Unit 5  Could this meeting be an email?

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Building on what you explored in Units 3 and 4, this unit continues to examine how online work practices can reinforce or challenge gender inequalities. In this unit, we will explore how time management in organisations impacts gender differently, and how efficient meeting planning can contribute to greater equity in both the workplace and the home. Understanding how time and gender shape our experiences in online meetings is essential for promoting fairer and more inclusive digital interactions, which is the core objective of this course.

Time is a limited and valuable resource and its distribution is not neutral: women continue to carry a double shift between paid work and domestic responsibilities. Hochschild and Machung (2012) show that, even when both partners work full-time, women spend on average about 15 more hours per week on housework than men. Over a year, this adds up to nearly a whole extra month of work. This ‘second shift’ reduces women’s time for rest, personal interests and career opportunities. But the imbalance is not only about chores at home. Women are also more often expected to take care of the emotional side of family life – keeping relationships smooth, managing conflicts and remembering important details that keep the household running. The same pattern appears in the workplace: women are more likely to do tasks such as supporting colleagues, mentoring or organising office activities, which are valuable but often invisible and unrewarded. This shows that gender inequality in how time and effort are distributed goes beyond domestic work and continues in professional settings.

The lack of regulation of meeting times and their excessive duration can reinforce these inequalities, significantly affecting the work–life balance. Women are often more heavily impacted by long or irregular meetings because they already carry what Hochschild and Machung (2012) call the ‘second shift’: the combination of paid work and the greater share of household and caregiving responsibilities. This means that time lost in unnecessary or late meetings directly reduces the limited hours they have available for rest, family or professional development. In this way, unregulated meeting culture does not affect all employees equally. It reinforces existing gender inequalities by consuming women’s already limited time, while placing additional emotional demands on them in professional environments.

Additionally, you will analyse how meetings become a space where gender dynamics play a crucial role, whether through the unequal distribution of speaking time, the invisibility of women's voices or the impact they have on personal life. While optimising meetings for business outcomes is incredibly important, it is also essential to recognise that meetings provide social benefits, such as fostering a sense of belonging and building relationships within teams. The approach used should therefore balance efficiency with these relational aspects, ensuring that meetings are not only productive but also inclusive, respectful of everyone’s time and supportive of positive team dynamics. In this unit, through practical tools, you will learn how to structure and facilitate meetings that not only achieve business objectives but also promote gender equity, ensure all voices are heard and create an inclusive environment.

Welcome from the Unit 5 authors

Listen to the unit authors introducing themselves and sharing what they enjoyed most about the GEiO research project.

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Transcript

Pía Podestá González

PÍA PODESTÁ GONZÁLEZ

Hello, we are the team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and we have created this part of the course so that you can explore online interactions in much greater depth from a gender equality perspective.

Adriana Gil Juarez

ADRIANA GIL JUAREZ

Hello everyone, I’m Adriana Gil Juárez, and I’m an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, here in Catalonia, Spain. I am the principal investigator at this university for the project Gender-Equitable Interactions Online (GEIO, for its initials in English).

What I have enjoyed most about the project is getting to know and work with the different research groups that make up GEIO. They are an incredible team.

Pía Podestá González

PÍA PODESTÁ GONZÁLEZ

I’m Pía, a postdoctoral researcher at the UAB, and my favourite part of the project has been reading and analysing the stories written by the participants together as a team. They have been very interesting.

Verónica Blázquez Pla

VERÓNICA BLÁZQUEZ PLA

Hello, I’m Verónica Blázquez, and I am involved in the project as a senior research support technician. My favourite part of this project is feeling that our research can have a real impact. Knowing that what we do can contribute to new insights is highly motivating.

Today we will explore how time management in organisations affects women and men differently, and how efficient planning of meetings can foster gender equity both at work and at home.

We will look at theoretical and practical tools to make meetings more productive, inclusive and equitable, ensuring that all voices are heard.

By the end of the session, you will have the knowledge to organise meetings that not only achieve business goals but also promote gender equity and a collaborative and respectful working environment.

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