The Concept Creep of ‘Emotional Labor' (2018) | Hacker News Reader

The Concept Creep of ‘Emotional Labor' (2018)

theatlantic.com

143 pointsagarden121 comments

This article is about a term, "Emotional Labor" being used more broadly than the inventor of the term appreciates. She thinks it waters down the impact of the word.

Her definition of "Emotional Labor" is most succinctly: Work performed with the intention of creating a feeling. Additionally, it's important in such roles that you manage your own feelings: You might need to be nicer or less nice in your role than you're typically comfortable with.

Her examples are social workers, teachers, flight attendants. It might also be a clown who is paid to make kids feel happy at a party even if the clown is really sad that day.

The inventor of the term wants to be clear that there is no gender specificity to it and that it might be a tool used by the feminist movement to classify work mostly done by women as emotional work because women are emotional, but that line of thinking shuts down conversations about emotional work that apply to all parties involved regardless of gender.

> Work performed with the intention of creating a feeling.

This sounds like a pretty pointless classification to me. Any work that involves any form of social interaction is going to fall into that category.

No, there's lots of work that involves social interaction, but any feelings created during it are an accidental side-effect and not the intent or primary goal of that work.

A waiter at a fancy restaurant interacts with customers with an intent of creating relevant feelings and the service is a big reason why that job exists (it's not really about delivering stuff from kitchen to the table); while a clerk taking applications at DMV also interacts with customers, but managing their emotions isn't part of their prescribed duties, the job is about processing the applications.

Any form of social interaction involves this kind of ‘labor’. Some jobs more than others, but your distinction is complete nonsense. The DMV is just a poor example, it still involves the same ‘labor’, just arguably less, as the DMV has little incentive to care about their customers. But this relates only to the value the company is trying to provide, not the nature of the work.

> it's not really about delivering stuff from kitchen to the table

Well that explains a lot.

It sounds like a good way to acknowledge the difference between working as a cashier, transacting money for goods and services, and working as a cashier, doing ostensibly the same job, for a company that expects you to maintain a specific friendly up-beat attitude while interacting with customers.

The latter is a different job. It is more work.

How do we talk about the portion of the work which isn't just about transacting money for goods and services, but about making the customer feel good about interacting with you, and thereby feel better about the whole transaction, and be more likely to do so again?

Your example only talks about the portion of the work devoted to this kind of labor. It also presumes that all other variables remain exactly the same, which isn’t likely. A job that places greater emphasis on social interaction would put you under more emotional stress than one that doesn’t. But so would a job where the customers are shitty and pissed off all the time. Even a job where you never talk to customers, and work with only one other person that you only have to talk to once a week is going to involve ‘emotional labor’. How much labor depends entirely on a huge number of factors, perhaps most importantly your own personality.

The only distinctions I’ve seen in this thread are based on ‘how much’ is involved in a role, or (as per the definition in the parent) how that labor is marketed to others. You could talk about one job involving more ‘emotional labor’ than another, but you’d have to think pretty hard to come up with one that didn’t involve any. Even then, you can really only discuss that on an individual basis. There are some kinds of social interactions that leave me emotionally exhausted, but for other people they may not notice any emotional impact at all. Then there are things I never struggle with at all that I know drive others mad with stress.

The distinction made in the parent comment’s definition is even less sound. Your employer will always have expectations around how you interact socially with the people your work brings you in contact with. Whether your employer chooses to market that as a competitive differentiator has absolutely no bearing on how demanding those expectations are to meet.

> only distinctions I’ve seen in this thread are based on ‘how much’ is involved in a role

There is still a real distinction between a job with a lot of emotional labour and a little emotional labour. Isn't that enough to say it isn't a 'pretty pointless classification' ?

> you can really only discuss that on an individual basis

My brother is dyslexic. He works as a civil engineer. Parts of the job involving reading and writing reports are more difficult for him than they would be for me. That doesn't mean it's pointless to acknowledge that reading and writing are part of the workload.

My son has behavioral issues for which he has seen therapists in elementary school. I was really surprised just how controlled the LCSWs were in communicating with him, almost to the point of being creepy if I didn't know why they were so similar. It was in stark contrast to how his psychiatrist would speak to him, though not to put down the latter. Really puts it into perspective when thinking of therapists/psychologists being on the emotional laborer side and psychiatrist on medical/chemical side.

LCSW: Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Thanks!

> Work performed with the intention of creating a feeling

So.... the entirety of art?

Creator of the phrase defines it a bit differently:

"Emotional labor, as I introduced the term in The Managed Heart, is the work, for which you’re paid, which centrally involves trying to feel the right feeling for the job. This involves evoking and suppressing feelings. Some jobs require a lot of it, some a little of it."

I think she meant mostly just smiling (with attempted sincerity) at people you don't feel like smiling at or doing the same on the opposite side of the spectrum - being stern to people you have no genuine feelings towards. And this being the significant part of what you are being paid for.

When I first heard the phrase I was thinking it meant spending your emotional capacity on your job. Like something about having a job that causes so much emotions in you that you fell emotionally burned out after finishing your shift.

Reading that interview leads me to assume that it must've been emotional labor for Hochschild to keep her cool at how badly people can misinterpret it.

There's physical, mental and emotional labor. The first is pretty self-explanatory, the second involves thinking and the third involves keeping your emotions in check in order to complete a task.

