‘It’s Not Just Burnout:’ How Grind Culture Fails Women

“I’ve thought about how I want to spend my time and life, and this role is simply not aligned with those plans.”

Those were the words I believe I said when I quit my CEO position just three months into the role. But it could have been any variation of jargon that actually came out—my body was pulsating with so much anxiety it’s hard to remember. As I tapped the red “end call” button, an unfamiliar wave of relaxation slowly elbowed out the pit that had lived in my stomach for months. For the first time in my life, I’d quit. I quit! There was no immediate action plan. I just knew there was a new way of being in this pandemic-ridden world, and I could no longer lead others without imagining a brave new future for myself. I knew very little about that future, but I knew it meant a life that didn’t revolve around sharing memes commiserating over Sunday scaries.

After two years of outrunning Covid through relative isolation, it finally caught me. While I laid in bed sick, the thoughts that occupied my mind during bouts of insomnia were moments of deep curiosity about what life on the other side of the virus would look like. How would I heal the grief that had gone unaddressed since the task of surviving took center stage? Why weren’t we admitting that the way we were living wasn’t working?

These thoughts were much more primal than my previous ruminations typically focused on ambitious career pursuits. These primal thoughts were tied to the need to reconnect to love, friends, and nature. It became clear that the grind culture I subscribed to for more than a decade of my career was thin enough to split wide open with the pressure of a pandemic on top. And I wasn’t alone.

According to an analysis of the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, men have now recouped all their labor force losses since February 2020. Meanwhile, the labor force in January 2022 counts 1 million fewer women, compared to February 2020. And while all women have been impacted, the groups that have experienced some of the most significant challenges are working mothers, women in senior management positions, and Black women.

These figures can tell many stories of what it means to be a woman in the workforce—stories that cement the damage done by the gender pay gap, the disproportionate divide of caretaking responsibilities, and racial injustice. These stories confirm how broken our system is, but also highlight the ways grind culture has failed women in a much more complex way than the buzzy burnout explanation. With the veil pulled back, girl bossery looked like women getting access to the proverbial table only to clean up messes caused by a system that wasn’t built with us at the center.

But burnout is not only about work; it’s about the flaws in our approach to work and the low value our full lives hold in the scheme of capitalism. So it makes sense that as we battle the complexities of equal pay, maternal rights, healthcare rights, and the layers of racism, sexism, and misogyny that overlay these issues, many women are considering an alternative to relentless ambition and are exploring what a life of “ease” might look like.

Leaning into ease isn’t about laziness or a refusal of productivity. It’s simply a rallying cry to attempt to center something new: Ourselves. It’s an admittance that we are not armed by society to thrive without sacrificing our wellness. Ease doesn’t always look like quitting or complacency. It looks like a profound reimagining of who the systems we exist in are built for and a radical re-examination of rest.

This year, when I joined the great resignation, I did so in pursuit of a new way of living. One that prioritizes the health of self, community, and overall wellness over productivity. It is a privilege to have the ability to step back and reassess my life’s pace, but in my case, the alternative is exploring the dark space that follows burnout. It is evident that no one is coming to save women, so we must find new ways of being that allow us to save ourselves.

Personally, stepping outside of the tire-burned rat race has looked like unlearning habits taught in environments built to exclude me while prioritizing places where I am allowed to feel soft, valued, seen, and supported. It looks like making room for friendship and all manners of love, applauding more women who choose to explore a new way of being, and committing to finding new ways to do old things.

During this time, I've sat with friends, former colleagues, and peers to have conversations about this new world and realized I am far from alone in navigating the newness of this cultural shift, and if you've made it this far I am sure you also resonate. So, I’ve gathered some of the stories, tweets, podcast episodes, and Fleabag monologues (you’ll see why) that illustrate how the paradigm is shifting. Think of them as a non-required reading list that I hope brings together some thoughts and ideologies that make us all feel a little less alone and a lot more hopeful for whatever it is we decide comes next.

Image by Nadya Ustyuzhantseva/Getty Images