The Problem With The Rise Of 'Lazy Girl Jobs'
Adding a gender tag to any part of women’s work experience is degrading and sets women back more than it empowers them.
MilanMarkovic via Canva | avanti_photo via Canva Just as soon as the sun set on "Boss Babe" and "Girl Boss," the social media sun rose on "lazy girl jobs."
Taking over TikTok at an incredible rate is the notion of seeking jobs, mainly by GenZ women, that are completely remote, low-stress, high-paying, end at 5 pm, and are devoid of meddling bosses.
On the surface, I completely understand the concept and its appeal.
Last year, I quit my 22-year, well-paying career that came with a 112-mile round-trip commute and an excruciating work environment, in exchange for starting my own creative business so I could work whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted.
"Quiet quitting" opened the door and held it open to usher out hustle culture. It needed to go. We lived far too long being told by well-groomed 20-something men that if we weren’t getting up at 4 a.m. to "rise and grind" for 14 hours a day to build our empire, we would never amount to anything.
A culture shift is necessary, but "lazy girl jobs" are not the culture shift we’re looking for.
In short, adding a gender tag to any part of women’s work experience is degrading and sets women back more than it empowers them.
The last thing women need right now is false empowerment cloaked in a cute saying destined to be emblazoned on dozens of shirts in Etsy shops exactly 14.9 seconds after I publish this piece.
The inherent issue with the need to define "lazy girl jobs":
Gabrielle Judge, the 26-year-old influencer who coined the term, insists she meant no harm and that the term is connected to the idea of feeling so at ease with your job that you almost felt like you’re being lazy.
Consider the actual statement being made here. It’s beyond the idea that work as a soul-crushing endeavor has been normalized. Is it that far-fetched an idea to acknowledge that employees are tired of doing the work of multiple people for the same pay in offices that the pandemic showed us are obsolete?
And why is it only when we connect this to women that we assign the term lazy? The only thing that connects "lazy" and "boys" is recliners.
The reality is that women are so steeped in shame and guilt culture that we have to come up with a term for how we feel when we are not working ourselves to the point of mental and emotional exhaustion.
Women are 20 percent more likely to feel bad about taking paid time off and are more apt to leave it untaken than men. It all goes back to the feeling that if women are resting, they are doing something wrong. Women cannot and do not rest.
This is the same thinking that compels women who out-earn their husbands or who carry the sole salary in the house to come home from work and immediately jump to taking care of the kids and the house. Guilt.
The women do not rest.
Yet, would we dare take a stand in our homes and refuse to do more than half of the share of household duties and call ourselves a "lazy girl mom" or a "lazy girl wife?"
There is some deeply ingrained (internalized) misogynist thinking at play here. It is part of this pervasive and toxic idea that the more we self-sacrifice, the more valuable we are.
Coining a gendered term to explain or justify not agreeing to overwork ourselves is just another form of acknowledging shame, guilt, and a work culture in which women are expected to do more for less.
Studies have shown that women do 10 percent more in the workplace than men. Any woman who has ever had to help plan the company Christmas party while her male counterpart sat on the bench knows exactly what I’m talking about.
The documented cause of women doing more is that they are assigned more because they will do more to prove their worth, thus sacrificing their work-life balance.
The real kick in the groin? These women, if they are wives or mothers, will go home and do 37 percent more domestic work than their partners.
The women do not rest.
Why do women feel the need to explain and coin terms for what we have been increasingly doing in the workplace for decades: putting our foot down? Moreover, has a single man in the history of ever, tried to justify or explain not helping to plan the company Christmas party? Of course not. He just doesn’t do it. No cute term is needed.
When we assign cutesy names to the basic concept of standing up for ourselves and then gender that action, we create a negative perception that has serious unforeseen consequences. Women have a long history of feminizing and even infantilizing necessary work-based revolution. It diminishes our role in changing how we function in the workplace and how the workplace sees us.
Wanting work-life balance, "acting our wage," and opting out of toxic work environments does not make someone lazy. It makes them not a doormat.
Working remotely does not mean you are remotely working. Turning off your computer at 5 p.m. isn’t lazy. Saying "no" isn’t lazy. Having boundaries isn’t lazy.
The backlash that I fear? This term is going to stigmatize women seeking remote work, namely younger women, giving men yet another leg up. All men have to do now is purport that they are "not lazy" to gain an advantage.
Women intentionally calling their jobs "lazy girl jobs" further perpetuates the idea that women’s work is not important and that somehow indoor 9-to-5 desk jobs are fluff jobs that require nothing more than "soft skills."
Adding a gender-based tagline to something that needs critical attention is undermining the importance of the point.
I understand that this was meant to start a conversation, but nowhere have I seen anyone having the actual conversation that needs to be had. Instead, we now have the entire internet fixated on whether Gen-Z women are actually lazy or not and shifting the conversation about perceived situational female "laziness" into various other areas of women’s lives.
I am anxiously awaiting the summoning of the male cry about the lack of sandwiches being made because "women these days" are lazy. "You said it. Not me."
What we can and should do instead:
Cut the cute titles. Focus on the revolution.
I am no stranger to how workplaces need to change and how critical it is for women to create balance. I am a long-term supporter of women saying "no."
We can just say no. We can just turn down jobs.
The women can rest.
The power of our intelligence and worth as employees comes from our ability to clearly state our wants and needs in a way that is inarguable. Let’s be careful with the words we choose.
Women have a chance to rewrite narratives or create new ones. That’s empowerment.
Vanessa Torre is a writer, speaker, advocate, and coach for women looking to live creative, fulfilling, and meaningful lives.