Just about every woman I know has told me the same thing: “I’m so tired.” Women who are young mothers. Women who are retired. And women in between each of those stages of life, all saying and feeling the same thing: “I am so, so tired.” I feel the same.

And this sentiment is not going unnoticed. Books, articles and podcasts offer similar antidotes to wake us from our communal slumber: Take more bubble baths and naps. Schedule more massages. Demand that your husband/partner/co-worker/boss do more, and/or expect less. In one article offering 50 Ways to Better Self-Care, I found this gem: “Create a ‘Yay!’ List: Every night, write down anything that made you say ‘Yay!’ during the day. Think finding hidden money in your pocket, a surprise call from a friend, sunny skies, or discovering a new local restaurant. This will help you recognize things going right in your life instead of focusing on the negative.” Really?

In other words, all women need to do to overcome our collective malaise is to take matters into our own hands by jumping into the tub or checking our pockets for change more often, and then everything will be soooo much better.

Except that it won’t. Because it’s not us. It’s the system.

I am not proud of the fact that it took me far too long to fully recognize and understand this. (Imagine me—gently— thumping my forehead with my open palm.) It’s only after 62 years that I’m just now realizing the problem with which my sex has been struggling for as long as I’ve been alive (and then some) has nothing to do with “burnout.” The challenge isn’t that we’re tired because we take on too much—although we women often do. Or, because we’re weak—because we’re anything but. The real problem is that the system has been set up to make us tired. To make us weak. Because they know that women are strong. They know that if we’re at full strength, watch out.

Think this sounds too much like some kind of bonkers conspiracy theory? Consider then the looming child care crisis in our nation, as well as here in Wisconsin. It’s a pervasive problem made highly visible during the Covid pandemic. Back then, Wisconsin Democratic Governor Tony Evers launched the Child Care Counts program, paying out about $20 million in FEMA funds per month, split among child care providers around the state to supplement their income from parent fees. The funding helped about 3,000 child care businesses across the state stay open. Child care providers credited the program with enabling them to raise the wages of child care workers, mostly women, without hiking fees.

When the governor tried to make this child care funding permanent last year, the Republican-controlled WI legislature removed the governor’s funding plan from the state budget, despite protests from small businesses, farmers and producers, school districts, hospitals and healthcare sectors, as well as other key industries, all of them telling legislators about the significant challenges they faced in finding workers to fill available jobs. Child care providers told lawmakers that poverty-level wages and minimal benefits were contributing to high staff turnover, affecting availability and quality of care. And it doesn’t take a college degree to know that if parents don’t have options for child care, they can’t enter or remain a part of the workforce.

A report from the research firm Forward Analytics found that child care can take up, on average, 18% to 36% of a family’s household income. Typical costs for infant care in Wisconsin run $13,572 per year — more than in-state tuition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And even if you don’t have kids in daycare, don’t think this child care crisis doesn’t affect you. The Council for a Strong America estimates the child care crisis already costs Wisconsin families, businesses and government a combined $1.9 billion every year. That’s because nearly nine in 10 working parents say problems with child care hurt their efforts or time commitment and productivity at work. Lost wages and fewer sales mean less tax revenue for local, state and federal governments, which negatively impacts our state’s general economic prosperity.

We also know that high-quality child care helps young children develop vital social, emotional and cognitive skills. And kids without those vital skills often require extra support that costs their parents, the schools they attend, and thus, Wisconsin taxpayers, money.

So, why won’t WI legislators make a wise investment that will clearly help all industries across our state, as well as parents and kids? Why don’t we invest in our kids the same way we invest in other public goods, like roads or other necessary infrastructure?

Why indeed? We all need it. We all want it. We have the money (a $7 billion dollar budget surplus). Do the guys in Madison believe that women should stay at home, raising kids? That they don’t belong in the workforce? And what would happen if parents had the support they needed? Would parents, especially women, who still bear the brunt of raising kids, be less tired? Isolated? Would more women run for office? Run the world?

It isn’t just child care that proves my point. The U.S. Census Bureau has also analyzed the gender pay gap. In 2021, full-time, year-round working women earned 84% of what their male counterparts earned, on average. And don’t tell me it’s because women tend to make up the majority of the professions that traditionally pay the least: nursing, teaching, etc. Ever wonder why those professions pay so little in the first place? It’s not because they aren’t important. In fact, they’re critical to a well-functioning society. Do we value them so little because women tend to be the ones doing this highly important work?

So, how do we fix this mess? First, we all need to better understand and observe how the system is continuously managing us and keeping us down. For instance, try Googling “why are women so tired?” You’ll see articles on everything from women having thyroid problems, iron deficiency, being out of sync with our circadian rhythms, having poor diets and lack of exercise, too much stress, bad sleep hygiene, etc. I had to scroll far down the rabbit hole to finally come across something that started to get at the real issue, in an article about a study analyzing the “patriarchal capitalist society in Brazil” which requires a low-cost workforce to continue to be viable. The authors wisely noted that, “It is necessary to reduce the total workload, with the assistance of public systems, without reducing wages and further damaging gender equality” to begin to get at the actual problem.

What society wants women to believe is that being tired is our fault, that some of us are simply not fit enough or strong enough or even smart enough to figure out what’s really going on. We need to reject this bull, and we also need to stop comparing ourselves to other women, because that’s what they want: “to divide and conquer.” They want to pit women against one another and then stand back and watch/encourage the fight. Because they know that if we’re fighting each other, we’re not fighting the system, which is the real problem. It’s a system designed to keep us separate and fearful of one another based not only on our gender, but on our race and income and class and age, and on and on, a system purposely created to increase their power and keep us under their control. And when we finally see it, it’s impossible to look away. Isn’t it?

When we begin to recognize how we’re being managed, perhaps we can better notice when we’re feeling “unmanaged.” We can better notice when we’re feeling energized, seen and understood, comfortable and most like our authentic selves. Then we can encourage and create more of those moments, in order to build resiliency and strength. When I’m feel stronger, I can also pitch in until my sisters (especially those who don’t have the generations of white privilege that I do) can build their own agency to join me.

Which leads me to this: Women need to come together more often. We can’t change the system alone. So once we’ve charged our batteries, we can come together to collectively figure out ways to upend the system that’s keeping us down. Yeah, I know. One more thing added to the to-do list. But if we don’t do it, who will? I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let them continue to manage and control my life, and that of my kids, grandkids and friends.

What advice and/or encouragement do you have to help women become more energized so that we can take on and dismantle the systems that have caused our fatigue in the first place? How do we begin to create new, more fair and inclusive systems to ensure a better future for all of us?

Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash.com