This is exactly how much more time it takes to be a woman (and yes, it’s shocking)
As a woman, I’ve sure as heck been jealous of how quickly my partner (a guy) seems to be able to get ready and go about his daily life. On the other hand, it’s definitely a stereotype that women “take longer to get ready than men,” which has been joked about and parodied ad nauseam for, probably, as long as there have been jokes. Of course, said stereotypes fail to take into consideration societal pressures on women to look a certain way, groom themselves a certain way, or dress a certain way.
There is even legit research that shows women who wear make-up to work are paid more than women who don’t, for all of y’all who are inclined to say “Well, just ignore those societal norms!” All of these things have an obvious impact on how long it takes a woman to go through her daily routines.
Glamour debuted a cool new project that actually calculated how much time it takes to be a woman vs. how much time it takes to be a man, over the course of one year. And the disparity is a lot greater than you might think.
The video follows two people, one man and one woman, as they go about their daily lives. Glamour used the average amounts of time for each individual activity, for each gender.
And a quick caveat – of course, not every woman follows every part of this demonstrated woman’s routine. Many women choose to go makeup-free à la Alicia Keys, rarely shop for clothes, don’t get mani-pedis, or are blessed with low-maintenance skin. All of this obviously cuts down on the time that Glamour calculated for their average woman.
They broke it all down activity by activity, even getting as detailed as comparing shampoo times (an average of 3 minutes per shampoo for a woman and 2 minutes for a man). While some time differences don’t seem substantial, like that shampoo stat, they actually add up quite a bit. For that shampoo example (based on an average of 183 shampoos per year), women spend almost three hours more per year – just on washing their hair. Other, more gender-neutral activities – like brushing your teeth and using mouthwash – are about equal.
But, of course, a woman’s hair and makeup routine can really add up, significantly increasing a woman’s average morning routine time. Hair and makeup alone adds an estimated 39 minutes a day to a woman’s time.
That’s over 237 hours or almost 10 days. OMG!!
Beyond the technically optional activities like hair and make-up, there are plenty of things outside of a woman’s control that take extra time. Everyone’s favorite time waster, waiting on line for public bathrooms, averaged about 10 minutes for women and 0 for men by Glamour‘s estimate.
Guesstimating about 104 times spent on a way-too-long bathroom line at the local bar, this “costs” women over 1,000 extra minutes per year – over 16 hours.
The final tally? It takes a woman 24 days, 7 hours and 40 minutes to be a woman – versus 9 days, 5 hours, and 27 minutes for a man. That’s a huge difference.
