Santa is a woman? Why doesn't she just tell Mr Claus what to do

Last week, the Financial Times published a column in Tim Harford's Undercover Economist series entitled "Santa Claus is still a woman". Harford explores the economics literature on gifting and concludes, without much surprise, that women have made Christmas 'magical' for a long time and continue to do so.

Ms Claus, come 1st December every year.

So is the best advice for Ms Claus to tell Santa to get on with it? Probably not. The most interesting aspect he mentions is around the relationship investment that gifts represent: all the little unwritten rules and norms about what it is appropriate to gift, combined with the anticipating and researching what people would actually enjoy as gifts. Harford quotes research that indicates men tend to buy for gifts they would enjoy (presumably with the intended recipient), whereas considerations for women sounded more like advanced project management, reflecting interests, appropriateness, use value, and overall cost.

With this long list of considerations, it's not something to delegate that easily. At least not without the fear that some of the criteria and considerations may be lost on the way. In my research for rescAIle, I’ve heard this again and again:

“I could delegate… but would it be done as well as if I did it myself?”

This question reveals three overlapping realities. Understanding them is crucial, both to grasp why the mental load persists, and to see the potential of a solution like rescAIle.

1. This isn’t about talent, i t’s about experience

It’s often assumed the person managing tasks at home is simply more organised or naturally gifted (a curse rather than a gift, reallly ...). But what many women I speak to say is far subtler: It’s that over the years, they’ve done these tasks again and again. They’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. They’ve tuned the family routine, adapted to the kids’ needs, and internalised countless small rhythms. That accumulated experience becomes expectation.

With rescAIle, the aim is to capture that experiential knowledge. All the unwritten notes, the household hacks, the rituals can be held in the 'second brain', so rescAIle can take on some of the researching, planning and scheduling, but also so that anyone in the household can pick up tasks without needing years of background or a long and potentially painful 'handover' conversation.

2. The “boring stuff” is often deeply meaningful

From the outside, organising school lunches or picking gifts may seem trivial. But the women I speak to understand something that often goes unnoticed: those small tasks shape emotional wellbeing, security, and stability.

A child arriving on time with the right kit. A partner not scrambling at the last minute. Bringing the family together for the 'special moments' we all talk about, but only few understand need to be organised and followed up. The quiet reassurance that someone has “thought ahead.”

Often it’s not about enjoyment or flashiness; rather, it's about love, continuity, and emotional care.

rescAIle doesn’t aim to make these tasks glamorous. It aims to make them visible, shareable, if anything more manageable through the use of AI where appropriate. The point is that they keep their meaning but not on a single person's shoulders.

3. The hesitation to delegate isn’t just logistical, it carries cultural weight

Saying “I don’t have the headspace right now” can feel like admitting weakness, particularly when you are the have-it-all superwoman to everyone (even when you're buckling under the pressure). The thing about expectations is that they become a straightjacket very quickly. Once you have done something for a long time, the line between "I choose to do this" and "it's expected that I do this" becomes blurry.

On the other side, there is maybe a silent bracing against judgment, a fear of, in fact, not doing it well enough. "She's doing it so well, I'm not going to live up to expectation." These anxieties are rooted in decades of invisible labour being coded as women’s responsibility. We need the culture shift without a doubt, but it requires some unpacking and disentangling. And that's going to take a a while.

What I hear from women is that rescAIle needs to do some of the in-between work while we wait for the culture shift. Storing shared knowledge without being burdensome, acknowledging the weight of the responsibility, and making it easy to share it across the app and our household. The goal is to simply open a new option: shared responsibility, shared memory, shared care for those in your life.

What now

So perhaps the real headline isn’t that Santa is a woman. It's that she’s been quietly running the entire North Pole operations manual for years, complete with risk assessments, contingency plans, inventory tracking, emotional forecasting and post-event evaluation. And like so many women, she’s doing it with care, competence and a smile that suggests she’s fine… until she very much isn’t.

But it doesn’t have to stay this way.

If the mental load is partly cultural, partly practical, and wholly exhausting, then rescAIle is my attempt to create a little breathing room. A shared second brain that remembers, anticipates and organises alongside you — and, crucially, makes it easier for others to step in without handing over a lifetime of context.

Because sharing the load shouldn’t require a multi-page briefing document, a deep sigh, and the emotional resilience of a Christmas elf.

If any of this resonates, I’d love you to be part of shaping what comes next. Your insights genuinely influence how rescAIle grows.

Join the community newsletter to hear more updates, and to receive an invite to the research and feasibility study. Let's build a future where Ms Santa finally gets a night off ...