To people ignorant of these threads, the labor is invisible. It is also, as anyone who even comes close to it can tell you, exhausting. Many hours and dollars a year go into reading these emails and then acting on their directives—sending the kid in with a bagged lunch for the museum trip, buying something for the class basket, wrapping the Secret Santa present, venmoing Angela for the principal’s gift. This is an inconspicuous “mental load” that women commiserate about: the holiday gifts and grocery lists and travel plans and all the other “little things” that can eat your brain.
