Invisible Women at Work
I wrote but never published this article more than five years ago just before I went back to full-time work after maternity leave and long before I started my own journey of self-employment.
I often get asked why I left secure gainful employment to create a risky start-up company. My short answer is I wanted to create something to support busy women’s wellbeing and on a personal level - freedom.
Here is my much, much, much, much longer answer. My true why.
While it’s a bit of a personal article I felt drawn to sharing it on this International Women's Day weekend. There is going to a lot of celebratory rhetoric in your social and news feeds today and over the weekend, a lot of International Women’s Day cupcakes and the like, but this is a little reminder that International Women’s Day is an advocacy day - a day to highlight inadequacies and inequities that predominantly affect women. So here we go.
The Heart of the Matter
I am near the end of my maternity leave, preparing to go back to work, and I am devastated. The prospect of leaving my gorgeous little near-one-year-old during these precious early developmental stages is breaking my heart into smithereens.
Parenting is challenging but also endlessly fascinating—watching a little human develop month by month, observing how environments and relationships shape developing minds. It feels not just personally fulfilling but a contribution to something greater—helping to create a happy confident child who will hopefully become a balanced, stable adult. One who doesn't grow up to be a mini-despot determined to destabilise the world. This seems like a good investment to me, no?
As I face separation and speak to other working mums experiencing the same thing, I’m increasingly aware this isn't just my personal struggle—it's evidence of how our society systematically devalues and renders invisible the work primarily done by women.
The Work Society Refuses to Value
Politicians love to talk endlessly about the future and building a better future economy, a better country, a better future for all. All the policy documents, white papers, green papers, blue papers, newspapers. The strategic plans, the executive summaries, the futureproofing, future-focused jargon that make your eyes spin.
Yet the most essential work in building that future society—nurturing developing minds—is precisely the work our economic system refuses to value. The actual architects of this future so oft spoken about—parents, primarily mothers—are routinely ignored. This fundamental contribution has been relegated to an afterthought, expected to happen somehow in the margins of "real work."
The cruel irony: the very work that creates society’s future foundation is deemed economically worthless.
Because of course how we enumerate a profession says a great deal about the esteem in which we hold it. Childcare workers—entrusted with our most precious beings during formative years—rank among the lowest-paid professionals. Stay-at-home parents receive no compensation whatsoever,
Individualised structural problems
Research clearly shows the first two years of a child’s life are vital for brain development. Our instincts are often attuned to this, yet our current arrangements can make consistent parental presence difficult. This isn't inevitable—it reflects policy choices that prioritise economic productivity over supporting families during critical developmental periods.
The current system places tremendous pressure on mothers to find individual solutions to what are structural problems. Mothers experience the choice between staying home unpaid versus going back to work as an individual burden—crying alone in cars about "choices" that don't really feel like choices. Are they?
I've heard the most well-meaning but upsetting advice:
• "Give it three months; she'll cry less when you leave.”
• "Have you considered getting Xanax for the first few weeks?"
• “Give it six months; you’ll cry less when you leave.”
We've individualised and normalised maternal suffering. We're told to medicate ourselves rather than question why our economic system and social structures disempower mothers, impacting our homes, careers, and wellbeing.
This societal disempowerment is often referred to as "mom guilt"—another individualised thing we're told to accept as normal. "No matter what you do, you'll feel guilty. Just accept it, it's easier." No the fuck no. Why should I accept feeling guilty about everything? Would a man ever be told to accept guilt as a normal part of life?
Beyond Individual Solutions
Media narratives often oversimplify this issue: "Well maybe if she gave up her fancy holidays she could stop working" or the old dismissive “Oh women today just want it all." This framing ignores economic realities that have made single-income families increasingly difficult to sustain. Many families depend on two incomes to meet basic needs, with women often the primary earner or contributing substantially to household finances. Also, women may simply want or need to work and do something they are trained and good at, but they would like to do that in a family-friendly way.
The challenge is that our workplace structures haven't evolved to accommodate the needs of working parents. Women's experiences and perspectives remain underrepresented in workplace design and policy creation. When concerns that affect half the population are treated as specialised "women's issues," the resulting systems don't serve anyone well.
The reality is many working mothers sometimes choose to leave well-paying jobs if they can afford it. If they see this value in prioritising their children's early years, why don't our policies reflect their lived experience?
Each skilled woman forced from the workforce represents a double loss: families lose financial security, and society loses valuable talent, tax revenue, and diversity of thought. Companies, economies, and society all lose out. And all because we refuse to question workplace structures designed for a bygone era when single-income families—based on the notion that one person worked and the other minded the home and kids—prevailed.
Making the Invisible Visible
We are a mere teeny island on the periphery of a continent living in a very particular time of history controlled by forces of consumer capitalism and technology that for most of us, myself included, are way beyond our day-to-day comprehension. How we live now is temporary—not how it's always been nor how it always will be.
Future generations may look back at this period with surprise at how difficult we made it for families to balance work and caregiving. They might wonder why, despite our technological advances and understanding of child development, we were so slow to create systems that better support and empower mothers and children.
As Maya Angelou said: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." We know better. It's time to do better.
What You Can Do
- Ask your workplace about more flexible working arrangements
- Talk to your local representatives about incorporating more family friendly and caring friendly policies and options
- Talk to your local representatives about higher rates of pay for childcare workers and early years educators
- Build solidarity with other parents to challenge structures collectively
- Share your experiences with others; know you are not alone.
