The Right to Disconnect as a Feminist Demand: Labor Law, Flexible Work, and the Gendered Politics of Leisure

Abstract

This Article explores the right to disconnect as a feminist response to the gendered impacts of digitally-enabled flexible work. While remote and flexible arrangements are often hailed for enhancing work-life balance, especially for women, they frequently result in overwork, time poverty, and the erosion of boundaries between paid and unpaid labor. The pressure to remain constantly reachable, often described as the “technological imperative,” exacerbates these issues, particularly for women who continue to shoulder disproportionate care responsibilities. In this context, disconnection is increasingly proposed as a remedy to the demands of flexible work. Drawing on feminist theories of time and labor, this Article critiques prevailing narratives that frame disconnection as a matter of individual self-care. Such framings obscure the structural pressures driving constant availability and risk reinforcing social inequalities. Instead, this Article advocates for enshrining disconnection as a collective labor right. Through a comparative legal analysis of existing disconnection laws in France, Germany, Portugal, and beyond, it argues that only robust legal protections—especially those imposing obligations on employers—not to intrude outside working hours can effectively safeguard workers’ time. Reframed as a collective right, disconnection emerges as a vital feminist demand for reclaiming free time and resisting the encroachment of work into private life.