Show Notes
When employers demand that people return to the office full-time, who pays the biggest price? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner responds to a listener whose partner is being called back into the office — and whose family is already feeling the consequences. Leah explores what the research says about remote and flexible work, why it became essential for so many mothers’ employment during the pandemic, and why return-to-office mandates risk pushing women out of the workforce again. But flexibility is not a simple fix. Leah unpacks the flexibility paradox: working from home can help women stay employed and manage caregiving, but it can also stretch the workday into early mornings, late nights, and an exhausting always-on cycle of paid work, parenting, housework, and guilt. She also explains the unequal career trade-offs families make. Too often, women make career compromises “for the family,” while men are encouraged to accelerate their careers as breadwinners — even when both parents genuinely want more time with their children. The result is a gendered mental load, unequal long-term earnings, and a system that asks mothers to hold work and family together at once. Chapters: 00:00 A listener asks: What happens when a partner is called back to the office? 01:30 Why return-to-office mandates can hurt women’s careers 02:20 Before COVID, men had greater access to remote and flexible work 03:00 The pandemic’s “exposure effect” — proving work could happen outside the office 04:39 How flexible work helped mothers remain employed 06:44 Why working from home is essential — and why it is not enough 07:30 The flexibility paradox: a resource that expands the workday 09:06 Remote work, maternal guilt, and never being able to clock out 10:00 The career trade-offs women make “for the family” 11:25 Why men and women often make different work decisions for the same family 13:44 Flexible work helps dads care more — without sacrificing their careers 14:30 Class differences in who can access flexibility and who faces job disruption 15:30 The gendered mental load of holding work and family together Research Mentioned: 📘 For the Family: How Class, Gender, and the Family Shape Women’s Work by Sarah Damaske 📚 Research by Professor Heejung Chung on the “flexibility paradox” 📊 Research by Leah Ruppanner, Kristin Landevar, Katie Collins, William Scarborough, Lauren Ryan, and Brendan Churchill on flexible work, caregiving, and employment 📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More by Professor Leah Ruppanner Stay Connected with Leah: Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner Instagram: @lightenlab TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe now: /@missperceivedpodcast Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from MissPerceived
The costumes. The candy. The decorations. The group chats about who’s trick-or-treating with whom. Halloween is supposed to be fun—so why does making the magic feel like another full-time job? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks the invisible work behind Halloween—and why so much of it falls to moms. From planning costumes and keeping children safe to navigating friendship drama and the rising expectations of “boo baskets,” Leah explores how one night of fun can become weeks of organizing, worrying, and doing more She also discusses the extra planning involved when children have sensory sensitivities, are neurodivergent, or live with a disability—and the work parents do to make a holiday feel welcoming when it wasn’t designed with their child’s needs in mind Plus, a story about a painstakingly handmade mermaid costume raises an important question: Are we creating the memories our children actually want—or exhausting ourselves trying to deliver the ones we think they need? Whether you love Halloween or wish you could switch off the porch light and skip it, this episode offers permission to take shortcuts, share the work, and let go of the extras that don’t bring your family joy. In this episode The hidden work of making Halloween magical. How social media and new traditions keep raising the bar. The emotional work of friendships, inclusion, and being left out. Safety concerns, sensory needs, and planning for different experiences. How to decide what to keep, delegate, or drop this holiday season. Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
You ask for help, but nothing happens. Eventually, you stop asking. Or you make a decision “for the family”—only to realize your needs are the ones that keep coming last. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks three forms of power in relationships: the obvious power of saying no, the quieter power that stops you from asking, and the invisible power hidden inside decisions that seem fair. Drawing on sociological research and her own work on marital dynamics, Leah explores how everyday negotiations over housework, careers, and family responsibilities can leave one partner doing more while the other gets more say. From the “nag paradox” to the thinking work behind supposedly shared decisions, this episode asks: Are you making choices for both of you—or consistently putting one person first? Leah also explores how partners trade support over time, when those trade-offs become unequal, and how to start making room for your own goals, rest, and ambitions. In this episode Why ignoring a request can be an exercise of power. What happens when you stop asking because you already expect a no. How “we decided” can hide one person doing all the planning. Why decisions made “for us” don’t always benefit both partners. Recognizing when to push back and ask for what you need. #MissPerceived #Relationships #RelationshipDynamics #InvisibleLabor #ProfLeahRuppanner Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Does it actually matter for your relationship if your partner carries more of the emotional load? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner breaks down a new study from the University of Southampton that goes beyond who does the dishes and digs into something more surprising: the link between emotional labor, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction. Leah explains the key distinction this research reveals — men doing more housework and emotional/family-management tasks boosts women's overall relationship satisfaction, but it's specifically emotional labor toward the partner (knowing when you're upset, taking care of you when you're sick, understanding your emotional needs) that predicts sexual satisfaction. She also unpacks a fascinating gender split in the data: women report the most satisfaction when things are split equally, while men report the most satisfaction the more their partner takes on — a mismatch that can quietly fuel resentment and burnout in relationships. Drawing on her book Drained, Leah connects this to a bigger pattern: men often see offloading domestic labor as an investment in the family's future, while women often feel guilty taking on less, because they've been taught that 100% of their energy should go to their families. If you want to understand why your relationship might be hitting friction points around who does what, this episode breaks down exactly what the research says — and what to actually talk about with your partner. