wrong? How could they have gotten it right? What is wrong with them?
Well, here's the thing. There is nothing wrong with you.
You are exceptionally amazing and exceptionally strange, just like everyone else in this world.
You just happened to be female in a biased and normalized male world.
And when women ask themselves these questions full of self-doubt, full of shame and blame, they're doing the work of the patriarchal system for it. And when women say this to other women, they're doing the work of the patriarchal system for it.
You beat yourself up better than anybody else could, because that is what this system has taught you to do. I mean, this system is evil and ingenious, and it's wily in that way. It's as if women are forced through this proverbial minefield. And if you survive with all of your neurological appendages still attached, you started out with, you are still left feeling beaten up, battered, bullied and broken hearted because you had to endure it at all.
But only then can you be inducted into the super secret club of survivors.
Yeah. This is women's lives. Not all, but many. Steeped in gaslighting, contradictions and cognitive dissonance all wrestled into, often, unconscious submission.
Friends, this is not burnout.
Burnout is a dirty word for women.
Burnout is a too soft and offensive a word, which makes a mockery of the self-identified female experience in this country.
And my argument then is that much of the identified issues decades of research has uncovered, most male colleagues feel as well they face it every single day. And as such, for men, these are outwardly external circumstances to their bodies happening around them. These are subjective experiences potentially internalized based on each individual's personal and subjective story.
And if it's truly internalized as a pain point, the stress can indeed cause emotional burnout, compassion, fatigue and frustrations and resentment.
Sure, much of which a two week vacation or a raise can soothe. But most circumstances that produce these results happen around men. And men can choose whether to or not to engage. But you see, for women, much of the circumstances that produce these exact same results, this so-called burnout, you see, it's directed at them, not happening around them.
And there is no vacation that will soothe that body blow.
Women inherently internalize these circumstances automatically because often they are about them personally, about their very personhood, things that women have little control over. Such as?
I don't I don't know… being a woman. And they're socialized into an acceptance of it, even if subconsciously, as if it is just something they have to endure. You know, the whole well, boys will be boys thing.
There's no choice for women whether or not to engage in aggressive circumstances for our male colleagues. Much of the circumstances that caused this burnout happen around them, not at them around them, around their personhood.
It's as if they stand within the eye of the hurricane, the sheer force winds. And it's strength. It is subjective, is subjective to how close they choose to stand in relation to the eyewall. And these surface external circumstances, such as disagreements over visioning boundary transgressions, high expectations, tug of war with power players, etc. these are indeed significant and are causes of emotional burnout.
But how, However, I would propose it is more the case than not with women that much of the circumstances that would cause so-called burnout, they're not swirling around them, but conversely are directed at them, at their very person, their personhood. Women do not stand in the calm eye of the storm, deciding whether to engage in the eye [wall] or not.
Women are the shore the storm aims directly at and pummels with its storm surge. The only mitigating factors as to how bad the damage will be is at what speed the hurricane force winds are, how high the storm surges are.
Women are often standing directly in the path of the top left quadrant of the hurricane. The dirty side, as we call it, the dirty side of the eyewall.
And this left quadrant. It is the most vicious and devastating part of a storm. And women often inherently internalize these significant circumstances they face because it is their very personhood, which is the target of such attack. Women do not have the luxury to determine how impactful the winds lashing around them should be and whether they will step inside of it or not.
Women are directly in the line of sight of the catastrophic brute force of landfall. There is nothing subjective about when the storm meets shore. And for women, there is nowhere to go when it hits.
However, women are socialized to take the brunt force of such an impact, even if it's subconsciously. For women, often the issue of contention, they are often things women have little or no control over, such as outward appearance about who we are, about our competence, are deserving of a position or an office women hold, all based on implicit gender bias. Much of the causes of contention women face are about these inherent things that are about our being, things that women cannot do much about. Specifically, their female body, their gender, their autonomous personhood.
For example, one might be hard pressed to find a male colleague who has been taken to task over their hair, their makeup, or lack of it…. you wear too much.; ou don't wear enough; about their nail care; their clothing; their jewelry; their shoes. I got taken to task once because my high heels were not appropriate. But they also didn't like me wearing flats, so…
One might be hard pressed to find a male colleague who's treated like and inerrant wayward daughter told to smile more, spoken to and about them as if they were a child, who knows not what she does; told their passion for their discipline comes across as shrill and angry. They're told that they don't have the smarts to run an office or oversee the staff or the budget, even though most women successfully run their household.