Whenever you have to put up a fake smile, that's emotional labor. Whenever you have to be tough, but don't want to, that too is emotional labor. If your emotional stability (or lack of) aligns with the task, it isn't. So if you're a flight attendant and smile without forcing it (thus it isn't a fake smile to begin with), there's no emotional labor involved. If you're a drill sergeant and naturally grumpy and condescending, there isn't any either.

EDIT: In the cases above, when I meant that there's no emotional labor involved, I meant that there's no effort involved. The value of the labor is still derived from the emotions nonetheless.

It's not just about managing your own emotions, but emotional labor might also be about producing emotions in other people according to her definition.

I think that helps people expand the word's meaning, because "People feel good when they are in a clean house."

Apparently so, yes, but I'd contest that evoking an emotional response in other people is actually mental labor to begin with, and correctly applying the ideas derived thereof is then the emotional labor.

EDIT: It appears it's a two-to-Tango issue. All the cases mentioned are with another party involved, and whether it is to incite emotion or prevent it (i.e. e.g. hiding an aggravation as a flight attendant), the emotional work being done is within the subject itself.

Digging a ditch is not emotional labor, because "people feel good when they have the ditch they need". It is physical labor, because dig it.

It could have some part of emotional labor. It's hard, you have callouses on your hands, it's hot, your cloths are all dirty and sweaty, your co-diggers criticize your digging speed. You want to cry, you want to stop. You do emotional labor to keep going.

A couple points that hit home to me:

> One thing that I read said even the work of calling the maid to clean the bathtub is too much. It’s burdensome. I felt there is really, in this work, no social-class perspective. There are many more maids than there are people who find it burdensome to pick up the telephone to ask them to clean your tub.

And:

> There seems an alienation or a disenchantment of acts that normally we associate with the expression of connection, love, commitment. Like “Oh, what a burden it is to pick out gifts for the holiday for my children.” Or “Oh, it’s so hard to call a photographer to do family Christmas photos, and then to send it to my parents.” I feel a strong need to point out that this isn’t inherently an alienating act. And something’s gone haywire when it is. It’s okay to feel alienated from the task of making a magical experience for your very own children. I’m not just judging that. I’m saying let’s take it as a symptom that something’s wrong. I think a number of my books speak to that. The Time Bind says, wait a minute, what if home has become work and work has become home?

> “Oh, what a burden it is to pick out gifts for the holiday for my children.” Or “Oh, it’s so hard to call a photographer to do family Christmas photos, and then to send it to my parents.”

The burden isn't so much in the act as the expectations and image management. Especially with things presented towards parents. Is it going to be "good enough"? Does it match the "perfect family" self-image? In situations like this people become heavily invested in maintaining an image towards everyone, including themselves. The work involved in this can be burdensome. But actually presenting the true "messy" self is far scarier.

In that second passage, I like that Hochschild tried to be clear, she is not blaming these (mostly women) for finding that burdensome, she's saying we should ask "What is up with our society that things that ought to be enjoyable time with and caring for family, expression of love have become burdensome and alienating"? And And, the unsaid next step, what can be done?

> I’m not just saying, “Oh, how terrible to think making a magical experience is alienated work.” I’m saying, “Well, why has it become alienated work?” The solution is not for men and women to share alienated work. The solution is for men and women to share enchanted work. These are expressions of love.

Why is it our personal family life seems like a job?

A lot of things in western[ized] societies have become professionalized over the last few decades, and are now taxed and regulated. Caring for small children is one of the biggest example of this.

It's no wonder that many people see caring for their children as just another job when it's something that is increasingly contracted out to third parties, and children's expectations are no doubt being shaped as consumers of a pasteurized, homogenized service that's delivered by graduates and subject to metrics and KPIs. I wouldn't be surprised if these sentiments, exacerbated by feelings of guilt (eg. overcompensation for perceived neglect), were to spill out into the rest of family life.

I do not think it is a job, but yes, a lot of it are chores. Sometimes you derive pleasure from it, but other times you are just tired, hungry, without idea, the store is overcrowded with nervous people (particularly around christmas) the kid does not want anything and you really really just want to go home watch a movie or read pointless hacker news.

The romanticism of "enchanted work" and "making a magical experience for your very own children" is not realistic expectation. You don't have those magical feelings around activities and duties that happen with regularity. First, second time yes, eleventh time less so. Plis while the kids enjoy gifts, they are not really magical to them. Especially around christmas, they get more toys then they are able to play with.

And it really seems to me that those who romanticise child caring familly activities the most are either the ones engaged in them the least or the ones having ideological reasons. Stay at home mothers with no hobbies and whose life's centers children to the point of excusing everything else are the least romantic and the most pragmatic/mundane about it all - even as their only topic is the kid.

So, I think maybe you're actually confusing the thing Hochschild is trying to distinguish.

It might seem like a chore in various ways, on the 11th time etc. It might not be super fun or your favorite activity in the world. You might be tired and rather be taking a nap.

But it shouldn't be emotionally difficult to do routine caring things for your family. And it shouldn't require you to pretend or force yourself to have emotions other than you have. That is, Hochschild's definition of "emotional labor". It shouldn't be "alienating".

I think I do understand it well. A family is not a magical space where you suddenly cease to be human, where you own emotional needs and states suddenly don't matter due to other people needing something.

