This week, I’m talking about Human Giver Syndrome and the ways women get sucked into doing work for other people’s organizations. I talk about ways I got hijacked by other folks’ agendas into doing volunteer work that doesn’t actually align with my values and beliefs. Specifically, I’m looking at AYSO, Girl Scout cookies and the frenzied hell that is cookie season, and the PTA membership drive. 

I learned about Human Giver Syndrome in Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. I have not finished reading this book yet but I have already learned so much.

This is how the authors (they are twins!) define Human Giver Syndrome:

In Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, philosopher Kate Manne describes a system in which one class of people, the “human givers,” are expected to offer their time, attention, affection, and bodies willingly, placidly, to the other class of people, the ‘human beings.’ The implication in these terms is that human beings have a moral obligation to be or express their humanity, while human givers have the moral obligation to give their humanity to the human beings. Guess which one women are.

Burnout: The secret to unlocking the stress cycle, xii.

I am coming to terms with the fact that I suffer from Human Giver Syndrome and have been shaped by the patriarchy’s values. I have so often felt guilty for the time I spend on my creative pursuits, beating myself up for neglecting the housework so I can write books and podcast. That’s because I was raised in a culture shaped by Human Giver Syndrome and was taught “to prioritize being pretty, happy, calm, generous and attentive to the needs of others, above anything else.” Burnout, pg. 63.

I don’t say this during the podcast episode, but damn, I’m sick of being a Human Giver who constantly depletes herself to satisfy other folks’ agendas. Going forward, I want to pay more attention to the reason I do things and make sure my volunteer work aligns with my values, not someone else’s. And while I’m at it, I want to be a bad ass, not a calm, pretty woman who pours her energy into meeting the needs of others, at the expense of her sanity and mental health.