What exactly is hustle culture?

According to Joe Ryle, the Director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, it is about ‘work dominating your time in such an unnatural way that we have no time to live our lives.’

Kate Northrup, the author of the book Do Less: Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management, describes hustle culture as carrying ‘this overarching belief that the more you do, the more valuable you are.’

The entire concept of hustle culture glorifies overworking.

It awards people with a badge of honour as they work to burn out, trying to keep up with everyone around them and prove themselves and their position in their company.

"Everyone is doing more, so you should do more."

This only instils a negative working environment, which will harm mental health. Nicole Cammack, a clinical psychologist and the CEO of Black Mental Wellness, describes the feeling as becoming almost like an ‘outsider’ because if you’re not being ‘a team player,’ and ‘everyone is doing more, so you should do more.’

However, Hustle culture affects women like a double-edged sword. The societal expectation for women to achieve perfection in beauty, relationships, and family life significantly contributes to the pressures of hustle culture.

This relentless pursuit of an idealised image can have profound effects on women's mental and physical well-being. This presents a different kind of pressure compared to what men typically face, as they simply must be ‘the boss.’ Sure, they must present themselves well, but their standard of beauty is lower than a woman’s.

But why do women feel this way?

It may be due to the systematic disadvantages placed on women in the workplace. In the 2025 People at Work ADP Research, 28% of women surveyed worldwide said they are paid unfairly. In 15 of the 34 markets surveyed, more than 30 percent of women said they are paid unfairly. Men reached the 30 percent threshold in only five markets. Perhaps this draw to hustle culture is an attempt to make ourselves heard and balance the fairness.

As well as hustle culture affecting the workplace, we must also question where the personal and societal pressure arises. The double burden of hustle culture may stem from young girls being bombarded with societal expectations of beauty. This preserves an unattainable image of flawlessness that young girls internalise as the norm.

The Superwoman: the achievement women reach once we’ve successfully perfected and balanced our roles as professionals, homemakers, and mothers...

Most of us will be familiar with the concept of the ‘superwoman.’ It’s the achievement women reach once we’ve successfully perfected and balanced our roles as professionals, homemakers, and mothers

The ease with which this is presented is often untrue and exaggerated, affecting a woman’s mental health and energy at the very least. This isn’t to say it’s unachievable; of course, it is, but the presentation of women having to perform flawlessly in all these phases of life is.

Going back to societal pressure, Naomi Wolf expresses a cause of this in her book, The Beauty Myth. She talks of media and society; however, I believe that current-day social media is the primary fuel that fires this.

Various platforms portray that women must attain perfection in multiple aspects of our lives, in the almost constant exposure to idealised routines, which are always exaggerated.

The pressure from this illusion of unrealistic expectations of success, in both private and working life, can especially affect young women starting to build their careers.

Of course, this isn’t a new thing...

In the US case of Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989), the Supreme Court found sex discrimination due to a female employee being rejected for a promotion partly because of the lack of ‘femininity’ in her appearance. Beauty standards have always been known to potentially adversely affect women’s careers.

Today, the TikTok and Instagram trends of the ‘Romanisation’ of corporate careers and of generating excitement in the workplace often create unrealistic expectations, pressuring us to elude a polished image, which is never realistic when starting out in anything new.

In today’s online society, the influence of hustle culture and the glorification of overworking and striving for success is still apparent however, there is also the growth of Millennial and Gen-Z rejection of this concept.

There is a lean into the work-life balance, focusing on mental health – a growing movement of the ‘quiet-life’ and ‘soft-life.’ This is a refusal of hustle culture, to not give into the constant noise and pressure of high-paced environments that the corporate life tends to encompass.

It is the idea of managing both work and personal life in a way that neither dominates the other but instead focuses on the importance of self-care.

While these ideas are incredibly important, they can be considered performative, just like hustle culture on social media, which millions of young women see. Women are now forced to present themselves as gentle and relaxed to appear ‘socially perfect’, always at an internal balance; at least, that is how social media presents this.

The question is:
How can we challenge the pressures of hustle culture if we don’t first acknowledge the extra burden placed on women?

As Karyn White said, we’re not your superwoman.

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