The caring work is a work that requires you to force yourself (or manipulate) or pretend emotions no matter what context. That is just what it is, that is inherent part in it.

And when you are being tired, made passive by daily routine, want a nap, have stress, that is when it becomes even more difficult to be emotionally in that supposed magic space. Or at least, it is not automatic.

On the few occasions I've heard someone use the term "emotional labor" in real life (and not on Twitter), I've asked them to specify what it means, and every person gave a different answer. It did pretty much boil down to "doing chores and mailing holiday cards", though.

I had never seen the original definition before, and that's exactly what I thought it meant when I first saw the term, and it's also what I thought it should have meant after I repeatedly saw it used in ways that I now know were erroneous.

The discussions I've had around it have generally involved people defining it as "managing and planning chores even if someone else is doing them," with the canonical example being the stay-at-home wife who manages the household and the husband who "helps" by asking her to micromanage him rather than just taking the initiative.

By the article above, this definitely sounds like mental labour (although still tiring) rather than emotional.

The example I think of is choosing a meal for a household—anticipating every household member’s reaction to the meal and accepting the consequences if people don’t like it.

Basically, managing people’s emotions.

That sounds like a more reasonable example that matches the original definition. I'll use this one next time it comes up amongst my friends.

It's a sign of cultural decline that people can only relate to each other using financial terminology.

The continued financialization of all things cultural is not a positive development.

Moral Mazes talks a lot about emotional labor, especially the expression of fealty to one’s employer and enthusiastic participation in signalling activities that demonstrate compliance with the internal moral and ethical system the company creates.

That book posits that as you move up the ranks, this emotional labor becomes much more important and serves as much more of the basis for judging if you’re effective at your job than your nominal performance of subject matter tasks related to the ostensible job functions you have to perform.

Hot damn this is so true. This is exactly what comes to my mind when I think of emotional labor.

I think that being bad at emotional labor even (especially?) outside of work is something that is looked down upon quite a lot in society. We generally don't like the person that seems to get angry over minor issues, we expect them to manage their emotions in these kinds of situations, especially when they're not like 'us'.

I think this article misses the point. It's not about doing the chores. It's about being the one who has taken ownership of the chores being done, by whom, when, etc.

When people say it about chores, they mean they are in an unacknowledged managerial role, and that "just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it" doesn't solve the problem, because knowing what needs to be done and when in the first place is a huge part of the work in question.

So sure, "emotional labor" is the wrong term. But it'd be better if the argument against using it in this broad way were directed at the strongest version of the claim, instead of a strawman.

One of the aspects related to an unacknowledged managerial role with chores, is that I find it often comes with caring about the outcome more strongly or more specifically than others. Expecting everyone to care about your hobby horse as much as you do is a recipe for feeling overburden and under-appreciated. If people are happy with your work NOT happening then your “emotional” or other labor will not be something they find valuable.

I read a piece awhile ago where they asked a lot of people (particularly women) to describe the unacknowledged emotional labor they were doing in their relationships. (Using / misusing the term as they like. Hochschild would be appaled.)

One of the stories stuck out for me was a woman who was sick of writing birthday & christmas cards for her husband's relatives. She tried not doing it, but her mother in law got snippy with her for not writing a card. Her husband didn't care at all and refused to help. So she felt stuck doing an unacknowledged and unappreciated job.

I find this story really interesting because there are so many approaches here. To name a few, 1. She could suck it up and keep unhappily writing cards. 2. Her husband could write the cards. 3. She could stop writing the cards, but tell her mother in law to talk to her son if she didn't get a card. 4. She could ask her husband to run interference with the mother in law and back her. 5. She could just stop writing cards and tell everyone to piss off.

I understand the perspective of "I feel like I have to write these cards. People expect me to write these cards. But I hate it and I feel like I don't have an out". But I think its too simple to label it as sexism and call it a day. Her husband is legitimately allowed to ignore the card thing, and so is she. In a sense, the pain comes from caving to a bad expectation - and thats something she does, not something anyone does to her.

But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.

> But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.

I don't think that's true, it's more that society has different expectations for men and women. Men are expected to make money to prove their worth (hence the wage gap). Women are expected to maintain social connections to prove their worth (hence the friendship gap).

We don't have a wage gap. We have a motherhood gap. It is very difficult to monetize an investment that doesn't pay off for 18/20/25 years.

Not only that though. Choices in what interests people have matter as well. A deep interest in care-giving is much less likely to lead to a higher income compared to a deep interest in computers or engineering.

The other part of the story is that one of the reasons the husband is able so easily not care about the cards is because he does not get judged by anyone for not doing it. It isn't just that he is IGNORING the judgement... he is literally not getting any.

I am not sure what the solution is, but just wanted to point out why it is reductive to just say "why can't the wife just not care like the husband doesn't care?" Maybe the husband would care if he was judged like the wife.

Also, your #3 suggestion won't necessarily solve the issue... sexism is very ingrained, and even if you tell the MIL to talk to the husband, it doesn't mean the MIL will suddenly start holding her son responsible for the cards... she very well might still expect them from the DIL.

But good communication can solve all those obstacles. If in that family the expectation is distributed unevenly across gender roles, someone can point that out and make a case for changing it.

