Why It’s Never Equal: Gender Roles and Invisible Labor

In this episode of Beauty in the Break, Foster and Cesar unpack the complexity of gender roles, invisible labor, and how cultural expectations affect everything from parenting and relationships to careers and self-expression. They share deeply personal stories: crying in secret as a boy, being the first girl on a football team, navigating motherhood and invisible labor, and redefining what masculinity and femininity actually mean.

They offer insights into why gender roles persist, how the mental load affects families, and why recognition and appreciation matter as much as sharing responsibilities. This conversation also dives into modern masculinity, equity in household labor, and the invisible expectations placed on women. It’s a powerful exploration of what it means to break free from outdated gender scripts and create more authentic, equitable lives.

In this episode: 

• The hidden weight of invisible labor in households
• Why the “mental load” often falls on women and how to shift it
• The unlearning process of masculinity and the freedom in crying
• Breaking molds: sports, church, and challenging tradition
• Parenting during the pandemic and the cost of invisible work
• Masculine vs. feminine energies and how both live in everyone
• Redefining modern masculinity and femininity on your own terms

If this episode spoke to you, you will love Sexuality Isn’t Simple where we explore our sexual identities. You can also watch the episodes on YouTube.

If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to follow Beauty in the Break on your favorite podcast app and leave a review—it really helps!

Reach out to the show—send an email or voice note to beautyinthebreakpod@gmail.com and be sure to follow on Instagram. 

Cesar Cardona:

• Attend his upcoming speaking engagements
• Listen to music from Cesar + The Clew on Apple Music and Spotify
• Receive his monthly newsletter Insights That Matter

Foster Wilson:

• Buy her poetry book Afternoon Abundance
• Learn about her postpartum services
• Receive her monthly newsletter Foster’s Village

Created & Hosted by: Cesar Cardona and Foster Wilson

Executive Producer: Glenn Milley

This episode is brought to you by Arlene Thornton & Associates

Transcript

I was losing myself. I literally felt like I was losing all of who I knew I was.

First off, women can do anything. Oh my God. If you want something done right, give it to a mother.

As a woman in this world, I want to be recognized for the work that I'm doing.

And the problem with invisible labor is that it's invisible.

They get in the car and say, how come you were late?

And I made a direct promise to myself to never be late to pick them up again.

Ever.

Ever.

Hello and welcome to Beauty in the Break. I'm Foster.

And I'm Cesar.

This is the podcast where we explore the moments that break us open and how we find beauty on the other side.

So whatever you're carrying today, you don't have to carry it alone. We are here with you.

Thanks for being here and enjoy the show.

Hello, beautiful, and welcome back to another episode of Beauty in the Break.

Hello, everyone. Hope you're doing well.

Welcome, welcome. We're going to talk about gender roles today.

We're going to break down gender roles. The dance between what society expects of you and what you actually want to be.

God, I see this all day, every day.

And you know, we live in a society that no matter how you identify, man, woman, non-binary, trans, no matter how you identify, there are these two genders in this world that are being put onto every single one of us at any time.

We've got masculinity and we've got this divide between the two.

Let's really break it down and talk about why that is and what can we do better here.

Yeah, how can we question some of the things that have been given to us before we can even know who we are, who we want to be.

We're given a name when we're born. We're given all this information, a social security number, just a literal receipt number, you know.

And then also you get this, you're supposed to do this thing, wear this, be this person by the time you're 35, be this individual, don't be this other individual.

It's just so much that comes with the package of just being born into society of humans.

And if you were raised in a, you know, cisgendered two-parent household, then you got these examples growing up of what masculinity means, what femininity means.

And then, you know, you're, as a kid, you're trying to figure out how you fit into that whole, that whole story.

And I think a lot of people, as they get older, go like, wait a minute, do I, is this what I want?

Is this what I've chosen for myself? Or is this what somebody gave me? That's not even mine.

And then by that time, you have subscribed to a handful of things in the world that you may not want to undo because it's familiar, it's fun, it is easy, perhaps.

Society has primed you up for doing that thing.

Society rewards you.

Society rewards you for it, on top of it.

For fitting into the mold.

Yeah, absolutely.

When I was a kid, I remember the phrase, be a man, was said often, man up.

And then when I would cry, I would either get mocked or I would say, you're not a punk, why are you crying?

And it's the exact opposite of what I would tell our kids now.

It's the exact opposite of what I would even tell my own self.

That's not how you would treat our kids.

At what point did you unlearn that behavior?

It was a lot of trial and error for me.

A lot of realizing that something feels good about it, but I can't say this to the world.

I was a closeted crier.

Oh my God.

That came up just now and I yes and it.

You know, when I was a teenager, I would cry in these, you know, quiet moments or to somebody that I really cared about.

And then I would never talk about it again.

And then at some point I gave myself some deep cry, like a full snot like that.

