meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

DEEP DIVE: Why Women Have Less Free Time

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood

Kids & Family, Comedy, Parenting

4.81K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A recent report found that the division of home responsibilities is still grossly unequal. Mothers—whether they are married or single—do significantly more than fathers. In fact, the ⁠“The Free-Time Gender Gap” ⁠report found that “simply being a woman is linked to spending more time on unpaid childcare and household work, and having less free time, even when controlling for age, income, race/ ethnicity, parental status, and marital status." What does it mean for women to have less free time, and how can we keep working to close the gender gap? Amy and Margaret discuss: The differences in socialization between men and women when it comes to our living spaces How time inequality serves to further reinforce and perpetuate gender inequality How "secondary childcare" factors into the free-time gender gap Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode: Natalia Vega Varela, and Leyly Moridi ⁠“The Free-Time Gender Gap: How Unpaid Care and Household Labor Reinforces Women’s Inequality,”⁠ Gender Equity Policy Institute, October 2024. Allison Daminger for the American Sociological Review: ⁠De-gendered Processes, Gendered Outcomes: How Egalitarian Couples Make Sense of Non-egalitarian Household Practices⁠ Anne Helen Petersen on Substack: ⁠What Makes Women Clean⁠ We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: ⁠https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/⁠ mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, emotional labor, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I never get to, you know, use my intellectual capacity in anything other than coloring and playing Barbies.

0:08.3

What fresh hell.

0:10.1

Laughing in the face of motherhood.

0:12.1

So even when I'm sitting and watching Rural Housewives of Salt Lake City and getting very invested in Mary Cosby and her drama, I'm still in a room

0:22.9

full of burbling volcanoes, any of which could erupt at any time, with Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson.

0:29.8

I had, you know, two plus two and a picture of Jesus to color in, and that was my homework.

0:33.9

A podcast that solves today's parenting dilemmasas so you don't have to. Getting married

0:39.3

is much harder on women than it is on men. Fascinating. Hello of one and welcome to

0:50.8

what fresh hell laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy.

0:55.0

Today we're talking about why women have less free time. Can I guess? Yeah, I think you can guess.

1:03.0

Because we do all the things. Get ready to get really mad, you guys. And notice I didn't say why mothers

1:10.0

have less free time, because that is certainly

1:12.4

true. But as we are going to find out, this goes across all kinds of socioeconomic groups.

1:19.4

Women do more than men to take care of the things and the people around them.

1:24.8

Will we be at any time citing the soon-to-be-released Amy Wilson book,

1:32.6

happy to help?

1:33.9

Because I think we will.

1:36.3

I think we will because I think, yeah, when we get down to solutions,

1:39.4

I have put some thought into this.

1:41.7

But I do think that a major contributor to this is that it continues to

1:46.9

serve everybody around us pretty well, the status quo. And that's why changing this is harder

1:52.6

than knowing about it. Yeah, and I'm sure we'll discuss it, but I also think, speaking of,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.