By Narimane AlameWomen’s Empowerment Coach & Writer

“She doesn’t work.” I used to hear that sentence all the time growing up. About my mom. About my aunt. About so many women around me.

But let me tell you what I saw:

A woman up before everyone else, managing everything.Cooking, cleaning, planning, reminding, driving, calming, stretching every “lira,” and holding every person in the house when life got hard.

And I always thought: If that’s not work, I don’t know what is!

The Lie We All Learned Too WellIn Lebanon, and honestly?

In so many parts of the world, we learned to divide women into two categories:The ones who “work” (outside the house),And the ones who “don’t” (a.k.a. the housewives).

But what we missed, or maybe what we were taught to miss, is that the ones who “don’t work”… are the ones doing everything.

Let’s call it what it is: invisible labor.Unpaid, unnoticed, and yet somehow expected.Expected to always be available. Always giving. Always strong.But never tired. Never frustrated.

And when they are tired? People whisper that they’re “nagging.” Or worse, “ungrateful.”

What We Fail to See

We see the clean house,But not the three hours it took to clean it.We see the birthday celebration,But not the mental load of planning every detail.We see the smiling kids,But not the three-hour drive at 4 PM for their activities.

We forget that behind every “functional” home is a woman doing 100 jobs without a title, a paycheck, or sometimes even a “thank you.”

This labor isn’t extra. It’s essential.It’s what allows everything else to run, and yet it’s rarely recognized as real work.

And If I’m Being Honest…

I didn’t always see it this way. I grew up watching women hold entire households, but I didn’t fully feel the weight of it, not until I became one of them.

Suddenly, life happened, and I found myself juggling everyone’s needs, trying to meet expectations that felt... endless, yet somehow unseen.

And I found myself thinking: “Is this all really supposed to fall on me?”

As a women’s empowerment coach, I’ve realized this burden isn’t unique to me, or even to a certain country.

Women everywhere are carrying this invisible load in silence, with pride, and sometimes with an extra guilt they can’t even explain.

So, what’s the solution?Honestly… I don’t think there’s just one.

But I believe the first step is awareness.

To name it. To talk about it. To raise social consciousness.

Because when we see something clearly, we can no longer ignore it.

Maybe we are the generation that starts “the unlearning”, for good.Maybe someday, our children won’t have to unlearn what we were taught.Maybe they’ll grow up knowing that all labor has value, seen or unseen