Mom Conducts ‘Soap Dispenser Experiment’ To Prove The Imbalance Of Mental Labor In The Home
Women in the household are expected to do it all.
Oksana Kuzmina | Shutterstock If you’re ever wondering why wives and mothers are often burnt out, one mother has the honest answer: They do everything.
In absolute frustration, the mom turned to social media to lament the fact that the bulk of invisible labor that it takes to run her house falls solely on her shoulders. She came to this conclusion after she allowed the kitchen sink soap dispenser to sit empty without refilling it.
How a mom's ‘soap dispenser experiment’ demonstrated the imbalance of mental labor in the home.
At the end of her rope, a mom named Kay took to TikTok to reveal the valid reason why so many wives and mothers are often exhausted and overwhelmed — and she found the answer in an empty soap dispenser. Well, not literally within the soap dispenser, but it served as a metaphor for just how much women handle all on their own when it comes to running the house despite having others around who are perfectly capable of helping.
According to Kay, an empty soap dispenser sat on her kitchen sink for a week before she decided to take it upon herself to refill it, and it led to a startling realization.
“I'm the only one that ever fills it,” Kay said. Rather than anyone else in her family stepping up and taking the initiative to refill the soap dispenser themselves, the mom noticed that they had unscrewed the top in an attempt to dump out whatever remnants were left of it in their hands.
It's highly likely that had she not refilled it herself, it would have remained empty.“The invisible load is crushing,” she admitted in the comments section.
The soap dispenser, of course, is just a physical representation of all of the household labor that women are expected to do themselves.
A study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that mothers carry 79% of daily mental labor in the household. This usually consists of getting the kids dressed, fed, and bathed, bringing them to school, scheduling their doctor appointments, attending their parent-teacher conferences, doing the grocery shopping, and keeping up with the overall household cleanliness.
A YouGov poll also found that American women who do not live alone are twice as likely as men to say that they do all or most of the household chores.
This disproportionate burden of emotional household labor is rooted in a combination of unfair social and cultural factors. For centuries, women have been viewed as the primary caretakers and nurturers of their families, and the idea is still deeply engrained in modern-day society. They also have been socialized to be more emotionally attuned, handling all of the emotional turmoil that may arise within the household, such as tending to the children.
Many people have lumped caretaking, cleaning, and cooking all within the same category of emotional labor that is somehow only dumped onto women’s plates.
So much of this labor is often invisible to the rest of the household, and the women end up bearing the brunt of it. Even if refilling a soap dispenser may not seem like back-breaking work, it is just one of the endless tasks women are expected to do to cater to their family members who do not even offer a helping hand.
“Yep, soap dispenser, toilet paper roll, paper towel holder, overflowing bathroom trash, throwing out empty shampoo bottles, the list goes on and on,” one TikTok user commented on the mom’s video. “Refilling, restocking, and replacing is no joke. I feel like I am constantly doing it!” another user wrote.
Stokkete | Shutterstock
While some husbands may argue that they were never reminded to take out the garbage, empty the dishwasher, or refill the soap dispensers, it is important to point out that women are never reminded of their daily tasks and simply do them along with everyone else’s job in the house.
Few people recognize the significant burnout this can cause women and why many of them feel as if they have nothing left to give due to the mental drainage. So please, if you happen to notice the soap dispenser running low and your wife or mom is not around, take it upon yourself to refill it.
You don’t even have to stop there! Take the clean laundry out of the dryer if you notice that the cycle has been completed. Replace the toilet paper rolls. And while you’re at it, give the hardworking women in your household the opportunity to kick their feet up and take a much-needed break from the constant emotional labor that too often goes unacknowledged.
Megan Quinn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. She covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on justice in the workplace, personal relationships, parenting debates, and the human experience.