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction — recording from Australia and new research on relationships 02:26 What is the mental load? A quick refresher 04:39 How researchers measured emotional labor, relationship nurturing, family management 06:57 The key finding: emotional labor to the partner predicts sexual satisfaction 09:12 Why women want equality, but men want investment — a gendered mismatch 11:38 How this mismatch creates relationship conflict and resentment 13:00 What happened during COVID when men carried more of the load 14:03 What to actually do: get strategic, not just "do more" Resources Mentioned: 📄 Research: Verena Klein, Rotem Kalisher, Esra Ascigil, and Tanja Oschatz (University of Southampton) 📄 Related research: Sabino Kornrich on housework division and sexual frequency 📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More by Professor Leah Ruppanner 🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com) Follow Leah: @prof.leahruppanner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nearly 1 in 4 adults have experienced a period of estrangement from a sibling — and it's more common (and more complicated) than most of us realize. In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner unpacks a new study out of Ohio State University that dug into 39 in-depth interviews to understand why adult siblings go no contact. Leah breaks down the two major forces driving estrangement: parental behavior (favoritism, manipulation, and forcing siblings to "pick sides" after a parent-child conflict) and the sibling relationship itself (destabilizing conduct, safety threats, and childhood bonds that were never really built). She shares personal stories from friends navigating estrangement, explains the concept of family systems and triangulation, and connects all of it back to the mental load — the emotional scanning, relationship repair work, and guilt that estranged (or nearly estranged) families create. If you've ever felt like your family "doesn't understand your world," or you're carrying guilt about a sibling relationship that isn't what it's supposed to be, this episode offers real permission to step back, set boundaries, and stop measuring your worth by an outdated obligation to stay close no matter what. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction — sibling estrangement is more common than you think 02:54 The data: nearly 1 in 4 adults have been estranged from a sibling 05:18 Family systems theory and triangulation 07:36 Parental partisanship: favoritism and the "scapegoat" child 09:59 When sibling relationships become collateral damage in parent conflict 12:21 Why some generations never learned to resolve conflict 14:38 Destabilizing conduct, risk containment, and sibling violence 18:15 Absent foundations: when childhood bonds were never built 20:39 How family estrangement fuels your mental load 21:30 Permission to put people on the "periphery" without guilt 23:01 Setting boundaries doesn't make you a bad person Resources Mentioned: 📄 Research: Rin Resnick, Kane Taurus Beltran, and Candace Cretchfield (Ohio State University) on adult sibling estrangement 📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More by Professor Leah Ruppanner 🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com) Stay Connected with Leah: Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner Instagram: @lightenlab TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com Don't miss an episode! Subscribe now: /@missperceivedpodcast About MissPerceived: MissPerceived is a weekly podcast hosted by Professor Leah Ruppanner, sociologist and author of Drained. Each week, Leah breaks down the gender myths and social systems shaping our lives — from mental load and caregiving to work, relationships, and identity. No PhD required. Just come hang out.
Is optimizing every minute of your day actually making your life better — or just burning you out faster? In this episode of MissPerceived, Professor Leah Ruppanner makes the case that optimization culture, especially prevalent in the US, is quietly destroying our ability to rest, create, and simply live. Leah traces how we came to treat time itself as a resource to be maximized — a relatively recent social conditioning that emerged with industrialization — and explains why getting time back (from grocery delivery, AI, or any efficiency hack) rarely translates into rest. Instead, we immediately reinvest that saved time into more productivity, repeating a pattern seen since the first industrial revolution: every gain in efficiency just raises the bar for what "enough" looks like. She connects this to her research on the mental load, sharing a striking story about a woman who drops the activities that bring her joy in order to make more room for stressful, "productive" problem-solving — and asks why we've been trained to treat rest as wasteful. Leah also explores what Gen Z's resistance to hustle culture might mean for the future of work, and why AI and automation may only intensify the pressure to optimize rather than relieve it. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction — is optimization good? 01:00 Why optimization pressure feels different in the US vs. Australia 02:20 How eroded social safety nets fuel the need to "game the system" 04:41 Getting time back doesn't mean getting rest back 06:00 A brief history: how time became a resource to optimize 07:00 The fourth industrial revolution: AI, automation, and rising standards 09:23 A woman's insight: dropping joy to make room for "productive" stress 11:48 Why younger generations are rejecting hustle culture 13:00 What happens when optimization stops being efficient at all 14:14 How to reclaim mental space instead of constantly optimizing Resources Mentioned: 📘 Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More by Professor Leah Ruppanner 🧠 Free Mental Load Assessment — Lighten Lab (lightenlab.com) 📄 Bill Gates' annual letter on AI and the future of work Stay Connected with Leah: Instagram: @prof.leahruppanner Instagram: @lightenlab TikTok: @prof.leahruppanner Website: https://www.leahruppanner.com Don't miss an episode! Subscribe now: /@missperceivedpodcast About MissPerceived: MissPerceived is a weekly podcast hosted by Professor Leah Ruppanner, sociologist and author of Drained. Each week, Leah breaks down the gender myths and social systems shaping our lives — from mental load and caregiving to work, relationships, and identity. No PhD required. Just come hang out.