There’s a piece of advice frequently spouted by “relationship experts,” and it goes like this: never keep score in your relationship. Essentially, this nugget of wisdom admonishes us not to keep track of who does more in a relationship – and never to bring it up with one’s partner.
Given that women do far more domestic labour and handle a larger percentage of childcare in heterosexual relationships, the subtext is pretty clear: women with male partners are being told not to mention our invisible labour. And that’s a big part of why this labour stays invisible.
Unfortunately for women and gender minorities, telling us NOT to keep score in unequal relationships breeds, well, inequality. And not just in our personal lives.
When women, girls, and gender minorities are encouraged not to keep score, we end up with a society where it’s taboo to talk about the inequities that shape our lives. The invisible emotional labour women are expected to perform at home includes planning birthday parties for the children, caring for ailing relatives, and being the person who knows where the scissors are kept. In the workforce, women are expected to do very similar things in our professional relationships. Even in our places of work, we still plan parties for colleagues’ birthdays, purchase and circulate Get Well cards for sick co-workers, and yes, they are probably the only people who know where the office’s scissors are kept.
But what would happen if women did keep score? And not just at home and at our jobs, but in society in general? What facts and statistics would society be forced to confront on a more regular basis? Well, we would remind the government that women still earn only 84 cents for every dollar a man does – and this gap is far more pronounced for racialized women. We would point out that women also see their wages take a hit if and when they have children.
Another problem that should receive more publicity is the epidemic of intimate partner violence in Canada. There is also a crisis regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit+ individuals – an ongoing issue that creates unfathomable pain and suffering. Indigenous individuals experience less favourable outcomes when they give birth, too. Additionally, access to safe abortion is inaccessible for too many indigenous people who want it.
So, why are these myriad problems routinely overlooked? Why is there a concerning lack of policy solutions coming from our leaders? There are many reasons, ranging from the intersectional forces of misogyny and racism to the fact that we, as women, are socialized not to complain. Even when the complaint is that patriarchy is both literally and figuratively killing so many of us. However, I believe part of the cause regarding the lack of public investment in making the world a better place for women is this: Canada now ranks 71st regarding the percentage of parliamentarians who are women. That statistic brings me to the last problematic relationship I want to discuss, the unequal relationship between women and gender minorities and the government that the social contract says should represent us…
It should be a national source of shame that only 30.3 per cent of our MPs are women and gender minorities in the year 2026. In a country where women make up more than half the population, it is flatly undemocratic for us to make up such a small minority of parliamentarians. Moreover, one wonders if our government might do more to alleviate gender inequality if there were more people in government. After all, the gents who currently make our laws do not have to worry about maternal mortality or being expected to do extra labour around the workplace without receiving adequate compensation. Case in point: under the status quo, the Honourable Rechie Valdez doesn’t even get to devote her entire day to her role as Minister of Women and Gender Equality, because she must pull double duty as the Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism).
Women are being failed at every level in this country, from the domestic realm to federal politics. The social contract isn’t working for women and gender minorities. And the solution, as far as I can see it, is for us to keep score the way one would at a hockey game. I believe the only way we canhope to beat patriarchy (and yes, I know this will take time) is if they know we all know they’re rigging the game…
So, ladies, the next time someone asks you NOT to track the difference between what you contribute to the world and how it (mis)treats you, tell them to f-ck right off! Whether you’re keeping track of how often your spouse forgets to walk the dog or how few women are currently sitting in the House of Commons, it’s data we should be counting!
