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INT'L WOMEN'S DAY-ARGENTINA:
Exhausted Women
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, (IPS) - Noemí gets
up early, prepares breakfast,
throws a load of laundry into
the washing machine, and puts
vegetables on to boil to get an
early start on that evening's
dinner.
Then she wakes up the kids,
feeds them, takes them to
school, and goes to work. But
she doesn't understand why she
feels so tired all the time.
”I'm going to go to the doctor
and get him to prescribe me some
vitamins,” she tells IPS.
”I'm so tired”, ”I'm exhausted”,
”I just can't take anymore”,
”Could I be anaemic or
something?” are comments heard
more and more often in
conversations between women,
married and single, at all
socio-economic levels.
They can be summed up by what a
group of Argentine women
psychologists have dubbed
”Exhausted Women's Syndrome”.
”The syndrome comprises a number
of symptoms that many women
share, although most seem to
think they are the only ones who
suffer from them. They also tend
to view it as the result of a
lack of something, although it
is actually the result of an
excess, in this case an excess
of tasks, of responsibilities,
of roles,” Gabriela Bianchi, one
of the psychologists studying
this new syndrome, told IPS.
Other symptoms include
irritability, lack of appetite
and lethargy. Instead of
eliciting sympathy or
understanding, however, women
suffering from the syndrome are
more often looked down upon by
society, for being unable to
”cope” with the pressure. As a
result, many look for a ”miracle
cure” in the form of vitamin
supplements or herbal remedies
purported to boost energy.
According to a study by
sociologist Catalina Wainerman
from the Centre for Population
Studies, huge numbers of
Argentine women have entered the
paid workforce in the last 25
years, but this change in
women's roles has not been
accompanied by an equivalent
change in the role of men, who
remain largely unwilling to take
on more responsibilities in the
home.
In Buenos Aires, the proportion
of traditional households with a
single ”breadwinner” dropped
from 75 to 54 percent between
1980 and 2001, while the number
of dual income households rose
from 25 to 46 percent. This
phenomenon is seen in the case
of young, middle-aged and older
couples alike.
Noemí works as a clerk in a
retail store. She has two
children, both of them in
school. Her husband also works,
”but he leaves the house earlier
than I do,” she says in his
defence.
Noemí's husband also gets home
before she does. But as she told
IPS, he likes to sit in the
backyard and read while waiting
for her to arrive, after which
she helps the children with
their homework and finishes
preparing the meal she started
in the morning, so they can all
sit down to eat together.
The case of Noemí and her
husband serves to illustrate the
conclusion reached by Wainerman:
that the ”revolutionary” change
effected with the entry of
massive numbers of women into
the paid workforce has not led
to a similar ”revolution” in the
amount of time men devote to
housework and childcare.
According to Wainerman's study,
published in the book ”Family,
Work and Gender: A World of New
Relations”, only six percent of
the men consulted make an effort
to do their fair share of work
in the home, and even then,
their participation is much more
likely to involve shopping and
childcare than cooking, laundry
and ironing.
This reality, which some gender
issues specialists refer to as
the ”stalled revolution”, is at
the root of the exhaustion
suffered by many women who work
outside the home but are still
primarily responsible for
dealing with housework, raising
children, and sometimes caring
for elderly parents or in-laws
as well, said Bianchi, who is
also a psychoanalyst.
The problem cuts across all
socioeconomic strata, ”and is
seen in women who work and have
school-aged children and parents
or in-laws who need their
attention. They are the ones who
have to take the children to the
doctor, to the dentist, to
sports activities, to get their
hair cut, and so on,” she added.
Bianchi and her colleagues,
Mariela Apud and María Luvatti,
have come across the same
symptoms in their practices over
and over again in the last few
years, and they seem to be
almost exclusive to women.
”In the best-case scenario, they
are simply presented as
complaints, but sometimes they
take the form of actual physical
symptoms,” Bianchi noted.
The physical manifestations of
the syndrome observed by the
psychologists include headaches,
muscle spasms, skin ailments,
hair loss and cysts. Some
patients also develop clinical
depression.
As a means of helping their
patients uncover the root causes
of their exhaustion and remedy
the conditions that provoke it,
the three women launched a
series of workshops last
October.
The first of the workshops,
called ”Harried Women, Exhausted
Women”, were held in the city of
Rosario, some 200 kilometres
northwest of Buenos Aires. Once
they had earned some publicity,
however, the three psychologists
began to receive calls from the
capital, other Argentine cities,
and even Spain.
”Harried housewives” is a term
commonly used to describe women
overloaded by an excess of
demands, when in fact they are
individuals driven to the point
of exhaustion and in desperate
need of help. The name of the
workshop is aimed at clarifying
this fact.
In group discussions with their
peers, the workshop participants
identify common problems and
potential solutions. The first
goal is to break down the
resistance to viewing their
exhaustion as the result of
social conditions that weigh
them down with multiple roles
and make them feel guilty if
they cannot effectively deal
with all of them.
Bianchi noted that the workshops
shed light on the social demands
that today's women strive to
live up to. They are expected to
be independent career women,
devoted mothers and loving
caretakers of the elderly, while
maintaining the figure of a
supermodel and pleasing their
husbands in bed at the same
time.
”Even the women who refuse to
comply with some of these
expectations still feel pressure
for their failure to fulfil
them, and this has an effect on
them as well,” she added.
Given all the roles they are
forced to play, many of these
women choose to sacrifice the
time they would otherwise devote
to their own leisure or
entertainment. They are often
”so tired” that they will pass
up an outing that would help
them to relax and feel better,
although they would never miss
taking their children to a
dentist's appointment, she
noted.
”We women find it very difficult
to ask for help, and we tend to
do it as a last resort, when we
just can't take anymore,”
Bianchi concluded.
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