If terminally the problem is that these people can't communicate with each other or some people in the equation are unwilling to engage in communication, then the problem is much lower level than gendered expectations about emotional labor.

But good communication can solve all those obstacles.

Good communication can solve hundreds of years of deeply ingrained sexism in society? I mean...maybe. But I don't think this is at all obvious.

Good communication can't solve sexism. But it can help a husband and wife support each other and work on the same team.

"Hey honey. I'm really sick of writing these cards. I know you don't care, but if I don't write them your mum gets snippy with me for not sending her a card"

"Well just don't send them and let her be snippy?"

"I hate that, I feel judged by her for doing that. And I feel frustrated because she's your mom and this is somehow my problem. I'd appreciate some support with this."

"I'm sorry you hear that way. I can tell you're really frustrated about this. I don't like writing cards any more than you do. I definitely don't want you to feel pressured into doing anything you don't want to do. But it sounds like my mom is giving you a hard time about it, and thats not fair because she's my mom, and its clear what she's doing is stressing you out. I'm going to talk to her about it. If she bothers you again after I talk to her, can you just ask her to come talk to me if she has a problem?" (etc discussion)

"Thanks. I really appreciate feeling like we're a team"

"Me too"

Yeah, but the wife already asked the husband for help, and he refused.

Did he refuse to help write cards, or refuse to help talk to his mother on her behalf? I wasn't clear above, and I don't think the original poster of that story was clear in her rant in the article either.

Maybe she asked for help and meant that she wanted his support with his mother. But he thought she wanted him to write cards and refused to help on that basis. So now she's really mad at her husband over a simple misunderstanding.

It sounds really silly, but this sort of thing is obnoxiously common in practice. And again, good communication skills really matter in these sort of situations.

You all are operating on the assumption that people listen to what one says, but while some do, many many don't. The "just talk with them" school of argument works in some situations, but requires listening. Especially when dealing with people who feel themselves entitled to something it does not work.

In particular, old people are very unlikely to change their ways no matter how much you talk about it. Also, people who dont have same experience are way more likely to not care about issues they never lived through. Also, people for whom not understanding is more comfortable have easier time to not understand.

I’m operating on the assumption that the capacity to listen is a malleable skill, not a fixed trait. It’s certainly something I’ve improved in myself, through great effort and to great effect.

I agree with you though - plenty of people apparently have no interest in learning to listen and communicate clearly. It’s a self reinforcing belief - if you believe yourself unable to change, you won’t. Still, it seems much more pragmatic to fight for communication skills, rather than hoping we can magic away gender differences and somehow hope that will make our relationships more healthy in turn. Spoilers: Gay couples still have stupid arguments.

at least in my family, even as the male, I got judged for not sending cards but after enough years of simply not giving a shit my family stopped saying anything to me.

> It isn't just that he is IGNORING the judgement... he is literally not getting any.

I think this is more subtle than it looks. A big part of the reason he's not getting any could be because he ignores any similar judgments. You see this all the time everywhere; people have a good intuitive sense of who will cave to social pressure, and go on to exclusively pressure them.

> But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men.

Is that true? I don't accept the claim at face value.

But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.

I would have agreed with you until recently, since we’ve had a number of stories on HN about the effects of sex hormones. Paying particular attention to the experiences of trans women, I’m inclined to believe that sex hormones have a profound effect on the way we see the world and how we interact with other people.

Given that a trans woman was assigned male at birth and raised as a boy, I find it convincing that upbringing might not be the deciding factor in how she could be more empathetic after transitioning.

This sensitivity is probably due to the fact that, as a culture, women to do a bit more of the child-rearing, and they want things to be easy for their sons. Women see themselves in their daughters and daughter-in-laws, and are harder on them for it.

If a married man is dressed poorly, it's his wife's fault. If a married woman is dressed poorly, who in their right mind would blame her husband?

It's crazy the expectations we put on men and women and how differently-loaded they are...we as a society typically have such low expectations of men, some people don't think men can handle a 9-5 job AND a single load of laundry or changing a diaper, which is totally insulting. We say it's too hard for them to do both...and then we put them in charge of everything.

It's no wonder we're in the messes we're in.

>If a married man is dressed poorly, it's his wife's fault. If a married woman is dressed poorly, who in their right mind would blame her husband?

I've always let my girlfriends pick out clothes for me because they care way more about how I dress than I do.

Proves my point -- your girlfriends are judged much more harshly for how you're dressed than you yourself are -- which is silly, absolutely ridiculous. I'm assuming you're a grown man, right? Why does it make sense that people would judge your girlfriend for your attire and not you, a man who presumably dressed himself? It's nuts.

Who said anyone else is judging me or my partner? And why are you assuming that anyone is judging either of us? Just because someone believes something is happening doesn't make it reality.

But couldn't part of this be that judging him for it won't actually change anything? If a guy doesn't really care about how he's dressed then you can judge him as much as you want, but he'll still keep on dressing the same way. Social pressure only works if people care about it. And somebody else above mentioned that people are very good at picking out others who bend to social pressure.

> Her husband is legitimately allowed to ignore the card thing, and so is she.

The difference is that husband not writing does not cause other people to be hostile to him, while she not writing them does. Her husband effectively belongs to family whether he writes them or not, she does not.

And the difference between people being hostile or not does actually makes difference in your level of loneliness and happiness and what not.

