In this solo episode of Feminist Founders, Faith Clarke reflects on the invisible labor women carry, the stories that connect us, and the power of collective truth-telling. Drawing from Desmond Tutu’s teaching on Ubuntu—“a person is a person through other persons”—Faith invites listeners to consider how our common humanity can be honored through deep listening, shared storytelling, and co-creation of solutions.

Faith shares her background in qualitative research, her belief that human stories are data, and how the Feminist Founders community is engaging in collective storytelling to explore invisible labor. This episode is both a personal reflection and an invitation: to join a larger conversation, contribute your story, and help co-create liberatory solutions for founders and communities.

💡 Discussed in this episode:

• The wisdom of Ubuntu and how it calls us into shared humanity
• Why listening to stories is a spiritual practice
• How invisible labor impacts women’s health and lives
• The limitations of traditional research methods and the power of lived experience
• Why collective truth-telling is essential for creating solutions
• The Feminist Founders initiative to document and share a white paper on invisible labor

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What happens when you step away from everything you’ve built—not just for a week off, but for months of deep rest and reflection?

In this episode of Feminist Founders summer series on women’s invisible labor, Becky talks with Mai-kee Tsang, who took a two-month sabbatical after seven years of running her business. What started as a response to grief became a radical reimagining of work, worth, and identity.

Together, they explore:

• How grief and pet loss led Mai-kee to create space for healing
• Why sabbaticals are not just breaks, but tools for reclaiming agency and rest
• The “ego death” of stepping away from business identity and embracing the messy middle
• The guilt and fear many entrepreneurs feel when stepping back or walking away
• How invisible labor shapes women’s relationship to work and rest
• The importance of redefining success beyond productivity and business ownership
• Why giving yourself permission to “just be” is a feminist act

Mai-kee reminds us that walking away doesn’t erase the value of what you’ve built. It can be a form of liberation, a chance to listen to yourself again, and to reimagine what’s possible when you’re no longer defined by your work.

Mai-kee Tsang is a writer, mentor, and former Sustainable Visibility® strategist. After seven years of entrepreneurship, she took a sabbatical to grieve, heal, and reconnect with her identity outside of work. Today, she continues to hold space for community through her email letters, Cup of Catch-ups, and experiments in simply being. Sign up for Mai-kee’s email list

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Host Faith Clarke sits down with burnout recovery specialist and relationship coach Jay Asooli to dig into what we often call “invisible labor”—and why Jay insists it’s more accurate to say invisibilized labor. Together, they explore the emotional, cognitive, and care work that keeps households, workplaces, and communities running—work that’s hidden in plain sight, disproportionately carried by women, non-men, and marginalized people.

Jay shares deeply personal reflections on being a family caregiver, the countless jobs rolled into that role, and how the systems around us deliberately minimize and erase this labor. She names the many categories of relational labor—repair initiation, resistance moderation, stress regulation, social hosting, educational labor—and how these patterns play out in both families and workplaces.

This is not just about naming the problem. Faith and Jay talk about how protest, grief, and awareness are radical acts of resistance, and how community care and co-creation are essential for building new ways of living and working.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted from carrying too much, unseen, or guilty for “not doing enough,” this conversation will remind you that you’re not alone—and that your labor deserves to be recognized, valued, and shared.

Discussed in This Episode:

• Why Jay calls it invisibilized labor instead of invisible labor
• How systemic oppression allocates and imposes unpaid care and emotional work
• The parallels between caregiving at home and “extra” labor in the workplace
• The hidden categories of relationship labor—from repair initiation to resistance moderation
• The role of protest, grief, and truth-telling in reclaiming our lives
• How community, curiosity, and co-created care can shift the weight

Connect with Jay Asooli:

Website | Instagram

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What happens when you’re raising young children and caring for aging parents—or even siblings with disabilities—at the same time? That’s the reality for millions of Gen Xers and millennials in the “sandwich generation.”

In this episode of Feminist Founders, part of our summer series on invisible labor, Becky talks with Anna De La Cruz, a social impact consultant, writer, and caregiver based in Seattle. Anna is the voice behind GenXandwich on Substack, where she writes candidly about navigating multi-generational caregiving while raising three kids and caring for her brother with Down syndrome.

Discussed in this episode:

• What it means to be “sandwiched” between kids, parents, and other loved ones who need care.
• Why women—especially women of color—carry the bulk of unpaid and underpaid care work, and how sexism and pay disparities reinforce that reality.
• How capitalism has failed caregivers, creating a system where care is unaffordable for families but still undervalued and underpaid for workers.
• The emotional toll of invisible labor, from guilt to burnout, and how naming it helps us fight for systemic change.
• The importance of collective care, community, and policy solutions—not just “self-care”—to support caregivers.
• Reimagining how we talk about death and aging as part of creating healthier, more honest conversations about caregiving.

Anna reminds us that making invisible labor visible isn’t just about validation—it’s about shifting culture and demanding policies that actually support people.

🎉 Read Anna’s writing at GenXandwich on Substack: https://substack.com/@genxandwich

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In this episode of Feminist Founders, Becky sits down with health and wellness coach Balu Belz to dig into the hidden weight mothers carry—at home, in business, and in society. Part of our summer series on women’s invisible labor, this conversation pulls back the curtain on the cultural conditionizng that leaves mothers unsupported, undervalued, and exhausted.