Remember when we'd cry as kids, we would go.

I would edit that.

And I remember at the end of it, I started feeling better.

And I thought, how come people have been lying to me this whole time about crying?

How come?

I don't understand this.

This whole, you're supposed to be a man or man up or be tougher or try harder or stay strong or don't show emotions because you're a black man in the South or whatever masculine line you're supposed to be.

I immediately unsubscribed from that mentality of thought.

And I just wanted to search how and who I wanted to be.

How old do you think you were when that happened?

That cry?

Yeah.

Mid-20s.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Before that, crying would be if I drank way too much and I confided in somebody because of my childhood.

In my teens, when I was in a gang, there wasn't room for crying, obviously.

That doesn't mean you can't do that.

Yeah, it just reinforces all of what society feeds you about.

This is what it is to be a man.

This is what it is to be strong, the gang in particular, I imagine.

Yeah.

You know, it's so interesting because it still is there in living when I was in a gang.

There was still a level of tender camaraderie there, but it just is hidden under all this machismo, masculinity sort of thing.

Guy walks up to another guy and he's happy to see him, but he can't smile.

So he just walks up to him and kind of just like, like just takes his knuckles and just kind of chips it off of his, kind of knuckles the guy's chin real quick.

What's he actually doing?

He's touching his face.

Yeah.

It's adorable.

Yeah.

It's there.

They do that in sports too, you know.

Do not get me started.

How much butt slapping do we have in sports?

How much butt slapping is in sports?

How many phrases are in sports that are like, you know, well, he took him real deep.

Like all these things, the tight pants and like they got to keep separate from the cheerleaders.

The cheerleaders are over there.

All the men, we got to sit together.

Like forget it.

Don't get me started.

For me, I don't think that I had any clue really what gender meant in this world.

As a kid, I really didn't.

I was homeschooled until I was 10.

And so for a lot of my life, I just, I don't know.

I was living in my own little world.

I remember the first time I ever really thought about gender was when I was 10 years old and

a lot of my friends, most of my friends were guys actually.

A bunch of my friends had started playing on this flag football team.

And I was like, I want to play.

It was an all boys flag football team.

And there wasn't one for girls.

My mom, who is a very big feminist, was like, well, you want to play?

You can play, girl.

She walked right down to that field and she told the coach who'd been coaching for 40 years,

my daughter wants to play football.

And he said, okay, okay, she can play.

Then it became this thing of like, you're the first girl to ever play football on this

football team.

And this coach had been coaching for 40 years.

And I was like, it became this legend.

My mom bragged about it to people.

And I was like, okay, cool.

But I just want to play football.

Like, I don't really understand what the big deal is here.

And I think that was the first time I ever felt there was a divide and something.

I was playing a game.

I don't really understand why gender had anything to do with it.

But that was my first awareness of like, oh, boys do things that are different.

And there are things that are for boys that aren't for me.

But now I've broken the mold.

And I'm, am I part boy now?

Like, I don't know.

And I became that identity of like tomboy because I played sports, which is crazy.

You didn't think anything of it though, right?

I really didn't.

Right.

But at some point then you realized that, oh, this is unique, quote unquote.

Right.

What was that breaking point for you?

I thought that I was breaking a barrier.

I felt there was a lot of pride from my mom about me breaking a barrier.

She was proud of the fact that she had gotten it done for me.

And she was proud that I was doing something that was outside of the norm.

So then I do think I've carried that with me my whole life of like, I've got to be unique.

I've got to do something that other people aren't doing.

I've got to be different.

That was, I guess, embracing masculinity.

I mean, at the time, at that age, I didn't own any dress.

I wore pants.

I was more comfortable and being rougher and tumbling around.

And I just didn't own anything like that.

And I remember a friend once invited me to church, which I had never been invited to church before.

My family was agnostic.

She said, but you have to wear a dress or a skirt.

And I was like, what?

I didn't own one.

I had to borrow one from somebody.

And it stuck in my brain so strong because I thought, hey, what is this place that's telling me what I had to wear?

So that caused a lot of criticism of church in general as an institution.

But this dress part was like, I don't really understand this.

Why do I have to wear this particular thing?

Yeah.

Were those two instances around the same time?

Around the same time.

Around the same time.

And then aside from your mother being more proud of it, were other people in the world saying something to you?

Were the people watching the football game saying like, oh my God, there's a girl on the field.

I don't remember anything like that.

No.

I don't remember what other people's reaction to it was.

I was just, it was the first time I became deeply aware of something that I don't feel inside.

Like I don't go inside and go, yeah, yeah.

I'm a girl.

I'm a woman.

I got it.

You know, but I don't say I'm a boy either.

Or I don't feel any of that inside me.

I just felt like it was being put on me from the outside.

I hear that.

I have been saying for the last few years of my life, where do I feel like masculine?

Where do I feel like a man?

How?

