拒绝女性完美主义，你已经很棒了！

Statistics show that stress and burnout are affecting more women than men. It’s a frantic routine many women can relate to. So overwhelmed trying to keep up with work, life and childcare/caregiving, they are unable to protect their own mental health, leaving them at risk for burnout.

数据显示，压力和倦怠对女性的影响更大。许多女性都在体验紧张忙乱的日常。忙于工作、生活和照顾孩子，而无法顾及自己的心理健康，使自己面临耗竭的风险。

According to a 2021 survey by the Canadian Foundation of Women, 28 per cent of moms say they are struggling to keep up with work demands, 27 per cent are afraid to take time off work for fear of losing their job and 46 per cent say it has been exhausting trying to balance work and childcare responsibilities.

加拿大妇女基金会2021年的一项调查显示,28%的妈妈称她们疲于完成工作要求,27%则因害怕失去工作而不敢请假,而46%的人认为平衡工作和照顾孩子让她们精疲力竭。

In 2018, researchers from University of Montreal published a study tracking 2,026 workers over the course of four years. The academics concluded that women were more vulnerable to burnout than men because women were less likely to be promoted than men, and therefore more likely to be in positions with less authority which can lead to increased stress and frustration.

2018年，蒙特利尔大学发布了一项研究，在四年里追踪了2026名员工。结论是女性比男性更容易疲劳，因为与男性相比，女性升职的可能性更小，因此工作权限更低，会增加压力和挫败感。

The researchers also found that women were more likely to head single-parent families, experience child-related strains, invest time in domestic tasks and have lower self-esteem – all things that can exacerbate burnout.

研究人员还发现，女性更可能在单亲家庭中承担主要责任，经历与孩子有关的压力，在家务上投入时间，感到自卑——所有这些都可能加剧耗竭。

When Jia, a Manhattan-based consultant, had just graduated from an Ivy League business school, was super pumped up and was 100% ready to prove that she was the woman who could have it all: be a high-powered career woman and a great mother.

贾女士是曼哈顿的一名咨询师，刚从一所常春藤盟校商学院毕业时，她踌躇满志，完全准备好去证明自己可以兼顾工作与生活：同时成为一名有权势的职业女性和一位伟大的母亲。

But today, the 38-year-old strikes a different tone. For years, she feels like she’s been overlooked for promotions and pay rises at work on account of her gender, particularly after becoming a mother.

但时至今日，38岁的她的态度发生了改变。多年来，尤其是成为母亲后，她觉得自己在升职加薪方面因为性别受到了忽视。

Then when Covid-19 hit, it was as if all the factors already holding her back were supercharged. Jia became the default caregiver while trying to stay afloat at work which made her felt like spending all hours of the day trying not to fall off an accelerating treadmill. She could also feel her career slipping through her fingers. Jia’s therapist told her she was suffering from burnout, with which she’d never struggled before. “But now I’m just trying to get through each week while staying sane,” she says. 

然后当新冠疫情爆发时，仿佛所有阻碍她前进的因素都被加强了。在努力维持工作状态的同时，贾女士变成了默认的照看孩子的人，她感觉自己无时无刻不在竭尽全力，才能不掉队。她也能感受到她的事业正在从指缝间溜走。贾女士的心理医生告诉她，她罹患精神倦怠，而这是她以前从未经历过的。“ 但现在，我只试图清醒地度过每一周，”她说。

Jia’s story is symptomatic of a deeply ingrained imbalance in society that the pandemic has both highlighted and exacerbated. For multiple reasons, women, particularly mothers, are still more likely to suffer the unpredictable combination of unpaid domestic chores and paid professional work.

 贾女士的故事反映了社会中一种根深蒂固的不平衡症状，疫情突出且加剧了这种不平衡。出于多种原因，女性既要承担无偿的家务劳动，又要外出干专职工作挣钱，在不可预测的风险下遭受双重折磨。

The 40-year-old mum Sarah experienced anxiety in 2020, when schools across New York first closed. She started suffering from the pressures of home-schooling her children while working as marketing executive which has overwhelmed her. The couple with income disparity jointly decided that Sarah would become a stay-at-home mother. “Before this, I never really knew what being burned out meant,” she says. “Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

 40岁的母亲萨拉在2020年饱受焦虑困扰，当时纽约的学校首次关闭。她在担任营销主管的同时，开始承受在家教育孩子的压力，不堪重负。这对收入差距悬殊的夫妇共同决定让萨拉做全职妈妈。“在此之前，我从未真正地知道精疲力尽是什么意思。”萨拉如是说，“而现在，我可算清清楚楚地明白了。”

Sarah’s experience is emblematic of a much broader trend. Women often work in jobs highly affected by the pandemic, like retail, hospitality and nursing -- Add to that the extra stress from juggling multiple roles. As women lost crucial social lifelines during lockdown which may have been emotional and physical outlets for stress, it’s clear that the abrupt avalanche of extra domestic responsibilities pushed many who were already busily juggling home and work life further than they could go. The pandemic obliterated the support systems that had previously allowed them to balance paid employment and domestic work. In terms of the sustainable development of the human capital of the workforce, we’re not heading in a good direction.