Balu shares her journey from a challenging fertility process through early motherhood, and how those experiences shaped her mission to support moms in ways that honor their individual needs and identities. Together, Becky and Balu tackle everything from the myth of “it takes a village,” to the systemic failures of maternal healthcare, to why asking for help often feels like a radical act.

This is a conversation about making the invisible visible—naming the unseen labor women perform every day, and insisting that mothers deserve support, care, and recognition. Whether you’re a parent or not, you’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of why this labor matters, how it’s tied to broader systems of inequity, and what it looks like to push back.

Discussed in This Episode:

• Balu’s path into health and wellness coaching after her own fertility and birthing experiences
• Why invisible labor is often unnamed—and how simply naming it can be transformative
• The staggering statistics about maternal support gaps: one-third of women feeling unsupported by providers during pregnancy, and one-fifth experiencing perinatal mood or anxiety disorders with less than half receiving care
• The realities of self-employment, parental leave, and running a business while mothering
• The truth about “it takes a village” and why moms actually need systemic and structural support, not platitudes
• The exploitation baked into childcare—parents overpaying, workers underpaid, and women (especially women of color) bearing the brunt
• How the pressure to “do it all” fuels shame and silence, and why giving ourselves permission to seek support matters
• What becomes possible when we make invisible labor visible

Resources mentioned:

• Connect with Balu Belz on LinkedIn
• Past episodes mentioned:
  • Toi Smith: Loving Single Black Mothers
  • Motherful: Building Villages for Single Moms

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In this solo episode, Faith Clarke breaks down the invisible labor so many of us carry—especially women with marginalized identities—and how it shapes our leadership, health, and humanity. From the exhausting calculations we make to stay safe, to the unspoken emotional labor of managing other people’s comfort, Faith exposes the quiet toll this labor takes on our bodies and businesses.

She offers clear, actionable practices for naming, tracking, and shifting these patterns—both within ourselves and our organizations. This is an episode for anyone who’s ever felt like they had to soften the blow, hold the bag, or clean up the mess… and for those of us building feminist businesses that promise to do better.

Discussed in this episode:

• The invisible labor required by people with marginalized identities to simply exist in and navigate the world
• Why women often "hold the bag" in group dynamics—and how that connects to patriarchy, power, and perceived belonging
• The unspoken calculations women make to avoid seeming “difficult” or “aggressive” at work
• How safety, identity, and marginalization intersect in workplace dynamics
• The emotional labor of navigating men’s feelings and the constant threat of backlash when setting boundaries
• The “man vs. bear” thought experiment and what it reveals about how women assess risk in everyday interactions
• Ongoing systemic violence like Canada’s “birth alert” policy and how Indigenous women are criminalized during childbirth
• How Black women’s emotions are policed and misinterpreted as aggression
• The physical, emotional, and mental health toll of invisible labor—especially on women ages 25–55
• The compounding effects of time poverty, caregiving demands, and self-neglect on women’s health
• The trap of drawing boundaries but still being asked to "soften the blow" for those with power
• Four practices to begin addressing invisible labor in your life and business.

Resources Mentioned:

• “Man vs. Bear” essay
• Canada’s “birth alert” policy
• Jay Asooli

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Grief isn’t just about death — it’s the emotional response to any kind of loss, from big life changes to daily disappointments. And for women, especially, grief often goes unseen and unspoken.

In this episode of Feminist Founders, Becky talks with Nikki the Death Doula about the heavy (and invisible) labor women carry when it comes to grief. Together, they unpack how we’re conditioned to take on everyone else’s pain, hide our own, and minimize the everyday losses that still weigh on us.

Nikki shares her experience as a death doula, what she’s learned about unrecognized grief, and the simple practices that can help us process it — including her mantra: name it to tame it. They also explore how cultural silence around miscarriage, caregiving, and “small” griefs leaves us isolated, and how community and validation can open the door to healing.

Connect with Nikki Smith:

• Website: https://www.nikkithedeathdoula.com
• Good Grief with Nikki the Death Doula: https://www.nikkithedeathdoula.com/podcast
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-smith-26203b38/

Discussed in this episode:

• What grief really is (and why it’s not just about death)
• The “invisible labor” of carrying everyone else’s grief
• How women are socialized to silence or downplay their own pain
• The compounding effect of unprocessed grief
• Miscarriage, caregiving, and other under‑acknowledged losses
• “Name it to tame it”: a simple practice to process daily grief
• Comparative suffering (aka the grief Olympics) and why it harms us
• The healing power of validation and community

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In this solo episode of Feminist Founders’ summer series on women’s invisible labor, Becky shares a deeply personal practice she’s relied on for years: quarterly solo hotel retreats.

Recorded across two days in real time, Becky opens up about why she prioritizes this ritual, the family grief and financial stress that made this one especially necessary, and how these retreats help her reset from the relentless invisible labor of parenting, partnership, and work.

From perimenopause symptoms to parenting burnout, from the quiet joy of lowering a thermostat to 60 degrees to the relief of binge-watching shows alone in peace, this episode is an intimate reminder that self-care isn’t selfish — it’s survival.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:
• Why Becky takes solo hotel retreats every quarter (and why two nights are non‑negotiable)
• The invisible labor women carry in parenting, marriage, and caregiving
• The guilt that arises when prioritizing your own needs — and how to work through it
• How grief, perimenopause, and financial strain compound emotional labor
• Small ways to carve out restorative space, even if a hotel isn’t possible
• Why granting yourself permission to rest can be revolutionary

Resources & Links
• Join the Messy Liberation Coaches Circle
• Heather Vickery's episode on retreats

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