Two of America's leading feminists are on a crusade to get the women of the world to get more sleep, The Times of London reports.
Arianna Huffington, the publisher of The Huffington Post, and Cindi Leive, the publisher of Glamour, have joined forces to identify women’s sleep deprivation as “the next feminist issue”.
And American author Naomi Wolf has taken up the cause, writing they make a persuasive case that female exhaustion is undermining women’s creativity, judgment, and relationships.
They cite studies that indicate that women are more sleep-deprived than men, including one that says American women are getting 90 minutes less than the seven to eight hours recommended for someone to be well and perform well.
“What does it profit us to win the whole world only to experience it cranky and irrational from fatigue?” Wolf wrote in a column in The Times.
But she suggested that part of the solution lies in that women should simply try do less.
“Let me explain: sleep is never just sleep. It is a metaphor. Huffington and Leive are spot-on in identifying sleep as a female problem,” she wrote.
“Women are indeed sleep-deprived and exhausted, but we need to look beneath the hours of shut-eye to what this really represents.”
Wolfe urged women to try to give themselves a break: “So tonight: run a bath. Unplug the phone. Being willing to be a little less than you can be is a form of revolution - as well as a form of luxury.
“Since those who feel truly worthy are content with being imperfect - be willing to be imperfect. And, in the meantime, sleep well.”
