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Comment by brigandish | Hacker News Reader

What is emotional labour?

The effort someone chooses to put in to manage and help the emotions of others.

It ranges from listening to someone talk about their day to driving over at night to a friend who's upset, to organizing an entire intervention.

It is often considered to fall more heavily on women. Notably, as work that often doesn't fully get redistributed when women enter the workforce, much like housekeeping often doesn't.

Some emotions are tiring - anger, frustration, depression, anguish, to name a few.

I can't think of any that involve supporting a colleague at work. I could certainly get tired of shenanigans at work, but that would be from frustration et al, but support?

Like the other comment that's responded, I just don't see the link between the description for the term and the situations in either the blog or a workplace.

I've certainly not noticed a difference in the level of emotional support given in the workplace by women either. Whose emotions are they managing? Men's?

> It is often considered to fall more heavily on women.

Citation needed.

Here you go: https://www.simplypsychology.org/emotional-labor.html

> Hochschild (1983) suggested that jobs requiring more emotional labor are performed primarily by women. These jobs typically involve creating feelings of well-being or affirmation in others – responsibilities usually assigned to women.

Hochschild, A. (1983). 1983 The managed heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.

I've read the outline of Hochschild's work, and it applies to jobs like waitresses, who have to maintain a positive image in order to do their job, not people in meetings in an office talking about a project. Hochschild herself has mentioned the scope-creep of the concept, critically.

Think of it like the difference between idly leafing through a book, versus studying a textbook as if your life depended on it - one is an inconsequential pastime, the other is an exhausting task made all the more stressful by its importance.

Emotional labor is dealing with other people’s emotions, not in the first sense described in the paragraph above, but in the second - paying close attention, thinking critically, interpreting what you see and hear and feel in an effort to help someone in some way. It’s shouldering their emotional burden, to some degree, to support them, as best you can - same as physical labor might be.

I read the blog, and the situations given - which are common in most workplaces - wouldn't lead me to compare them to a life or death situation in any way.

I also can't imagine thinking that concentrating on someone's speech while in conversation with them as taxing, beyond the normal difficulties that attempting concentration can bring.

Perhaps I'm missing something. The only time I could think of such things as laborious would be when faced with intransigence or my own frustration, and that's really about not getting my own way.

Isn't it normal to try to have good, productive conversations, pay attention to others, and give support where needed?

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