The invisible load

Just Because She Carries It Well Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Heavy

There is a kind of labour that rarely appears on calendars, job descriptions, or balance sheets.

It is the labour of remembering.

Anticipating.

Checking in.

Holding families together.

Managing emotions.

Softening conflict.

Making sure everyone else is all right—sometimes while no one thinks to ask whether she is.

This is the invisible load so many women carry.

And perhaps one of the most dangerous things about invisible labour is that competence can hide its cost.

Just because she carries it well doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.

A woman may be successful, articulate, dependable, nurturing, organised and seemingly composed—and still be exhausted by the accumulation of responsibilities no one else can see.

That is why conversations about women’s wellbeing cannot stop at individual resilience.

We also have to ask:

Who is expected to remember everything?

Who absorbs the emotional tension in the room?

Who becomes the default caregiver, mediator, organiser or source of reassurance?

Who is praised for being “strong” when what she may actually need is permission to put something down?

These questions sit at the heart of Episode 3 of The Inner Kingdom Series: “The Invisible Load: Women, Wellness, and Emotional Labor.”

I was deeply grateful to co-host this conversation alongside Katelyn Ashley Lord Swinton, and to hear the perspectives of Rezna Khatun, Prerna Vaswani, Jasminder “Jazz” Kaur, and Dr. Mina Bobdey.

Each brought a different lens—professional expertise, advocacy, lived experience, resilience and compassion—but the thread connecting the conversation was unmistakable:

What is invisible still has weight.

Emotional labour is not simply about being kind, caring or emotionally intelligent. It can involve the continuous work of monitoring relationships, anticipating needs, managing other people’s distress and maintaining harmony.

When this labour becomes expected rather than acknowledged, it can quietly erode wellbeing.

And when women are repeatedly celebrated for how much they can endure, resilience itself can become another expectation.

Perhaps the more meaningful question is not:

How can women become stronger?

But:

How can families, workplaces, institutions and communities stop requiring women to carry so much alone?

Recognition matters.

Redistribution matters.

Boundaries matter.

Rest matters.

And being genuinely seen matters.

The goal is not to diminish women’s strength.

It is to create a world in which strength is not measured by how much pain, responsibility or emotional weight a woman can silently absorb.

Sometimes care begins with something remarkably simple:

Seeing what has been invisible.

Naming what has been normalized.

And reminding the woman who seems capable of carrying everything that she should never have to carry everything alone.

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🎥 Episode 3 of The Inner Kingdom Series

“The Invisible Load: Women, Wellness, and Emotional Labor”

Premieres August 18 at 10:00 AM EDT / 7:30 PM IST

The Inner Kingdom Series is hosted by Katelyn Ashley Lord Swinton and co-hosted by Dr. Aninda Sidhana, creating space for thoughtful conversations around wellbeing, identity, leadership and the human experience.