Love or Labor?

EMOTIONAL LABOR IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Written by Kate Lawless, Deputy Editor Illustrated by Allyson Konz, Editor-in-Chief

You may not have heard of emotional labor, but you’ve definitely done it. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild originally coined the term in reference to women in service jobs who were forced to take emotional abuse with a smile in order to manage the emotional experience of customers.1 This remains a difficult topic to define because of the unseen, hard-tomeasure aspect of emotion. Most experts on the subject explain emotional labor as the expected, yet thankless work that people do for others — often by concealing or controlling their true emotions to prioritize other’s feelings. While psychologists may not agree on one single, exact definition, they do agree that emotional labor is a feminist issue. One of the most cited examples of emotional labor is managing a household, a typically female area of work. This work involves cooking, cleaning, shopping as well as managing money, school and schedules. Additionally, it involves 24/7 responsiveness to the emotional needs of children and spouses. This is not just love, it is real and important labor. But what does emotional labor look like in young adulthood, or in relationships outside of a heternormative marriage structure? It can be making time for a friend’s emotional dumping every day or being in a relationship with a partner who does not emotionally support you but expects you to do it for them. Emotional labor also looks like your male coworkers coming to you about problems in the workplace because they assume women will make time for them. Simply put, it is whenever you have gone out of your way to care for people when it was not your responsibility, and you were certainly not thanked for it.2 Emotional labor is expected from women starting at a very young age. Theorists have suggested this is because girls are biologically predisposed to, and then later socialized, to internalize their own negative emotions and display empathy to others in early childhood.3 From elementary school and on, girls are expected to fulfill traditional binary gender roles by acting happy even when they’re

2 Ibid. 3 Tara M Chaplin and Amelia Aldao , “Gender Differences in Emotion Expression in Children: A ...” (US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, December 10, 2012). not at the expense of giving boys space, time and energy to explore their own emotions externally. This pattern continues as boys become socialized to be less expressive, especially during adolescence. They are taught that women are people to be trusted, who will always make time to listen to their feelings. Other boys, in contrast, function as potential bullies who will police the expression of any negative emotions from their male counterparts, leaving all emotional support to be carried out by mothers and female friends.

Author Peggy Orenstein writes, “While it’s wonderful to know they have someone to talk to— and I’m sure mothers, in particular, savor the role—teaching boys that women are responsible for emotional labor, for processing men’s emotional lives in ways that would be emasculating for them to do themselves, comes at a price for both sexes.”4

This sexist line of thought has consequences as boys grow into men and struggle to identify and

4 Story by Peggy Orenstein, “The Miseducation of the American Boy,” The Atlantic (Atlantic Media Company, December 20, 2019).

express their emotions in healthy ways, leaving them inadequately prepared to form healthy longlasting adult relationships.5 They may be unable to feel emotionally close to their male friends, but expect their female friends, girlfriends, wives or mothers to be available to listen to them vent at all times. Unfortunately, this attitude not only affects families and friends but also has serious consequences for the workplace. Emotional labor is one of the reasons that women earn less money than men. Women are most often found in careers that require patience, empathy and work behind the scenes to ensure cooperation. Nursing, teaching, and social work are female-dominated fields for a variety of reasons, but they are all underpaid considering their emotional toll. Because this emotional labor in the workplace is expected of them naturally at home, they are not compensated for it at work.6 Instead, the usually male counterparts who decide their salaries do not consider this

5 Ibid. 6 Guy, Mary Ellen, and Meredith A. Newman. “Women’s Jobs, Men’s Jobs: Sex Segregation and Emotional Labor.” Public Administration Review 64, no. 3 (2004) to be a skill, because they expect women to be doing this for free all of the time anyway. But make no mistake, the ability to do emotional labor day-in and day-out is a skill set with value. Managing emotional relationships is difficult, yet the ability to work together and listen to one another is the backbone of all societal progress. To combat these issues, it is important to self-reflect on the expectations you have of others and on what boundaries you can set to protect your time and mental health. In relationships, platonic and romantic, partners should ask before emotionally dumping and should never assume that they are entitled to the emotional labor of the other person. It is especially not the female partner’s responsibility to set a boundary after one has been crossed. Instead, people should be monitoring how much support they expect from others without reciprocating, or asking if the other person is comfortable with a line of conversation.

There is a big difference between being an empathetic friend and doing emotional labor. Empathy is a wonderful trait that bonds us to one another through shared acknowledgment of life’s highs and lows. Emotional labor, on the other hand, is consistent, nonreciprocated and isolating. When you feel like you have sacrificed your own time, energy and mental and emotional health, it is important to step back and prioritize your own happiness. You do not have to answer every call, take on every selfless task or internalize your own feelings to make space for others to externalize. Men, and other women who inadvertently support these sexist standards for expression, need to allow women to express their experiences and not always prioritize the needs of

others. Men need to confide in one another and trust that their male friends will care for them in the way that they usually expect from women. Self-reflection on gendered expectations from your friends and family can be difficult but it’s empowering. We need to find our way back to reciprocated empathy so that loving someone no longer feels like a form of labor. ■

There is a big difference between being an empathetic friend and doing emotional labor.