> But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.

We raise them that way for example by being snippy at them for not writing cards, but by being still friendly with men who dont write them.

And now of course,there is also the part where men are more lonely in united states.

Maybe "household management" would be a better term?

I don't think it's a strawman argument, and even if it is, I dont think that negates the point of the article.

My take is that we have poor terminology and a bad shared understanding of how to qualify the types and amount of work that go into maintaining relationships of any kind.

Instead of being able to say "I don't want to be the manager of this relationship" we misappropriate "emotional labor" since it's a catch phrase of sorts.

I also think the article didn't do a good job of explaining concept creep in other contexts, which would have been more interesting imo.

What's the strawman here? "Emotional labor" very clearly is being used for things that Hochschild did not mean when she coined the term. You might disagree with her belief that the things covered by these other uses are sufficiently different that they should be addressed separately or differently, but there's still no strawman. When you say "the strongest version of the claim" it's not even clear that you're talking about a claim that exists outside of your own head, so if there's a strawman here I'm afraid it's yours. Can you clarify what claim you're trying to refute and why you think it's incorrect?

The article says that the term "emotional labor" is used incorrectly to refer to things like doing chores.

What people actually use the term incorrectly for is the internal tracking necessary to manage the process of maintaining a household and relationship, including doing chores.

The first version is a strawman because no one thinks that the straightforward action of chore-doing is also, secretly, emotional labor.

The stronger version makes it more clear why any person acting in good faith would try to apply the term at all: the managerial work is unseen, mostly unacknowledged, internal, and as a bonus it's emotionally taxing under many conditions. That is to say, it has a lot in common with the real concept of emotional labor.

So it's true that the wrong term in being used, but a stronger understanding of what the incorrect people are trying to refer to makes it clear why there is a problem here to discuss in the first place.

> no one thinks that the straightforward action of chore-doing is also, secretly, emotional labor.

The article leads with examples of people doing just that, most notably the one from Gemma Hartley, so your axiom is false.

It would be reasonable I think, to extend to the woman who devised the concept enough charity of interpretation to believe that she is capable of understanding the nuance involved in discussions and arguments of this sort.

> It's about being the one who has taken ownership of the chores being done, by whom, when, etc.

But you can also view that as a power relationship.

If one person demands to set the standard for what chores should be done, when and how, and expects the other person to obey, it seems fair that the orders should be spelled out explicitly to the powerless person.

> If one person demands to set the standard for what chores should be done...

...then they are exerting dominance over the other person. That's true regardless of whether they're setting the standard above or below what the other would prefer. They might also be taking on a greater burden in meeting that standard ... or they might not. There are plenty of families where one person sets the standard for the other to execute, or to work and pay for hired help to execute. In the end, it's usually impossible to address the work-imbalance issue without addressing the power-imbalance issue first, and anyone who makes assumptions about who exercises the power within a household is a fool.

Management is still normal labor. The emotional part would be putting on a meaner or nicer face than you otherwise would to get a result for the job. It's acting.

Generally, I find that those who fall back on emotional labor as a concept, are work-multipliers. They generate more work that needs to be done and kept track of than they clear, and usually they are the only ones that actually care that that work is done. There's a lot of empire-building in play too.

It's really obvious when you come up with more efficient ways to get what they want done done, and they get angry that it isn't being done exactly as they wanted.

> Generally, I find that those who fall back on emotional labor as a concept, are work-multipliers.

Oooh, I've never hard of work multipliers before, thanks. I disagree with your main premise (in that sentence) though.

It's the first I've heard of "emotional labor" and I think its a great concept, as valid as "mental" or "physical" labor in the original author's context: a flight attendant (male or female) would have tasks that require all three types of labor during their work day.

If you hire a maid, you generally have to manage them, tell them what to do and when.

But it would be hard to argue that the maid is oppressing you because you have to manage them.

An interview with the woman who coined the phrase, about what she meant when she coined it, is hardly "missing the point". How people have used the term may have moved on, but that's what the article is about.

Exactly. This isn't about her missing the point; it's about hijacking a discussion she started to make his own point. Kind of like "he-peating" her idea, but with the added twist of denigrating instead of ignoring her contribution.

I guess I wasn't clear, but I didn't mean the woman who invented the term is missing the point. I meant the introduction to the article, written by the author/interviewer, framed the misuse of the word in a way that hides the reason that someone might be tempted to misuse the word in that way.

And one thing I was very clear about was that even when you use the better frame, the people are still misusing the term, so I'm explicitly not disagreeing with the inventor of the term.

Thanks for the clarification.

The article addresses this specifically. It’s mental labour, and that includes the division of duties. It’s not emotional.

Huh. I would have termed "emotional labor" as doing the work to maintain harmony of relationships within and outside of the home. Like being the person responsible for setting up family events, sending cards, remembering birthdays etc. Also in parenting being the more present parent. While the need to be household manager is more "mental load" like are we out of laundry soap or when is the kid's next doctor appointment. But apparently those uses aren't really accurate.

Emotional labor is about managing _your_ emotions, not others. Managing another's emotions may end up demanding physical, mental, or emotional labor of your own- a massage, thinking about what gift someone might like, or containing your irritation at someone not understanding what you are teaching.

