"The Mental Load Isn't Real" — Debunking the Internet's Favorite Comment
About this episode
Professor Leah Ruppanner debunks the myth that the mental load isn't real and explores its implications on gender dynamics.
"The mental load doesn't exist. It's just something women made up to make men feel bad." If you talk about the mental load online, you've seen this comment — and in this episode of MissPerceived , Professor Leah Ruppanner takes it head on. Leah unpacks why this response shows up constantly (and mostly from men) whenever she, Morgan Cutlip, or Zach Watson post about the mental load, and why the discomfort behind it actually proves the point. She traces the mental load back to 1970s research, redefines it as emotional thinking work (not just remembering things, but remembering things while carrying the anxiety of what happens if you forget), and explains why everyone — including the guy leaving the comment — carries a mental load, just distributed differently. The episode also dives into a powerful listener comment about "linear" versus "messy middle" mental load: the privilege of simply thinking something and doing it, versus the exhausting work of anticipating, monitoring, and juggling a hundred what-ifs that never fully resolve. Leah connects this to her seven mental load stages from Drained and makes the case for why acknowledging invisible labor — at home and at work — is the…
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