Aside from my biological makeup, what does that feel like for you?

I would ask the same question to anybody listening here.

If you're a woman, when do you actually feel feminine?

What actually feels feminine to you?

Not the things that society told you, but when do you personally feel feminine?

To men, when do you personally feel masculine?

What is it you're doing that makes you say, I'm a man?

Aside from your physical makeup.

What makes me feel like a woman?

I remember asking this question to myself a couple of years ago and being like, what really

is a woman anyway?

Honestly.

And then I went down a whole spiral that I don't even know.

I couldn't tell you.

I couldn't answer the question.

So it makes me constantly wonder what gender even is.

I got to a point where I asked those same questions to myself and then I started being really proud

of just exploring the human being that likes things, being indifferent to what the society

has told you what a gender is or isn't.

Whatever you've made up for yourself as masculine or feminine, you can find a time where those roles

were started somewhere.

Someone made a decision of this is what's going to happen going forward.

That's an implication that it's been made up.

Coming off of the church thing, I pulled out all the way forward to today where I am someone

who is sometimes asked to be on red carpets and go to film festivals and events and things

like that.

And I always jump back to that point in time where I'm like, oh, now you have to wear something

particular.

They want you to wear high heels and a dress and something fancy.

And two years ago, I decided I'm never wearing high heels again.

I hate them.

I don't like the way they feel.

I like to be comfortable.

And I'm just going to wear boots.

Right.

I'm just going to wear boots.

I'm going to wear boots and jumpsuits on the red carpet.

And if it's masculine, screw it.

It's masculine.

Great.

Wonderful.

And it was such a freeing moment.

And I literally gave away and threw away all my high heels.

Don't ask me to wear them.

I don't have any.

Hear that.

Say about five years ago or so, I was with my girlfriend at the time.

And we went out to Park City to go snowboard.

I'd never snowboard before.

Her father, her stepfather, and all her brothers, they're very tall.

So they're towering over me.

And they're telling me about what I'm going to experience with snowboarding, what it's going

to feel like.

And then her dad turns to me and says, you'll fall a bunch of times.

At some point, you might get it.

You might not.

And then we'll really see what type of man you are.

And I looked at him and I said, I'm not really a man.

Not really.

Just my nails were painted already.

Like all these things, you know.

And he goes, oh, all right.

OK, then.

Great.

And I did snowboard quite well, actually.

Yeah.

Because I'm not trying to be something.

I liked it or I don't.

End of story.

But it didn't matter how well you snowboarded or not.

And also didn't matter that you are a man.

There's a lot of wonderful females snowboarders.

So like, what the hell?

What actually are we saying here?

Yeah.

Like, what are you trying to imply?

I love that.

Like, I'm not really a man.

OK, wow.

That just breaks it.

I was really proud of myself to say that.

I was like, I'm not really a man.

Kind of say it to him in like a wisp, like a secret.

Like, not really.

No.

Thanks for offering, but no thanks.

Thank you.

Unsubscribe.

Going back to your mom getting you into the football league.

I also want to say that not only is you doing that, breaking the gender role, but her breaching

the fundamental expectation of only boys playing that team is a masculine thing as well.

Yeah.

By breaching through, by pushing through, by saying, nope, this is going to change.

By standing your ground, using a bit of artistic force, artistic strength is also a masculine

gesture.

Yeah.

When we talk about masculine and feminine energies, which everybody has masculine and

feminine energies in them, that's a masculine act.

That's a masculine energy to use to go forward to somebody and be like, I'm going to challenge

what you're doing here.

I'm going to shake things up and I'm going to, my kid is going to play football.

Yeah.

Whether you like it or not.

Yeah, absolutely.

I know she would have taken it all the way to like the newspaper.

She would have gone pretty far if that guy hadn't been like, nah, school, school.

Yeah.

This is good enough for me.

This is good enough for me.

Yeah.

But from that though, do you now channel her when you're doing something in your life

that feels of more masculine energy?

I'm a lot like my mom in that way.

Yeah.

I have a lot of that masculine energy, especially when it comes to my kids.

It's a protective measure, but that is definitely in my, I feel in my masculine and also out

in the, in the world as an entrepreneur, as a director, certainly have to be more in your

masculine energy.

And when you're feeling more in your feminine energy, do you also channel her or who do you

channel?

I actually think that my feminine energy is more, much more like my dad.

My dad's a psychologist.

He really is in his feminine energy quite a lot.

His work is one-on-one working with people, deeply emotional work.

He is in touch with his emotions.

Very much.

I love that man.

Very much so.

I love that man so much because, sorry to cut you off, but my goodness, that man is fantastic.

Every time he cries, it's bittersweet because I'm like, oh, he's upset.

But in my heart, but in for me, to me, I'm like, God, that's just so great.

He's just right in touch with himself in so many ways.

I just, I love that about him.

Yeah.

He's beautiful.