The concept-crept, popular-feminist definition of emotional labor is more about the target of your labor. The labor is emotional because the product you create is an emotional one. Knowing the roles men and women typically choose, it makes sense that feminism has latched onto emotional labor in this respect.

I don't think those uses are necessarily innacurate as I think they classify a real phenomenon, but it is unfortunate the popular feminist definition of emotional labor collides with the original creator's definition.

Recently there was a conversation on Slack at work about gender pronouns. Several people asked that everyone use "hey ya'll", "hey folks", "hey everyone", etc instead of "hey guys" (when addressing an entire not-all-male channel, for example). Two or three people fought this giving various arguments about why this was unnecessary, calling it word-policing, value-signaling, etc. Throughout, I made an attempt always to respond in a civil manner, to try to explain reasoning behind counter-points, provide examples, and make sure all voices were heard. I basically took it upon myself to be a mediator for 30 people.

It finally ended after an hour, and afterward I realized I felt totally emotionally drained. I had spent the entire time reacting emotionally (internally), and then reacting mentally (externally). All that emotion, even if it was "inside", had been chewing away at me as a form of stress. I had to take an hour break from work to calm down. It did not feel good. "Emotional labor" might not have been the right phrase, but it sure felt like my emotions had just unloaded a 25-foot box truck.

That’s a good example of the problem. Your reacting emotionally internally didn’t help you do a better job, and may have been a liability, so a less emotional person may have been more qualified to mediate. Also, you took on a job no one asked you to do, and then complained about the cost using the emotional labor term as an acceptable ploy for sympathy.

One of the biggest (and unintended) benefits of the emotional labor movement is detecting either martyr-like or unhelpful behavior at home and the workplace and coaching the person towards stopping it.

That's a strange response. I never complained, and I certainly never looked for sympathy. Also, is the martyr comment directed toward me?

My story is more one of explaining how what I experienced could be invisible, as nobody came to me and said, wow, you must have gone through a lot. But people do go through a lot, and it's often invisible. In my case I "volunteered" for it, but others may be expected to take it on, which I imagine is more stressful.

Yes, it was directed at you (and others who act similarly.) I also am glad you shared your experience and liked your comment.

On the other hand, many situations like this require someone who isn't emotionally insensitive. The hypothetical person who would be less reactive may very well not notice that there was trouble looming in the first place, and so would have no reason to moderate. (And if nobody steps up, it's very very common for things to descend into flamewars or at least very subjective argumentation.)

Hey guys always made my brain think too much about inplications when i said it to a mix gendered group. Granted, English is my second language and inadvertently imitated others. When in Rome do as romans do. I took it as is, when i saw women adressing a group of women with hey guys. I thought that folks is a coloquial term. I wish there was a proper guidebook to all these phrases, how they came in use and what is expected. The small talk is like a dynamited field. There should be some guidelines

Especially in English nowadays: Some people intentionally attempt to introduce more meaning into a phrase than is actually meant in general usage of the phrase, just so that they can be disruptive in this way. Others aren't attempting to be disruptive, but are misguidedly raising alarms thinking they are being helpful towards others, when in fact no-one is actually offended in the first place.

All this to say: you shouldn't have to worry about sensitivity for most of those kinds of phrases, except where someone is trying to make you say what you didn't want to say. Call it out when it happens and move on; don't apologize, and don't allow people to read malice into your intentions that you never had.

This is just really bad career advice, but also you do see how your advice is logically problematic, right? In this model, nobody can ever have a valid complaint, if you never intend malice or offend an existing party.

Example: If there are no black people in your office, and you use the N word a million times, and I complain, am I wrong to complain because there were no black people around to get offended or because you didn't intend malice? What's the point of caring whether someone uses a racial slur? Is it just because "that's what we're supposed to do" ? Or is there a deeper problem that we're trying to address?

Perhaps I would have considered that more relevant a couple decades ago. In the context of the types of phrases being discussed in this thread, I'd err well on the side of assuming the speaker's intention is not malicious, unless a pattern of other kinds of similar phrases and ideas accompany it.

My dude, there is absolutely zero comparison to be drawn between using the phrase “hey you guys” and using the N word.

Actually, my lady, there is a comparison, and it's the reason they are both wrong. Both are unacceptable because of the negative implications they have toward a gigantic group of people.

With the N word, you're perpetuating a hurtful stereotype. With 'hey you guys', you're perpetuating a hurtful stereotype. The roots of both stereotypes are a form of supremacism where one group asserts its dominance on the other. The former is about racial dominance, the latter is about gender dominance. It's basically saying one group is more important than all the others, or one is inferior. That has real world effects and does really bother people.

Maybe only one of them bothers you. That doesn't mean only one of them is valid. Logical deduction shows that they are both discrimination. It's up to you to decide what kind of discrimination you care about.

I’m less bothered by the logic and more by the tone-deafness. If I am waging a campaign to end the tyranny of my office thermostat being set too cold, it would be in poor taste for me to draw a comparison between “my struggles” and the civil rights movement. It’s insulting to anyone involved with that movement.

I agree my comparison was a little extreme, I tend to do that sometimes. I'll work on toning that down.

You can't compare use of one of the most heavily laden racial slurs in the English language to use of a common 2nd-person plural pronoun like "you guys."

