The new Office Housework Nasiha Rizwan
Dubbed "The New Office Housework", this artifact focuses on unofficial workplace labor for women in corporate workplaces, namely DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion work). Compared to men at the same level, women in senior leadership are 60% more likely to provide emotional support to employees and 24% more likely to ensure their teams’ workloads are manageable, according to the new 2021 Women in the Workplace report by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, the largest study on the state of women in corporate America.
The emotional and physical implications of the duress these extra responsibilities create on women in corporate workforces, as well as the inequality of imposing unofficial DEI work upon women, was considered when creating this artifact.
This artifact is a representation of women in corporate workplaces, who feel subject to doing DEI labor. The whole artifact is on a cake platter, as women in corporate workplaces not only have a lot on their plate, but also find themselves with responsibilities such as "organizing the office party" or "starting the Birthday card", duties that do not fall under their official role. The female-coded robot also has candles on her disheveled desk in allusion to this responsibility, and is surrounded by books that are written for working women, under the guise of a push for equality that should already be present in the workplace. By juxtaposing a male-coded robot relaxed while working in the same setting as the female-coded robot, this artifact shows that while a role may be written the same for men and women, workplace expectations make that job a very different experience based on gender.
Unofficial office housework is a blatant inequity as the tasks are unpaid labor, and it's disproportionately imposed upon women. Possible courses of action include education regarding unofficial gender responsibilities within a workplace, as well as proper allocation of DEI work that is compensated and fair. By growing awareness of "The New office Housework", this predicament can be combatted so that women are paid for their work, and are able to focus on their official job roles to their full capacity.