And like, that is, he was always talking about emotions with me.

I remember he would sit with me when I was going through something really hard, like a young

teenage breakup, or I don't even know what it was.

I would explain how I was hurting and he would go, oh.

And you could just see him take on the pain for a minute, feel it in order to empathize

and really be compassionate with me.

So he has a softer energy and that is more who I think I channel.

Going into parenthood myself, I was also that independent woman.

I liked to work.

I loved working.

I've always had a job since I was 10 years old.

I love making money.

I love going out and providing.

I love that.

And I was also a creative and pursuing those things.

I often thought about how I could maintain balanced roles in my household when I was

raising children.

I never wanted to slip into the sort of stereotypical mother role, person who cooks and cleans and

takes care of their children.

I couldn't see you in that role.

I certainly didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom.

That wasn't my intention.

And I wasn't forced into it, but it started to slip and it started to happen because when

a woman carries their baby in their body, right, and then chooses to breastfeed, which I did

both, those children are dependent on you in a way that they are dependent differently

on, let's say you have a father figure in their life.

It's just a different kind of dependency.

So after my first kid, I did go back to work.

I worked from home.

I worked not full time, but I did try to juggle both of those things.

And then after our youngest was born, I was like, I'm going to stop working because there's

so much here to tend to, and I want to be with them more.

I don't want to miss this.

And also I'm breastfeeding.

And also I'm juggling, you know, some creative stuff.

And like, this doesn't make sense anymore.

And so we went down to a single income household.

Suddenly all those responsibilities were on me.

And I chose to take them on because if I'm home and my husband is out working, we need that

income that he's working.

So I, of course I'm going to take on the majority of the cooking and the cleaning and

the raising of the kids, of course.

But I didn't choose that.

And then in the pandemic, it got worse.

Oh my gosh.

So the kids are now no longer in school.

They're home full time.

And now I've got this added role of homeschool parent, which I, no one chose, by the way,

every parent had to do this in the pandemic.

And no one chose that.

The homeschooling parents were like, we already do this.

But everybody else is like, we're dying out here.

I mean, literally we were dying.

It was so much.

I was losing myself.

I literally felt like I was losing all of who I knew I was.

And I kept saying over and over again, I didn't choose this.

I didn't choose to be a stay at home parent.

I was losing a lot of like my intellectual stimulation from being at home.

I love my children, but like, I didn't want to be around children that much.

I don't think there's anything in the world that somebody wants to do consistently

back to back at all times.

That's just not it.

So it makes perfect sense.

I also remember that the sales of wine went way up in the pandemic as well.

And I'm sure a large percentage of it was mothers who were like, geez, nine o'clock, hurry up.

Yeah, exactly.

It was rough.

And we did it for a long time because we kept our kids home longer.

This was really just a breaking point for me.

I just didn't want to do that anymore.

I had a partner who was doing a lot.

He was doing a lot.

But it still felt unfair.

And I asked myself, how did they come to be this way?

How did I fall into this thing that I didn't want to be?

I didn't want to be this traditional housewife.

And I find myself doing it.

And it was more than just the pandemic.

I see it with my clients all the time.

Yeah, I'm going to go back to work after a couple of months.

And then the pull of guilt.

It's like, oh, I don't know if I could leave them at three months, six months in daycare.

I don't know.

Maybe let's try to make it work.

Now, let's not forget, women get 85 cents on the dollar to a man.

So we now have this actual financial question of who's going to go back to work?

Well, whoever's making more money.

And that oftentimes can be the father in a cisgendered two-parent household.

We mentioned this being within the last 200 years.

The Industrial Revolution came across.

It was parents, kids, and grandparents living in one house,

an agricultural farm somewhere.

And then the Industrial Revolution came in and it started splitting up.

Because of that, they started having women stay home,

men going to work, kids going to school.

As much as I think that that should be questioned at all times

and every individual should do what they want,

isn't there something to what they did?

Because there's a nurturing sense of the mother with the child,

the being that they birthed.

How often do you miss your kids when you're not around them?

All the time.

All the time.

It pains you sometimes when you're not around them.

Very often I've seen men not have that feeling.

They're a little more freed up.

They're like, oh, the kid will be fine.

How often do we have dialogue with you and I?

I'm like, they're good.

They'll be okay.

And if they get hurt, they'll get hurt.

But you want to make sure like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This might hurt you.

There's a deep separation there.

And I've seen this in friends of mine who have kids.

With clients that I've had,

I have seen the mom just come to the workout exhausted.

I look through their window of their house and the husband is walking around on the phone,

just walking, just hanging out, just chilling.

That deep, deep divide of emotional release is inherent in us naturally.

We have this hunter-gatherer sort of thing where our ancestors, the feminine, the women could do much more multitasking.

The men, in return, were much more single-minded because they went out and hunted for the most part.

