Closed Facebook groups offer respite for stressed-out women. But running them involves yet more unseen labour

Would you share your most intimate thoughts with strangers? For many women, during the pandemic and associated lockdowns, closed Facebook groups have been a place to do just that. These groups offer a chance to escape the house virtually and spend time with like-minded souls, sometimes chatting, often venting, and seeking solidarity in virtual sisterhood. Mental health issues, chronic illness, domestic violence, children’s illnesses and issues, divorce, death, infidelity: these are just some of the issues discussed in these groups, along with the more mundane minutiae of life.