Female Fatigue: On Women's Exhaustion

As a general practitioner, I find that exhaustion is one of the five major issues that bring women into my office. The other major issues are sleep disorders, hormonal concerns, infectious diseases, and pain. «I have so little energy», many women say, or «I can barely get through the day,» or «I’m constantly tired, like I’m on autopilot». Most of these women have different feelings and thoughts about this than I do. They fear that something is wrong with them. By the way, men sometimes come to my practice with these symptoms as well.

Vitamin deficiency? Not enough minerals? Hormones? Quite a few healthcare professionals capitalize on this hope, ordering expensive lab tests and making dubious diagnoses. Influencers and dietary supplement manufacturers are making a fortune off this topic and shaping how we’re supposed to think about exhaustion. And it’s easy to blame «the hormones». Right now, perimenopause—the transitional phase leading up to menopause—is on everyone’s lips. But at this point, we should take a moment to breathe and, with a touch of inner nonchalance, add a question mark, so we can revisit the topic later on.

A variety of causes

Yes, there are deficiency symptoms, and there are hormonal and other conditions that can cause fatigue. Some are easy to diagnose, while others are a bit trickier. Most of these medical causes are relatively rare.

Very often, after a thorough medical evaluation, the findings that remain are primarily those that actually constitute a societal syndrome: being overwhelmed by internal expectations that have been learned and external pressures that have been imposed. Constant availability. Too little space to be at peace with oneself, to develop one’s own interests, ideals, and sources of strength. Feelings of guilt that flare up immediately when one does decline support because one wants to continue something else in peace.

Regeneration as potential

Women have bodies that are highly capable of regeneration. Between puberty and menopause, the female body is in a state of constant change. Each cycle is accompanied by the rhythm of becoming and passing away. In every cycle, at the time of ovulation, the body prepares for the arrival of a child and then regenerates back to its natural state. It is a gesture of opening up and returning to oneself, a dynamic of feminine life forces. However, this creative power often falls by the wayside in the daily lives of many women.

Of course, women’s exhaustion is no coincidence. For women in particular, midlife is a time of constantly being on the go, filled to the brim with responsibilities. Often there are children at home, work is demanding, loans need to be paid off, their own parents need attention, and the preschool needs a contribution to the potluck. On top of that, there are parent-teacher conferences, orthodontic appointments, and laundry. The list is far from complete, but just reading it makes you feel the pressure.

These are all the necessities that are not just a mental burden, but a very real one. And far too often, they are borne primarily by women or mothers. Of course, I also know families that don’t follow traditional roles. Some are experimenting with a more balanced division of responsibilities. In very few cases, the mother pursues her career while the father takes care of family matters.

Numbers that describe everyday life

Here are a few reliable figures from a 2022 survey by the German Federal Statistical Office: Mothers perform just under forty hours of unpaid care work per week, while fathers perform just under twenty-five hours. The amount of paid work mothers do depends heavily on the age of their youngest child. If the youngest child is under six years old, mothers work an average of 13.5 hours in paid employment; later on, the average rises to 22.5 hours. Regardless of their children’s ages, fathers work 33.5 hours per week in paid employment. We should not forget that not only single parents but also families in difficult financial situations often have a significantly higher workload.

Traditional venue Waldorfschule

And what is the situation like at your Waldorf school? My impression—as a Waldorf student in the 1980s, as a school docotr in the 2010s, and as a parent at the school until two years ago—is that Waldorf schools are even more traditional than the average school.

We can approach these questions from a pragmatic, observational perspective. What percentage of parents at your parent-teacher conferences are mothers? What percentage of parents helping set up the buffet are fathers? Who does the work for the Christmas market? Who accompanies the children to the Advent garden, or picks up a child with a stomachache from school? And, my favorite question in this context: Have you ever dared to send your birthday child to a Waldorf school with store-bought Berliners, butter pretzels, or marshmallow kisses? And if so: Are you a man or a woman?

It’s easy for a father to earn «hero points» when he changes his baby’s diaper in public or brings out a homemade cake. People are quick to overlook his little slip-ups—like forgetting a birthday present for his son’s friend. How comforting it can be, then, to support one another in solidarity.

Internal factors: Influences and priorities

However, women’s exhaustion also has internal causes. To put it very broadly, boys tend to grow up with the societal expectation to «make something» of themselves, to become «someone». Girls, on the other hand, are more often expected to take care of others, to be «there» when they are needed. Waldorf education, in its origins, broke free from these expectations by not only focusing on the individual child beyond gender roles but also by providing all children with a broad education. For example, all children learn knitting and blacksmithing equally. Many of the early anthroposophists were emancipated women with careers of their own. Developments during the Nazi era and the postwar period set these modern trends back significantly.

Women have rarely been taught to prioritize their own concerns, ideals, and passions. It is not only physically that women are constituted in such a way that they possess the potential for sharing and nurturing. Among many other things, pregnancy also means providing a child with space, warmth, and nourishment. Creating spaces that are warm and nurturing is also, on a psychological level, a capacity that we tend to view or attribute as “«feminine»—even though it is, of course, not strictly tied to having two X chromosomes. But who fills these spaces, who uses them, and who has control over them?

What really helps

If we women want to feel less exhausted, it’s not about going to a yoga class once, drinking a cup of tea in the sun, or delegating two or three tasks. Rather, it’s about creating more space where our own inner lives can flourish again—where calm, reflection, and the seemingly useless can find a place—where there’s room for an idea, an impulse, or inspiration. It may be that, in this state of mind, a concern, a passion, or a joy comes our way—something we want to pursue for a while longer. Does it have something to do with the forest or the coast? With colors or music? With strength and movement? With our friends? And what if we nurture and nourish this concern? We don’t always manage to muster the remaining strength needed for it. At that point, at the latest, it’s advisable to see a doctor—or perhaps consider anthroposophic treatment.

Perimenopause: Be aware, but don't overreact

It may well be that all these questions coincide with perimenopause. We are currently witnessing a surge of interest in hormonal processes. This is important, not least because it has long been a neglected topic in medicine. However, a thoughtful and mindful approach is called for. For ever since the discovery of menstrual cycle hormones, women have consistently been reduced to their hormones in terms of their abilities and characteristics. For example, Dr. Edgar Berman, a Democratic U.S. politician in the early 1970s, declared women unfit for higher political office due to their «raging hormonal imbalances». The natural symphony of the hormonal cycle, as well as the changing phases of life with their hormonal expressions, are still primarily described today using terms such as «hormonal dysregulation», «hormonal chaos», or «hormonal deficiency». How about using terms like «hormonal vitality», «hormonal potential», or «hormonal rest phase» instead? We might then learn to recognize the powerful social potential of female adaptability.

Perhaps you’ll be inspired to consider how all the wonderful celebrations and parent involvement activities could be structured in a way that opens up more opportunities for fathers to provide warmth and nurture. What would it take for mothers to have more flexibility in managing their time and to pursue their professional development with a clear conscience? What could change so that fewer Waldorf teachers fall into states of profound exhaustion? After all, the answer often lies not with the individual, but with the community.