The festive season often brings joy, but for many Canadian women, it also ushers in a wave of overwhelming pressure. This year, the stress began early, not from a long gift list, but from a social media feed flooded with calls to boycott major retailers like Amazon, Home Depot, and Target.
The Crushing Weight of "Perfect" Consumption
Well before Thanksgiving, Instagram became a minefield of ethical consumption demands. Posts dictated which companies to avoid, often extending to shipping carriers like UPS and FedEx over their contracts. The advice was exhaustive: stop overconsuming, shop only local, make everything from scratch, or give thrifted gifts. Some even suggested abandoning gifts altogether.
While the intent behind more intentional purchasing is valid, this guidance is presented as a universal solution. It ignores a critical reality: women are the primary drivers of holiday consumerism, controlling an estimated 85% of household purchases. The added mental load of researching ethical alternatives, budgeting for often higher costs, and tracking shipping delays falls disproportionately on them.
The Holiday Mental Load is a Woman's Job
Women's statistically outsized share of household emotional labor intensifies during the holidays. The task list extends far beyond playing Santa for the kids. It encompasses buying for extended family and friends, managing holiday cards and party RSVPs, planning meals, upholding traditions, and ensuring the household staples don't run out.
This holiday magic-making happens on top of the existing, often skewed, division of domestic labor. School emails, laundry, and dishes don't pause for the season. The call to handmake gifts, like staying up until 11 p.m. making marshmallows for teachers, is typically answered by women, adding physical and emotional exhaustion to an already packed schedule.
When Theory Collides With Reality
In theory, supporting local businesses and rejecting blind consumerism is ideal. In practice, for a parent juggling band concert bake sales, piano recital potlucks, class parties, and hosting guests, it becomes an unsustainable demand. The desire to create a meaningful, ethical season clashes with the limitations of time, money, and mental bandwidth.
The solution is not for individuals to overhaul their habits in the busiest month of the year under a cloud of guilt. Sustainable, small changes over time will have a greater impact than drastic, pressured shifts. Most critically, change must include redistributing the responsibility for gift-giving and holiday planning.
Choosing Sustainability Over Guilt
For many women stretched to their limit, the focus must shift to what is sustainable for their energy, budget, and time—even if it means sometimes making the "less ethical" choice for survival. The path forward requires a collective effort to distribute the holiday load more equally. Only then can the space for truly intentional consumption be created, without it becoming one more impossible task on a woman's endless to-do list.