A lot of men do not have to deal with demeaning and degrading, offhanded commentary with no second thought to the offense.
One might be hard pressed to find a male colleague who has been the target of pointed and repeated sexual harassment of their gender and their person. In fact, the only men that I personally am aware of that have had any issues around sexual harassment or misconduct are those that are inciting and perpetrating it.
And I have personally known many professional men that I have worked with [over the years] that are guilty of this, [fortunately not from too personal of experience other that the ick factor.]
I don't know any of them that have been held accountable either.
Out of the hundreds of professional women, I have cultivated relationships with, women that I just love who are incredible. Out of these women, over the many years, not one has been accused of perpetrating any form of sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind.
Sure, they're out there, but I personally have never met one. And I've never heard of one about someone I know. But most women may tell you that they have been significant recipients of sexual harassment or misconduct, especially when they share their stories off the record.
All behavior of which men do not categorically have to endure, internalize, or accept as, that's just life. Suck it up and figure it out or you can't hack it. All of this is based on implicit gender bias gaps. There's nothing women can do or not do to prevent this often inevitable violence and collective trauma inflicted on all women in this country.
And when I have asked my fellow working women, amazing, competent, awesome, talented women, when I have asked them if they would agree with the common terms of burnout, conflict, or self-care as root causes of their implicit or explicit suffering, many laugh in my face.
Many laugh and they say…
rarely, Charlie. Rarely.
They offer words more appropriate instead, they offer words such as, trauma, abuse, battle, despair, beaten down, degraded, harassed, belittled, sabotaged, targeted.
And these are just to name a few. These words are closer to the truth, it seems, from the mouths of women, that women's bodies and brains endure every day out in this world, and sometimes in their homes.
These specific landmines women will inevitably hit are nearly, across the board, not new.
Yet much of the talk of the difficulty is kept hidden, as if it were some dirty little secret few seem willing to honestly and authentically talk about because, I believe, they don't feel it's safe.
They don't feel it's a safe thing to talk about openly in shared spaces.
So many women are suffering in silence.
They have been socialized to equate their knowing if something is systemically wrong with the world…
Their feeling it in their very core and yet in a multitude of ways, instead of excavating and digging down, instead they resign themselves to believing the platitudes of not hacking it, of not getting it right, of the should've, coulda woulda. And the acceptance of defeat. Many are too embarrassed. They see themselves as a failure.
They don't think they're going to get help.
They think they're going to get blamed.
They feel resentment, and sometimes even hatred at this world, at what they cannot quite get their finger on, what they cannot quite identify. And they retreat into the shadows of silent despair masked behind their well practice, their well refined game face.
So my hope in doing this work is that it will move the most common identified pain points that women suffer from every day, that drive women out of their fields, that steal their joy and their sense of fulfillment.
So my hope is that from the work that I'm doing and many are doing is that I can help them move away from the hidden corners of phenomena and exceptions to the rule of abnormal in this normalized male world that I can help interrupt the cycle of self-blame and self condemnation.
I hope that I can help dredge up the truth from the abyss of the epidemic of dirty little secret clubs where common knowledge of this is not something that is new, that it is entombed.
And my hope is that we can break forth into the brightness of the experience of our shared solutions rather than shared traumas, where the sunlight can rid us of the infestation of socialized patriarchy.
Our social systems, our institutions, and society itself, is wrought with.
And I believe that this starts by equipping our self-identified women, our self-identified women in leadership about what is out there, about what everyone [previous generations] has already gone through, about what everybody knows is happening, and also let them know that there are solutions, that this stuff is preventable suffering, and there are ways to find joy and fulfillment in our lives.
Truly.
So anyway, that was on my mind. I wanted to share some of the writing with you and thanks for listening and I hope you have a beautiful evening.
Find the joy. It's there and you deserve it.
YouTube, @charliehornescoaching
https://youtu.be/MzeKSqqTj6I?si=RmT96IKQug_FeTVK
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Sexism and God-Talk : toward a Feminist Theology : with a New Introduction.
https://unfuckyourbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UFYB-Transcript-229v2.pdf, pp. 7-8
https://unfuckyourbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UFYB-Transcript-229v2.pdf, pp 5; 23
Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Sexism and God-Talk : toward a Feminist Theology : with a New Introduction.