The Industrial Revolution, as much as I don't necessarily like want to live in it,

and I'm glad that it's turning over now,

I could see how they got to that point because of that.

But unfortunately, it's ran its course way too long.

85 cents to the dollar, women to men being paid.

That's too far.

It's happened for too long now.

My real question ultimately is there's something natural about the divide.

It has been oversaturated, but there's something to be said here because you and I very often see the world differently when it comes to our kids.

How we go about our work in building this podcast, for example.

How we go about our day, for example.

You are very specific-oriented.

I am very big-picture-oriented.

You know the waves.

I know the tides.

And I give myself an immense amount of relaxation time.

And I work better that way.

And then you focus on the specific details of so much.

And you work better that way.

There's something natural that's there.

There's such a part of me that wants to be like, that's wrong.

The natural part.

Because I lean into the natural, but I always want to say, yes, this is what's natural.

But there's something about this that feels very unfair, honestly.

Oh, yeah.

I agree to that.

And no way am I saying that just because something's natural doesn't mean it's good.

Right?

Poisonous plants.

That's natural.

Do you eat it?

No, you don't eat it.

But yes, I agree.

It's totally unfair.

And the reverse too, though, also, because there are so many men who would like to stay

home with their children or would like to do more of the child rearing.

And they feel like either that's not acceptable or maybe they aren't cut out for it.

Or maybe they do make more money than their partner.

And so for the family's sake, they have to go back to work with.

They would rather be the one that stays home.

It's also a social pressure.

I was in a relationship some years ago, and she made way more money than me.

She had two houses.

I did the cleaning up.

I did the organizing of the place.

And the roles were completely switched.

We'd go out, though.

She'd buy the drinks.

She'd buy the food.

She'd buy the dinner.

And in the back of my mind, there was something of like, you should be buying this.

I got really good at saying that is an unimportant thing to say.

And society has told you that.

So keep moving and enjoy because you're supplying this teamwork in a whole different set of parameters

that can't be shown financially.

Can't be shown.

And that's a lot of times.

It's what women have to do here.

They have to do all the things that you can't touch.

You can't see.

I think the real modern day question right now about roles in a household, however you want

to divide them up, however the genders are, the real question is about who is carrying the

mental load of your family.

What is mental load?

Okay.

The mental load is all of the invisible things that someone does to make sure the household

is run properly and that the kids are taken care of.

So it looks like the things you wouldn't expect.

It looks like planning the meals, catering to everybody's preferences, and also their dietary

restrictions, and also a balanced meal and healthy.

And then planning it and then planning when you're going to go to the grocery store and

then getting the groceries and then cooking the food and prepping it ahead of time and

thinking ahead about how much that needs to cook for, whatever it is, right?

Making sure there's enough time.

It's not just going to the doctor, pediatrician for your child.

It's remembering that they need that appointment every six months and calling and booking the

appointments.

It's when you decide that the doctor you're seeing you don't really like.

Well, then now you have to do the research to figure out what kind of doctor do you like

and who are you going to get referred to and asking all of your friends who they like, right?

That's a whole mental load.

It's the school schedule and the afterschool planning and the calendar and the when are we

also going to have time for a vacation?

When you're planning a vacation, it's not just book the tickets, book the car, good for

we're set to go.

It's how are we going to get from point A to point B?

What kind of weather is it going to be there?

What kind of shoes do we need?

What kind of jackets do we need?

Do we have the right sunscreen, bug spray?

What activities?

What are they going to do while we're there?

You know, mental load is all of that stuff that doesn't look like anything on the outside.

You physically can't touch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And predominantly it's women that carry this load and it's invisible labor.

The part about it that I want to emphasize is that it's invisible.

And so I think so many women do not feel seen in this role.

And that starts to bridge a divide between them and their partner who doesn't see it, doesn't

get it, doesn't understand it.

The reason I think it falls on women predominantly is because I think women are actually really good

at this.

We have the capacity to multitask, to hold a lot of balls in the air.

You've seen career women who are also mothers who also show up at the soccer practices and

these strong, capable women who are highly independent and highly successful in the world.

They go back to work.

And I see this from the inside.

I see this from my mom's groups, from my clients, and they go back to work and then they have an

immense amount of guilt that they're not with their children.

It's not easy on either side.

Right?

Do men have that?

Do you think they feel that way?

We feel it for sure.

And I've seen, in instances of my clients and friends that I've had who are fathers, they

feel it, but it doesn't hit them in the same way.

First off, women can do anything.

Oh my God.

If you want something done right, give it to a mother.

Right?

And I've seen a level of too much specifics to where now they're wiped out.

You can't fill the cup because your cup's empty.

And two-sided, I've seen men turn and I'm like, why don't you help this woman here?

And also, well, they're also not subscribing themselves to that much stress because they found

a way that they think is simpler or easier or whatever.

It doesn't feel to me that there is one way or the other, but I think both sides start

walking towards each other a little more.

