Please Stop Calling Everything That Frustrates You Emotional Labor | Hacker News Reader

Please Stop Calling Everything That Frustrates You Emotional Labor

slate.com

49 pointsgadders20 comments

"Emotional labor" is a latest trend and it's going to be around for a moment. For the next few months, it'll be overused more and more frequently to describe an ever-growing set of things. Given some time, I'll probably start mentally filtering any comment containing the term.

See also: 'virtue signaling'.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=emotional%20labor...

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=virtue%20signalin...

Putting aside the misuse of the term, "emotional labor" as a problem strikes me as possibly the least significant of all problems faced by any people group in all of history. I wonder why we spend so much time and energy tackling these kinds of issues when there are so many more pressing problems (for example, the workplace fatality gap). If "emotional labor" is the next frontier for feminism, then feminism is a distraction and thus counterproductive.

The trick with Maslow's Hierarchy is that it's not a serial process. Problems can happen in parallel, and different combinations of problems can happen to different kinds of people. All of society is not carried up and down the pyramid in lockstep, as we can clearly see. This means it's really hard to define any objective "significance" to a problem. "Fundamental", sure; you can't worry about the cost of emotional labor if you're dead from hunger, or a workplace fatality as you suggest. But it's much harder to assert that that provides a complete ordering over "kinds of problems people have".

So, in short, I guess instead of defining the whole picture as a (probably) false dilemma, why not do both? All of these issues need addressing, and all of these issues need voices. To paraphrase the Horowitz story, there's no silver bullet here, so we need lots of lead ones.

It sounds like you're saying that both problems can be addressed simultaneously, but this isn't mutually exclusive with the OP's point that our efforts to address problems should be allocated according to their respective severities. In other words, the OP isn't saying "We shouldn't spend any effort addressing 'emotional labor'", only that the amount should be very small relative to the myriad other problems.

This seems a bit dismissive from an intellectual point of view. The article even mentions some of the questions that were considered when the concept originated:

> Hochschild was also worried about the potential social and health side effects of asking people to manipulate their emotions for others for pay, day after day. How did this affect their well-being when they went home? Did it alienate them from their ability to gauge their authentic emotions when they clocked out and regained their autonomy? Are women judged differently for their emotional work than men are? How are the emotions of people of color judged more harshly at work than white workers’, and how is this leading to workplace inequality? Hochschild’s work anticipated the rich field of research on the booming low-wage, high-stress service sector many workers find themselves navigating today.

These are not trivialities, and it seems clear that early evidence of these phenomena would warrant further investigation.

Each person has their own concerns, and their actions and interests derive from these -- not yours.

If this kind of reaction is the next frontier of your commenting, well then commenting is a distraction and thus counterproductive.

That's an awfully backhanded and snide way of insulting someone. Counterproductive? Why, because you don't like the point they're trying to make?

You realise I'm literally quoting his comment?

I don't think it's counterproductive. My whole point is not to presume everyone should have your concerns.

If "emotional labor" is the next frontier for feminism, feminists clearly have not paid attention to how the needs of labor are subordinated to the needs of capital

Really? Half the population has had to continuously, thanklessly, and systemically lug around the emotional weight of the other half for centuries, and you consider this a distraction? I'd say this issue is at the very core of gender politics. The more we're aware of it, the happier we'll be in our relationships and our lives. I've learned it's a massive blind spot in my own emotional intelligence and I'm thankful my eyes have been opened.

Allow yourself to become a better person.

https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

Your viewpoint is depressingly conformist, assumptive and heteronormative.

Modern feminism isn't doing enough to break down gender roles, it instead bemoans them, and in doing so inadvertently reinforces them - we should be working harder to break down gender roles, instead of attacking the people who are just following the path society has informed them is the path they're supposed to take. Modern feminism also seems to mostly assume that only women are injured by these societal norms, which I believe is demonstrably untrue.

It's also harmful to ascribe to gender what we ought to ascribe to individuals not communicating adequately about their needs/wants/hopes, or just individuals being individuals.

I'm not sure I understand the problem...

It seems that, according to this line of thinking women take this 'emotional labor' upon themselves, innately, while men do not. That is, men have not asked women to do this -- women naturally do it.

Why, then, should the burden be placed upon the man to alleviate this self-infliction of the woman? Why shouldn't the woman try to approach this issue more like the man? Or perhaps they should meet halfway. Either way, why is it expected that it is an issue that men need to address and adapt and not the other way around?

Now and then a new idea becomes prominent, people argue about it in public, and then move on to the next thing. What's interesting to me is what remains. For example, the wars over atheism or rationalism are long past, so now I can call myself an atheist and rationalist while keeping only the good parts. With emotional labor, people might break lances right now but I can already tell that the idea will stick with me. Managing other people's emotions and maintaining good vibes is an amazing skill, many programmers are lacking in it, and learning it will almost certainly make you happier both at work and at home. Picking up some share of emotional labor doesn't just help the other person - I'm firmly convinced that it helps you more.

I think emotional labor is real but the cited article is, to put it politely, lacking.

This article makes a solid point, but I wonder if it's another case of fighting against popular connotation just like the word "hacker". Once an idiom gains popularity it doesn't matter if it's completely opposite its intended meaning, the populace wins (eg. "literally" or "I could care less").

I want to write a blog posts of words that's become meaningless. Trolling, political correctness, diversity, unicorn, etc.

I would read that!

please do, i'd read it.

Previous related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15356760

please stop starting articles with please stop

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