For years, women have been given the same advice: You need to find work-life balance.
If you feel overwhelmed, the assumption is simple: You just need to get better at balancing everything.
But let’s pause for a second and ask a more honest question. What if balance was never the answer in the first place? Let’s be clear…women are “bad at balance.” But the premise itself is flawed.
Where the Idea of “Balance” Came From
The concept of work-life balance really gained traction in the 1970s and 1980s.
More women were entering the workforce, and advocates were pushing for things like maternity leave, flexible schedules, and protections for working mothers. At the time, it was an important conversation.
Women were stepping into careers while still managing family life, so the cultural message became:
You can have both. You just need to balance it. It sounded empowering. And in many ways, it was meant to be.
But there was a quiet assumption baked into the idea. Balance assumes the equation is fair. That the weight on both sides of the scale is equal. That the system was built with women in mind. It wasn’t.
Even then, women were expected to work and carry the majority of caregiving, household management, and emotional labor. The model never actually changed. We just added more responsibilities to the same person.
Fast Forward to Today
Now look at what many women are carrying.
Careers.
Kids.
Aging parents.
Leadership roles.
Household logistics.
Emotional labor.
The invisible expectation to excel at all of it.
And somehow the advice is still the same: “Just find better balance.” As if the problem is our time management. As if the solution is simply becoming more efficient, more organized, more disciplined. But that framing completely misses the point. The problem isn’t that women are bad at balance.
The problem is that we keep asking women to contort themselves to fit outdated models and unrealistic expectations. So you can succeed inside a system that was never designed for the life you’re actually living.
Maybe It’s Not Women Who Need to Change
At some point we have to stop adjusting women…and start questioning the standard itself. Because progress isn’t women becoming more skilled at surviving impossible expectations. Progress is changing what success demands in the first place. Rewriting what leadership looks like. Building models of work and life that reflect the reality of modern women’s lives. Not the assumptions of a different era.
The Real Shift
You don’t need better balance. You need better strategy.
Strategy around what actually matters.
Strategy around where your energy goes.
Strategy around what you’re no longer willing to carry.
Because when your energy is everywhere, your presence is nowhere. And no woman was meant to build a powerful life while walking a tightrope. Especially not in heels. Holding everyone else’s sh!t.
