From Medium authored by Caitlin Johnstone:
“I was at the supermarket last night, again, fifth time this week, when I bumped into a friend of mine and we had The Christmas Conversation.
Her — “How’s Christmas going?”
Me — “Good! I’ve got most of the presents done and Christmas is at my mum’s this year and she only wants me to do the vegetables. How are you?”
Her — “Oh, terrible, the two little ones still believe and I haven’t even started shopping for that plus it’s my year to have it so I’m out of my mind trying to get the house clean for the big day. I haven’t even got the tree up!”
Me — *soothing clucking noises and a friendly rub on the back.*
Ask a woman right now how her Christmas is going and she will almost certainly unfurl her to-do list before your eyes, from the turkey to the costumes for the kids’ concerts. They should call it the Season of To-dos. For women, anyway.
Christmas is the one time of the year when the gender pay gap is an open festering wound. Most of women’s work goes unvalued, unpaid, unseen by the patriarchal valuing system we call money. It’s invisible to money but it’s also pretty invisible even to ourselves. For a woman, it’s just what you do. For men, it’s stuff that just… happens.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to give up being Santa. I love it, I’m good at it, and I still do it for my kids even though they’re way past believing. That doesn’t mean it’s not work and it’s not worth something. People love their work and still get money for it.
(A little aside: isn’t it interesting that the man behind Santa is almost never a man? It’s almost like the patriarchy wants to take the credit for all of women’s work at Christmas time.)
But whoever coined the term “holiday season” was clearly a bloke. It ain’t no holiday. For women, it’s the busiest time of the year.”
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