As a trainer in particular, I'm watching them cross paths and I'm just, I'm Switzerland.

And I get to see it as like a controlled experiment.

I'm just like, oh gosh.

Okay, dude.

Hey, she's bidding for emotion here because she's exhausted.

And you're on your phone looking at TikTok.

First of all, it is mentally exhausting to hold that much in the air at once.

Totally.

And what I hear so often from the male counterpart is, let's say we're talking about providing

food for your entire family for one week.

Right?

Let's talk about that.

What I hear from the men say is, well, just tell me what to get at the grocery store.

And I'll go, I'll go to the grocery store for you.

I'll take that off your plate.

And it's like, girl, that is not it.

That's not it.

Because that means now I have to plan all the meals.

I have to make the grocery list.

I have to do all of that mental labor and you're just going to go to the store.

I can go to the store.

That's the easy part.

That's actually the easier part.

Yeah.

How about you do everything else and I go to the store and that's it.

Right?

So it's not men's fault.

It's not the male counterpart's fault.

It's that the labor is invisible.

So they don't understand it.

And they don't see it.

Yeah.

I don't see either as fault.

I do see the changing society being more and more complicated and dynamic and it being pushed

off more on one gender more than the other one.

And it just so happens that the people who've decided that are the genders doing less.

That is one, in my opinion, that choice itself is a little disgusting.

I think that is wrong.

I think it's unethical.

I think it's selfish.

I think it's callous.

And when I am person to person, I can see how well men can have a balance of what is necessary

right now and what's not necessary right now.

What to say, you know what?

I'll deal with that when it occurs.

I don't need to process all this information right now.

And maybe that's a biological thing as well.

When our ancestors, men were hunting, perhaps.

You had to be quick in the moment and think and make a decision right then and there.

I know personally, I'm just better at that sort of stuff.

And I am doing all of these planning.

That's going to bog me down.

I'm giving myself all these instances that might not even happen.

I can make a real quick understanding of the metaphorical Serengeti of the future and say,

I'll do this, this, that, that happens.

Whatever else happens, I will respond accordingly and I'll make that done.

And now I'm freed up from that mental load that is apparently necessity on the other side.

That's a one-to-one thing, by the way.

In a society, it shouldn't be that way.

It shouldn't be this complicated, the stuff that we do in the world.

But when we are doing this one-on-one, now that we know that it's overly complicated,

I'm going to simplify more and more even.

Because why wear myself down?

So as a woman, that feels scary to me.

That you're just going to simplify it and that's the answer to the problem.

Because to me, it's like I'm trying to do so much for the family and this is how I love the family.

And so when I hear like, oh, we'll just make it simpler.

That will be how we solve it.

We'll just make it simpler.

And you don't have to do so much.

It'll just be easy.

It feels dismissive of the way that I love my family.

I want to share the load with you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Let me ask you this in return though.

If you wanting to do all those things is the way you share your love with your family.

But then because of that, you're overly worked and stressed.

So is your way into loving them stressing?

Well, it becomes that way.

It becomes that way.

Okay.

Okay.

I don't want to be stressed out by it.

I do think I need to let go of more details in order to reduce my stress.

But I would love for, let's say it's you.

I would love for you to take on more of the details that are not natural to you.

Because A, I would like you to know what it feels like.

I think a lot of times what we're lacking here is appreciation.

If no one's seeing what we're doing, even when we fail sometimes, or even when we get stressed

out about it, we are still doing this great act that quite frankly, maybe you can't do.

And I would love to just feel the respect and admiration for all that I'm trying to do.

Dude, we cannot do it.

It's not, I love you saying quite frankly, you might not be able to.

No, we can't do it.

Are you kidding me?

We cannot.

It's not whatsoever.

Joseph Campbell says the male seeks the journey that the woman already is.

The woman is everything already.

The male is seeking to access this thing, this treasure.

The woman is everything already.

We had this conversation some months ago about making this show.

We were sitting in your bedroom and you were telling me about all of the things that needed

to be done and what you had done so far and what was on my list.

And I remember standing here thinking, why is she getting herself so flustered with this?

Some of these things we can't do anything about right now.

We can't do a thing whatsoever.

And just how you are naturally, and I may also extend this to a lot of women that I've known

in my life, you also were going a mile a minute and going this and this and this and

that.

So I'm naturally just going to get right about down here.

I'm going to be much more calm because calmer waters are clearer.

You can see clearer the calmer you are.

And so we were having that conversation.

And then you turned to me and said, I just want you to acknowledge the work that I was

doing.

And I broke because I did not know that's what you were actually asking me for.

And I got really emotional.

And I was like, oh, my love, I'm so sorry.

I didn't realize that's what you were asking for.

Yeah.

And that is massive.

And now I compliment you constantly.

But I don't think I was complimenting you in that category.

So now I make a point to try to do that as much as possible.