There's a reasonability test here: if someone complains about the 2nd-person plural pronoun in one of the most widely spoken dialects of English, that's inherently less reasonable than complaining about use of a racial slur that's almost universally reviled. The latter is reasonable, but the former looks like moral crusading, perhaps even bullying.

Do you see how your advice is logically problematic?

It depends a bit on your dialect. On the west coast of North America, "you guys" and likewise "guys" is probaly the most un-marked form of 2-nd person plural. In other places it's "y'all". I'm not sure if "you folks" is normal anywhere, but it's not that weird either. There's other forms to make it plural too, like adding on "people", but that's more coloquial.

As far as I know, "guys" isn't really gendered, with the exception of a few people on a linguistic crusade trying to make a point.

I find "folks" is the best of a set of not very good options for addressing a group of mixed gender, since I'm a little too far north of the mason-dixon line to feel comfortable saying "y'all". "folks" doesn't necessarily work well in formal situations though, I wouldn't want to address the C-levels at my company that way. now that I think about it, I really can't think of any word in English that works for that case.

I agree "hi folks" isn't particularly formal, but I wouldn't use "hi guys" to address the c-suite either. "Guys" and "folks" seem similar in formality to me.

I'd probably go with "hi all" for a slightly more formal situation.

I definitely wouldn't call the execs "guys" either, especially if they're not all men. "hi all" is a good one, thanks for the suggestion. generally I just avoid any second person plural in these situations.

Depends on the area. My part of the Midwestern US, it wouldn't be weird for a woman to address a group comprising only women as "you guys" or similar.

There's some subtlety, though, because "the guys" or "some guys" or anything like that remains gendered, as in "I'm going out with the guys"—that'd be a group of at least mostly men, and probably entirely men.

Sounds like you volunteered for emotional labor you weren't tasked to do. How is this any different than the squeegee men who run up to wash your windshield when you're stopped at a red light?

This seems to be a common theme in emotional labor discussions with the laborer taking on labor they weren't asked to take on.

>Sounds like you volunteered for emotional labor you weren't tasked to do.

And he possibly prevented a flamewar and a lot of company drama. Maybe it wouldn't have developed into a flamewar, but without him, it's more likely everyone's temperaments would have been worse off and they'd be more likely to snap over something else.

Imagine if he posted that he saw a very expensive piece of work equipment about to fall over, and spent an hour holding it up and managing to prevent it from breaking and negatively impacting everyone's jobs. It's more than fair for him to mention to others the work he did that possibly no one had noticed. If people respond to him saying that no one asked him to help like that, then that discourages people from taking initiative like that. A workplace needs people who take initiative. Things end up worse if people avoid fixing preventable problems because they think it's not their place. It's important not to discourage people from taking the initiative.

I'll admit it's good to try to set the boundaries so people don't take the initiative too often on things that don't matter, but I think this is a thing that matters though. I've had coworkers that go above and beyond to make the workplace a pleasant place, and I really value it. Having that easily beats any other office perks and helps make everyone so much more productive.

Shifting the topic a little: people on forums rarely ever ask for moderators, but people repeatedly choose well-moderated forums over ones that aren't. If a moderator complains about how much work it takes, then it's short-sighted to tell them that no one asked for it. Whether people realize it or not, people implicitly ask for it by choosing well-moderated places over others.

It sounds to me like the poster did the emotionally intelligent thing of reading a room and realizing a flame war was about to break out, and thus put in the labor to prevent it- which is a really normal thing for humans to do in social dynamics. It's literally a leadership quality. Later, this poster comments that it was emotionally exhausting- not a complaint, since I don't see them blaming anyone for their exhaustion besides themselves.

Surely you mean "emotional hobby" instead of "emotional labour"? After all, nobody paid you, nobody asked you to work, and I'm sure many didn't really appreciate your "work" and maybe even thought energy (both your own, and of all other 30 people) could more productively be spent doing other things.

That's the whole problem with this idea. Proclamations of emotional "work" are actually just passive-aggressive pleas for others to affirm one's values. Well, people value different things, we might just need to accept that.

And when this idea is discussed, it's talked about like it's some sort of societal issue. Ok so it's an issue...what's the solution? What should have happened in the above scenario that didn't? I really don't understand it.

You dealt with something that weighed on you. Okay? Life can be like that sometimes. What an interesting revelation [rolls eyes].

You know how Japanese train conductors have that point-and-call system? Well what these discussions are about are like point-and-call. They're not pointing at the people on the track (society). They're pointing in directions, and at the train, and calling out what is happening. They're pointing out these things going on around them so that everyone is aware of them, so that people will think, act, and react. Hopefully, the end result is better overall outcomes.

I think we still have a long way to go in figuring out how to have these discussions in a way that's more productive, but at least they're happening.

...it was a good example of the exact topic of the article?

One that illustrated it in a way that was likely to be familiar to people here. Especially since it involved a common work situation rather than home life. If that's not worthy of posting in a comment thread, what is? Where is the implication that you have to pose - and maybe even solve! - some problem in order for your comment to be worth posting?

Perhaps you are holding onto the definition the article is claiming is incorrect? Because that definition is associated with systemic issues. And your followup comment only makes sense to me in that light.

So you don't consider people who volunteer to build houses for the homeless as labor? (I am not comparing myself to them!) What I experienced was the same level of stress as after moving a two bedroom apartment in one day. Call that what you will.

