The Feminine Urge to Volunteer (and Then be Shamed for It)

I grew up with a stay-at-home mom who used her privilege to help others. She didn't do paid work, but she worked unpaid shifts in soup kitchens, she organized to help refugees get on their feet, she cooked countless meals for our community center.

She did something we finally have a name for: Unpaid labor. A lot of it.

And according to much of the world, that's not good enough. I recently came across a podcast clip in which men were talking about how they'd feel about a woman who is "a catch" but is a volunteer worker and doesn't earn any money. Both men said they wouldn't be on board with this.

"I believe you should water your own grass first before you go and water someone else's," one man says.

And all I could think while watching this is..."well, easy for you to say."

Men, after all, have been raised to think about their own grass first. Women, on the other hand? We've been told in a million different ways that the things that make life worth living are the things we do for other people.

I believe people with the resources of time and money, the people who have theIr ability to donate their time, should do so. I also believe women are constantly exploited for their unpaid labor...whether within their own homes, or outside of them. And I can't really figure out where one thing ends and the other begins. Here's what I do know: Women aren't just the ones doing the unpaid work, we are also the ones doing the work of figuring out where exactly altruism bleeds into exploitation.

This is an issue worth examining: We were were raised to believe nobility was our ultimate calling. We were encouraged to go into "helping" professions. To put the work into our friendships and relationships and communities. We're expected to do this volunteer work, yet we're also expected to bring in fantastic incomes…and however we configure the balance, we’re told we aren’t doing enough. Enter: A millennial career crisis.

I don't see anyone shaming men for not volunteering for, say, their kids' field trips, but I do see people shaming women who "never show up for anything" all the time. Yet if you're a woman who does show up for everything, who chaperones the field trips and plans the neighborhood get-together and sits on the advocacy committee? Well, then it "must be nice" for you to "not have to work".

TL;DR? Volunteering is just another example of how we put women in impossible position after impossible position. We're shamed if we do, shamed if we don't. We're expected to do the unpaid work, plus the paid work too...and nobody ever stops to consider that there are only so many hours in a day.