The greatest way I can propose an experiment, if I may, is that let's say feeding the family

for a week is on the table.

That's the task on the table.

So as an experiment, the person who usually doesn't do it takes on the entire task for

the week.

The planning, the making sure they know what the kids like, what they don't like, what

they will and won't eat.

You don't want a dinner where somebody eats nothing and then they're starving, right?

All of it, the planning, the grocery shopping, the prepping, the food, the doing the thing,

all of it, 100%.

And what I would like to say is if that's a man, the male counterpart, do it like you think

your partner would do it.

Don't do it like you would do it.

Do it like you think she would do it.

To try to understand her perspective on it just for a week.

And then you may understand the perspective she has and you might have the respect for what

she tries to do.

And then after that, break down the tasks and see if you can figure out a more equitable

way of doing it.

Make it simpler.

Maybe the man has ideas about how it could be simpler.

Maybe we streamline our meals and every Monday it's exactly the same thing and every Tuesday

it's exactly the same thing.

And we always shop on Sundays.

This takes so much of that mental load out of that one particular thing, but really try

to understand and then appreciate because the appreciation, I tell you what, it goes so far.

Yeah.

I love that you say that part of like, just sit in this room for a little bit and come

to my bedroom, right?

And then we'll meet eventually in the living room or the dining room or whatever.

But for now, I need you to know what the space is like over here.

I would extend the same thing to any person on the other side.

If you're a woman or if you're a feminine energy, at least, remembering that there is a ton

of specifics that you can focus on.

And also, it doesn't have to be that way.

And from my side, what I can do is I can let things go a little bit more.

A couple of weeks ago, you took one of our kids to a Dodger game.

As someone who is new to parenthood, as you are, right?

In the last year and a half or so, you taking them for the whole evening and you're going

to feed them and make sure you get to the place on time.

I can see you editing right now.

I had all kinds of thoughts and notes and preparation questions for you.

You can't see on camera right now, but she is squeezing the daylights out of that pen in

straight edit mode.

I really had a lot of questions like, where are you going to park and what are you going

to feed them and what are you going to do?

Do you have water packed?

Do you have snacks packed?

Like I had so many questions and I just chose to not do anything.

I let you handle whatever you're going to handle because I actually know you will handle it

just fine.

You're not going to freak out if you don't have water.

You're going to buy them water at the game.

You're going to park close by so they don't, you know, you're going to carry them if they

get tired.

Like that's how it goes.

I had trust in you enough that you were going to figure it out, but I had to let go of so

much shit, but it was fine.

Once I let it go, I could just be with my other kid and not worry.

That's exactly what happened going to the Dodger game with one of our kids.

I knew exactly what would take place.

I had an idea of who they are, what they like already, and I know I'm going to address it

right then and there in that moment.

In addition to that, in our day-to-day life, I am finding myself trying to make sure more

and more that I am learning how to work the actual details of things because very often

we have a conversation about something and then we make a choice and maybe the choice is a little

bit lean towards my idea.

And then I reflect on and I go, this could have either been better or this actually just

wasn't the right choice because there were some specifics or some details not taken in.

Can you give an example of that?

Yeah, yeah, totally.

So we went to Montana.

Very often when we travel, I want to Turo because I want to pay an individual rather than some

company.

And I drive a Tesla, so I want to Turo a Tesla.

You outed yourself as a Tesla driver.

That's fine.

No big deal.

I don't got to like the guy to enjoy the car.

Love the car.

Don't care for the guy.

First off, you handle most of the travel stuff.

Why?

Because you're good at specifics.

And in my head, I'm like, that's what it do is.

She's good at that sort of stuff because of exactly what this conversation is that we're

having here, right?

Not only did I have that as a brilliant idea, but it's also me offloading it to somebody

who likes specifics, but who's going to probably get stressed because they're already

mental loading so many other things.

Yeah.

You were like, you know, I think we should maybe just get a car instead.

I go, but when we got to get gas, I'm trying to get away from this.

Like, and I am familiar with the Tesla.

I got the app for it.

I can do this and that and so on and so forth.

And you're like, okay, my love.

But there's specifics.

There's a charging station.

It's not close.

And there's this and there's that.

I was like, I'll drive.

Whatever.

No big deal.

I'll make that thing work.

We get there and we end up getting the truck instead of the Tesla, which ran on gas.

Which was half the price, by the way.

Which was half the price, by the way.

That's another thing.

Coming soon, an episode about financial woes.

We're driving there and it's my best friend's wedding, 90s throwback.

And we are driving around and we're so busy with all this stuff.

We will not have time to charge that car.

And we're in the middle of the road and I go, you know, my love, you were 100% right about

this.

You were so right on this because I wanted to get this electric car so I didn't have

to pay for gas anymore.

You were right.

You made a great point about it.

And I said it in front of my parents, too, so they could see that I'm growing.