About 10 people privately messaged me that they appreciated my effort in keeping the conversation civil and helping everyone be heard.

> Proclamations of emotional "work" are actually just passive-aggressive pleas for others to affirm one's values.

I could honestly give a shit what anyone thinks of my values. But I do want everyone to treat everyone else with respect, to try to understand each other, and have compassion for each other. That is my plea: please care about people.

As AgentME mentioned in their comment, if peterwwillis had seen a server without a designated owner whose metrics were teetering into an unhealthy state, and jumped in to stabilize it, wouldn't that be praiseworthy – and clearly work, not a "hobby"? There's nothing silly or unproductive about stabilizing social/emotional situations in a work context. Indeed, your own response underscores how complicated and difficult, and often underappreciated, such work can be.

It's so nice working in a (nearly) all female environment, where a person (woman) can refer to other people (women) as "you guys" and nobody bats an eye let alone starts long rancorous debates.

The downvoting on this anecdote is staggering.

Great example of the original definition from TFA, thanks.

I've found that people can usually relate to this sort of difficulty. If I said, "Phew! I just spent 3 hours keeping the coding style thread from getting out of hand." I think most people would understand. Many of us have been there.

I see the following phenomenon repeat itself: someone convinces the world that a particular behavior, described by a particular term, is bad: bigotry, racism, emotional labor, transphobic, sexual assault. Usually this is straightforward because the behaviors are truly monstrous and the offenders deserve to be un-personed. Then a bunch of other people draft behind this term to air out their grievances: this person did something racist, racism is bad, this person is bad. This works for some years, but eventually society just normalizes out the effect of the word: if so many actions are racist, then racism must not be so bad. When this happens, it actually lessens the opprobrium that the hardcore offenders, the people whom the term was designed to denigrate, experience.

It’s effectively trademark dilution.

Concepts creeps because when we want to affect world, we need to name things first. When we name them, we need short phrase that will fit twit. Who cares if somebody already used it to describe something different?! [1]

The other reason why concept creeps is connotations of previous meaning. Call digital sharing a piracy. Call privacy breaching a personalization. Call protester a terrorist. Call different opinion a hate speech. Call looking lustfully a rape.

[1] I do.

> I think this gets to perhaps a main confusion that is happening. I often see emotional labor referred to as the management of other people’s emotions, or doing things so that other people stay happy and stay comfortable.

This strikes me as something worth examining closely. Attempting to manage (solicited or not, though I would guess most often not) other people's emotions seems guaranteed to end in discord.

The concept that 'emotional labor' has been sort of co-opted from its original meaning, thus losing the actual significance of the term is quite interesting. I kind of internally related it to 'spoon theory' use- clearly it was originally meant explicitly for chronic physical illnesses, but I often see it used for depression and anxiety.

It makes sense that happens, "spoon theory" is basically a metaphor for "limited resources", anyone who looks at it without context is just going to see a nice metaphor for a very common issue.

Yes, but the expansion of the term somewhat dilutes and transforms the original meaning of the term and its original context and usefulness. Similar to what is being done here.

>There’s no doubt that the unpaid, expected, and unacknowledged work of keeping households and relationships running smoothly falls disproportionately on women.

[citation needed]

[0] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170926105448.h... - "Household chores: Women still do more"

Study confirms that women tend to do more housework than their male partners, irrespective of their age, income or own workloads

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-017-0832-1 - "Time, Money, or Gender? Predictors of the Division of Household Labour Across Life Stages"

Results indicated women performed more housework than men at all ages.

[2]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4584401/ - "The Production of Inequality: The Gender Division of Labor Across the Transition to Parenthood"

Mothers, according to the time diaries, shouldered the majority of child care and did not decrease their paid work hours. Furthermore, the gender gap was not present prebirth but emerged postbirth with women doing more than 2 hours of additional work per day compared to an additional 40 minutes for men. Moreover, the birth of a child magnified parents’ overestimations of work in the survey data, and had the authors relied only on survey data, gender work inequalities would not have been apparent.

Thank you.

It is strange how people always associate domestic work with women, or something women are not compensated for.

I know I do a lot of domestic work that my wife barely knows needs to be done, or assumes it's trivial, or assumes "you are intelligent/strong/used to/a XY warm body, so it's easy for you". And it mostly consists of things that cannot be outsourced (perhaps a butler or secretary would help, but these are more expensive than a maid).

Honestly I don't know who the hell falls for this kind of narrative.

> Honestly I don't know who the hell falls for this kind of narrative.

At least 50% of the population, I'd wager.

I think you bring up an interesting point. In a discussion about household work, I've never actually heard a discussion about the types of things that men are just expected to do without anybody batting an eye. It makes sense that usually a man would be the one to bring up the 50 kg sack of potatoes to the 3rd floor apartment, but I've never actually heard this point being made that men also have some expectations placed on them in the household. It's always just summarized as "earn money, open jars, reach high places".

I never thought of family care as something that needs to be paid. Should I pay my wife for doing that work? In that case should she pay me for shouldering the burden of working hard in a job I don't like making money I don't spend myself? All this doesn't sit well with me. It's too individualistic.

The law accommodates for that - 50% of the assets for each in case of divorce. Guaranteed not to be fair for most particular cases, but puts an end to the discussion, and everybody knows the deal before marrying.

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