The conversation about the invisible workload women carry was sparked by a comic about mental load.
When women are employed, they remember their mother-in-law's birthday, know what's in the pantry and organize the plumbing. Sometimes this mental load is not noticed.
Women do more chores than men.
The recent Pandemic has made women feel exhausted, anxious, and resentful.
We wondered if women had any left for sex after all this work.
Mental load affects intimate relationships. More than 50 percent of women have low sexual desire and it's hard to treat.
In our study we found that women in equal relationships are more satisfied with their relationships and feel more sexual desire than women in equal relationships.
It is difficult to find low desire. Sexual desire is more than just the desire to have sex, it's a state of being and a need for close quarters.
Female desire can change in response to life experiences and relationships.
Low desire in women is more likely to be caused by relationship dissatisfaction than it is by age or menopause. Relationship factors are important to understand female sexual desire.
Deficiency desire is the sexual desire one feels for another, while solo desire is about individual feelings.
dyadic desire is related to the dynamics of the relationship, while solo desire is more of a feeling than a need.
Our research looked at how fairness in relationships might affect desire.
More than 300 Australian women were asked about their desire and relationships.
Those who had more leisure time, those who organized social activities and those who had more housework were all assessed.
Three groups were compared by us.
The differences in relationship equity were explored.
The results were very clear. The study found that women who rated their relationships as equal reported greater relationship satisfaction and higher dyadic desire than other women.
The partner's work group was small enough to not make much of a difference.
The women's work group saw their dyadic desire diminish. The group was not as satisfied with their relationships as a whole.
When we looked at women's solo desire, we found something intriguing. We found that fairness did not have a significant impact on solo desire.
It's possible that women's low desire isn't an internal sexual problem, but rather one that requires effort from both partners.
There are other relationship factors. Children lead to lower relationship equity and lower sexual desire for women.
The relationship length was a factor. Research shows long-term relationships are associated with decreasing desire for women, and this is due to the tedium of over-familiarity.
Our research shows that relationship boredom isn't the reason for women's lack of interest in sex.
Women's desire is lowered when some relationships continue for a long time. Women take on managing their partner's relationships as well as their own.
Women tend to do more household tasks over time than men.
Same-sex couples have a better relationship.
The link between equity and desire for women in same-sex relationships was the same as it was for Heteronormative couples.
Women's satisfaction and sexual desire are dependent on a sense of fairness.
The amount of work women have to take on in relationships may be a response to low desire in women.
The link between relationship satisfaction and female sexual desire has been firmly established in previous research but our findings explain how this dynamic works, which has repercussions on their desire for their partner.
We could run trials to see if lowering women's mental load results in increased sexual desire.
If a sample of women report low sexual desire, we could have a work and mental load ban for them.
Women's sexual partners might be able to do the dishes tonight.
The senior lecturer in psychology at the university and the PhD candidate are both from the university.
Under a Creative Commons license, this article is re-posted. The original article is worth a read.
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