But that's it.

There's the other side of it, of course.

That's who we're supposed to be doing here, are we not?

There was a time when you picked up our kid from school and you were late.

Now, had I come to you and said, you were late picking them up.

You can't do that again.

That would be me taking on the responsibility for you.

And instead, what happened when you were late?

Typically, on average, I'm on time, if not early.

I get there.

I'm late, however, for a bunch of other strange reasons.

They get in the car and say, how come you were late?

And I made a direct promise to myself to never be late to pick them up again.

Ever.

I don't care what I have to cut out in the day from before picking them up.

I will be on time, if not super early.

And I think what we forget in this situation as partners is if I were to correct you and

lay into you about why were you late and you can't do that again.

Now, I have to be responsible for them.

That's not giving you the trust that you deserve, that you're going to learn and pivot

and make corrections about letting something fall through the cracks.

Something fell through the cracks.

But I don't have to take that on and try to fix it next time.

I'm going to trust that you know how to learn from your mistakes and fix it yourself.

Absolutely.

And that's part of the trust in our relationship.

Yeah.

And what's more is that why flood yourself so much with something that technically isn't

that urgent either?

We didn't leave them downtown in a subway.

They're in a place where there's a school and people are looking after them.

So it's not actually urgent.

The stakes aren't actually that high.

The only real important thing is really making sure that kid feels real and respected.

And that's why I would be there on time.

But there's no stressing for me.

So I wouldn't want you or any partner to be stressed in that capacity to take that on

because actually it's not an urgent thing.

And that's your job.

And that's your lane and this is my lane.

And that's important too.

Yeah.

An excellent example of how you really thought ahead about the details when it came to supporting

me.

You would come over for dinner one night to my place with the kids.

I had cooked.

And then usually we watch a show with the kids after.

Probably not long after that show, you were going to go home.

Right?

You could have sat on the couch with us and enjoyed the time with the kids and hung out

with us on the couch and watched that show.

But what you did was went to the kitchen and while we were watching, you did all of the dishes

because I don't have a dishwasher.

So spoiler alert.

It's a big task for me to do when I'm single parenting.

Also, not even your household.

I appreciated that so much because you actually thought ahead to what my schedule was going

to be.

And that at 930 at night after I put the kids to bed, I was going to have to be washing dishes

or early in the morning.

That was just a really beautiful example of thinking out the details ahead of time in the

way that I would have thought about them.

Oh, thanks for saying that.

I appreciate it, my love.

Thank you.

What do you think masculinity is today?

What should it look like?

I think it should look like exactly what you want it to look like as a person.

No matter who you are.

We have talks of masculinity that we talk about right now.

That's really, really flooded in social media.

But there's also protective masculinity.

There's gentle masculinity.

I'm a part of a Facebook group called Wholesome Masculinity.

Men, seriously.

There's nothing wrong with turning to another guy and saying, I love you.

For hugging them.

For saying thank you.

For saying, I want a hug.

And as a masculine male, who I think I should be should not be informed by what society thinks

I'm supposed to be.

If I want to paint my nails and be a boxer, I should be able to do that.

If I want to read romantic novels and listen to Motorhead, I should be able to do that.

What makes me masculine is whatever I choose to do as a biological male.

Full stop.

Yeah, I mean, it's almost like your gender is a spectrum.

Yeah, it's almost like the expression of your gender is a spectrum.

That you can choose to do whatever you want and so can any other man in this world.

And that's what masculinity is.

What makes me masculine or male?

My physical body.

The spectrum is as wide as the number of men in this world.

Agreed.

And as a woman, from a woman's perspective, what is something that you want to say that you

think should be said more often?

As a woman in this world, I want to be recognized for the work that I'm doing.

And the problem with invisible labor is that it's invisible.

It's not seen.

Therefore, it's not recognized.

So yes, I want help with the work that I'm doing.

I also want to be recognized for all the things I can do that not everybody can do.

Absolutely.

You hear that, gentlemen, out there in the world?

And if you're a man listening right now, I want you to look around at the women in your

life, your wife, your mother, your sister.

And I want you to try to look at all of the things they are holding up in the air.

And I want you to go to them and tell them that you see them.

You see what they're doing.

You know what that takes and that you respect it.

And then I want you to see if you can take one thing off their plate and do it how they

would do it.

That's beautiful.

Thank you all for listening as usual.

And wherever you are, whoever you are, think about how we can trade information from the

other side to meet them on the other side, to learn more about each other.

Thanks for being here.

Be kind to yourself.

If this episode spoke to you, take a moment and send it to someone else who might need it.

That's the best way to spread these conversations to the people who need them the most.

And if you want to keep exploring with us, make sure to follow Beauty in the Break wherever

you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next time.

Beauty in the Break is created and hosted by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona.

Our executive producer is Glenn Milley.

Original music by Cesar + The Clew.