Drained: Can Money and Employment Reduce Your Mental Load?

Professor Leah Ruppanner is an expert on mental load and author of the forthcoming book, Drained: Reduce Your Mental Load to Do Less and Be More. In this talk, Leah will introduce the concept of mental load and how it is distinct from cognitive and domestic labor. She will then provide an overview of her recently published research on the mental load to understand how gender, time, and resources structure its allocation. Finally, she will offer some insights into paths forward to lighten our mental loads. 

Leah Ruppanner is a research professor at the University of Melbourne and Australia’s Top Gender Scholar (2022 and 2023) and Top Sociologist 2023. She is Director of the University of Melbourne‘s Gender Equity Initiative, and Founding Director of the Future of Work Lab. She completed a PhD in Sociology at the University of California at Irvine and has been featured in Vogue, Forbes, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Washington Post, BBC, World Economic Forum, Vox, and The Conversation. Leah has spent the past two decades researching and gathering evidence to debunk outdated gender stereotypes. From upending notions that women are better multitaskers to dismantling the idea that men are bumbling caregivers, she sets the record straight through honest, nuanced conversations as host of the MissPerceived podcast, where she dispels society’s biggest and most divisive gender myths.

This virtual seminar is part of WAPPP’s weekly fall series Exploring Work and Family, led by co-director Hannah Riley Bowles. Attendance is open to all.