It's brought me great joy to see countless women overcome systemic gender bias and rise to positions of outstanding leadership and influence. From women CEOs filling our tech industries to female politicians beginning to standardize ethics and morality in government -- we are witnessing a shift towards a more empathetic world with more women in positions of power. Alongside this positive social change, we also see significant shifts in our day-to-day working habits, particularly following the global pandemic of 2020.
With the convergence of the feminist movement and the growing acceptance of remote work, it may be time to harness the momentum and challenge more archaic systems that hold us back from performing at our best. Let's take the 5-day work week, for instance.
When this standard way of working was established at the turn of the 20th century, it did not take many, if any, biological factors into account. Just Google "Henry Ford 5-day work week" to wrap your head around the not-so-healthy rationale that landed us here. And yet, biology plays a significant role in determining how we humans perform at work and in our personal lives.
Like women, men also have hormonal cycles that influence their mood, productivity, and overall state of mind. But instead of having a month-long hormonal cycle, a man experiences theirs end-to-end, every day. This fundamental difference in our biology is what informed the pre-feminist set-up for our work weeks, given the majority of our workforce during this time was indeed men. However, as previously stated, this has undergone significant changes in recent decades.
So, what does leaning into biology look like in the context of our working-hour reality?
Let's discuss a 3-week work cycle with one week off. Let's start using social and biological sciences, rather than corporate profit optimization, to re-establish work-life balance. At the very least, let's start having more intimate conversations with our workforces to gather signals around when they're at their best and adjust to meet them where they are.