萨拉的经历象征着一个更广泛的趋势。女性往往从事着受疫情影响较大的工作，如零售、酒店前台和护理——此外还要兼顾多个角色，承受额外的压力。在疫情封锁期间，女性失去了社会生命线，而这可能是她们情绪和身体上发泄压力的关键。很明显，额外的家庭责任突然袭来，迫使许多人在家庭和工作中忙碌，这超出了她们的承受能力。疫情摧毁了她们以前的支持系统，这套系统能够平衡有偿就业和家务劳动。在人力资本的可持续发展方面，我们的前景并不好。

One of the greatest concerns workplace experts harbor is that poor mental health among women in the workplace could discourage future generations from setting ambitious professional goals, particularly if they want to start a family. That could exacerbate the gender inequalities that already exist in terms of pay and seniority in the labor market. When the balance of justice is skewed against us in the workplace, then it's invariably going to lead to negative feelings that we feel about ourselves and the value of our contribution, as well as where we're positioned on a hierarchy of worth.

职场专家最担心的问题是，职场女性心理健康状况不佳可能会阻碍未来几代女性制定宏大的职业目标，尤其是她们想组建家庭的话。这会加剧劳动市场在薪酬和资历方面已存在的性别不平等。在工作场所，当我们遭到不公平对待时，我们会不可避免地对自我、我们贡献的价值以及我们的价值层次产生负面情绪。

From a systemic or organizational level, workplaces need to make policy and infrastructure-based changes to ensure women are properly supported. Brian Kropp, chief of human resources research at Gartner calls for a culture of transparency where everyone feels valued and can reach their professional potential while also caring for their families.

从系统或组织层面来看，工作场所需要进行基于政策和基础设施的变革，以确保妇女得到适当的支持。高德纳人力资源研究主管布赖恩·克罗普呼吁建立一种透明的文化，让每个人都感到有价值，能够发挥自己的专业潜力，同时照顾家庭。

From a perspective of the improvement of psychological states, Jennifer Moss, author of the book The Burnout Epidemic, mentions self-care to treat burnout “downstream Band-aids for an issue that requires upstream interventions.” While Ms. Moss disagrees, “We’re talking about systemic discrimination, lack of fairness, lack of community, lack of agency, overwork – these types of root causes cannot be cured with self-healing.”

从改善心理状态的角度来看，《倦怠流行病》一书的作者詹妮弗·莫斯提到：自我治疗倦怠就像一个需要上游干预的问题却由下游权宜处理。莫斯谈到，“我们讨论的是系统性歧视、缺乏公平、缺乏社区、缺乏代理、工作过度——这些根本性原因无法通过自愈来治愈。”

“What burnout really tells us is that there’s something wrong with our environment and we don’t have enough supports,” she says. Her main suggestion is to get third-party help to prioritize tasks. This could be a family member, partner, co-worker or trusted friend. Make a to-do list and then have that third-party person help you figure out what should be top of the list and what can wait.

她说：“倦怠真正告诉我们的是，我们的环境出了问题，我们没有足够的支持者。”她的主要建议是让第三方帮助确定任务的优先顺序。第三方可能是家庭成员、伴侣、同事或可信赖的朋友。列出一份待办事项清单，然后让其帮助你确定哪些是最重要的，哪些可以稍后再做。

But Jia, who says she’s now on the brink of quitting her job, insists that notable changes need to happen in the home as well as the workplace. “What’s become abundantly clear to me through the pandemic is the imbalances that are created when stereotypical gender roles are blindly adhered to,” she says. “Yes, of course it sometimes makes sense for a woman to be the default caregiver or to take a step back from paid work, but we need to appreciate at what cost.”

贾女士现在正处于辞职的边缘，她认为，家庭和工作场所都需要发生显著的变化。她说：“在这场流行病中，我非常清楚的是，当人们盲目拥护刻板的性别角色时，不平衡就会产生。是的，有时，女性作为默认的家庭照料者或放弃有偿工作当然是有意义的，但我们需要理解她们所付出的代价。”

文案 | 王凯璐 金灵依 姚汤嘉 王瑞菁

排版 | 赵梦赟