This paper seeks to clarify the mechanisms of gender-based differentiation in everyday practices of work organization within a profession where employees face a particularly high level of stress: secondary school teaching. It compares France and Spain, two countries where the professional teaching standards differ and ask for a particular commitment at work.Focusing on the results of a qualitative survey, the author gives prime importance to the speeches and representations that individuals use to describe their experiences at work.Taking into account the various working environments (career-related and non career-related), it leads us to observe that, although the impacts are not alike within the two countries studied, gender-differentiated spatial and temporal arrangements have consequences from a health point of view, namely in terms of stress. However, the commonly identified feeling of “overload” remains often unrecognised, or even officially unspeakable, within this profession with a family-friendly reputation.