When it comes to gender inequality, the work vs. free time gap is one of the most alarming. According to the World Economic Forum, the amount of extra work women do — when you count paid and unpaid work like housework and child care — adds up to 39 days a year more than men. Even when it comes to playtime, this inequality persists. Women, a new study published in the Journal of Sex Research has shown, are expected to do the majority (and often all) the work required so that heterosexual couples can have sex without making babies. In a paper titled “More Than a Physical Burden: Women’s Mental and Emotional Work in Preventing Pregnancy,” sociologist Katrina Kimport — who works as an associate professor at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco — documented the way that women are tasked with the majority of physical work required to prevent pregnancy and also expected to do most of the emotional and mental labor as well.

Read more at www.salon.com