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Sociology

What鈥檚 on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life

The mental labor that keeps families afloat鈥攁nd why women do most of it

ebook (PDF via app)

Price:
$29.95/拢25.00
ISBN:
Published:
Sep 9, 2025
Copyright:
2025
Illus:
3 b/w illus. 1 table.
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Mothers and fathers use their time differently, with women spending roughly twice as many hours on family labor as men. But what about the gendered differences in the ways women and men think? What鈥檚 on Her Mind provides an illuminating look at the cognitive labor that families depend on and reveals why this essential aspect of family life is disproportionately handled by women鈥攅ven in couples that aspire to practice equality.

While most accounts of household labor center on how people use their time, Allison Daminger focuses on a less visible and less easily quantifiable aspect of family life. She introduces readers to the concept of cognitive labor鈥攁nticipating, researching, deciding, and following up鈥攁nd shows how women in different-gender couples do most of this critical work. She argues that cognitive labor has less to do with personality traits鈥攆or example, she鈥檚 type A while he鈥檚 laid-back鈥攁nd more to do with learned skills that men and women deploy in distinct ways. Yet not all couples fall into the personality trap. Daminger looks at different-gender couples who achieve a more balanced cognitive allocation while also exploring how queer couples carve out unique relationships to the gender binary.

Drawing on original, in-depth interviews with members of different- and same-gender couples, What鈥檚 on Her Mind points to new ways of understanding the interplay between who we are as individuals and the cognitive work we do on behalf of our families.