It goes without saying that ‘not all men’, but the data on the gendered division of labour doesn’t lie. In fact, it paints a very bleak picture.

While Christmas is a time of enjoyment, jollity and feasting, if you’re a woman, it often involves a disproportionate amount of domestic grunt work. Even though attitudes towards gender roles have become more liberal over the years, women are still doing the vast majority of chores, particularly during the festive period. Research has shown that we handle virtually all aspects of holiday prep – buying and decorating the tree, sending cards, buying the food, cooking dinner on Christmas Day – at a significantly higher proportion than men. While a 1990 study found that Christmas shopping was widely construed as “women’s work”, and that women were much more likely than men to take responsibility for it, little has changed more than two decades later. Once again, this year more women than men will buy gifts, all while continuing not to get enough credit for it.

We need to talk about the gendered division of labour at Christmas