How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality • Hacker News Board

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#81

Post by ada1981 » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

athenot wrote: post #62

ada1981 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflict in relationship, especially intimate relationships, is rarely about the content. It's typically that the context of the situation brings up an emotion that is taboo / off limits, one that the person has spent a life time avoiding. This avoidance is typically do to previous developmental or shock trauma. You can actually learn to use your conflicts as a psychedelic of sorts to do deep transformational work, i…

YES! That's exactly how I view conflicts. It's the surfacing of something much deeper that is normally completely hidden, either suppressed or managed at the cost of Emotional Reserve. When something flares up, I try to not let it go to waste and start digging. Instead, it's an opportunity. Either my wife or me (usually both) will then gain some insight about ourselves. We can then apologize for the content wich caus…

Are you in NYC by chance? I'd love to invite you and your partner to join us for a Psychedlic Love Workshop aka The Love Dojo (as our guest).

My partner and I curate a group of couples doing this work (and singles looking to find a relationship with this context), and practice some really cutting edge tools.

For example, we've pioneered a version of breathwork to be used in times of conflict with your partner that can transform long standing conflict patterns.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#82

Post by lmm » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

DanHulton wrote: post #34

dozzie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you didn't understand parent's point. It's not women that are expected to put effort, it's the party that's not satisfied with current state that is expected to put effort. > Why doesn't the husband notice that his wife is always picking up after him, or that she is not recieving acknowledgement of the work she has done, work that he feels should be acknowledged when he does it? Blind spots of attention. When…

I mean - I'm always looking for ways to please my partner, and to a lesser degree, my friends, family and co-workers. Little trinkets I think she might like, a surprise dinner, doing some dishes that we've been letting slide, making tea, refilling water, whatever. And she does the same for me. And my friends, family, and co-workers tend to do the same as well. It's not silly. It's called kindness, and it's part of em…

Is she having to do a disproportionate amount of pleasing her partner though? We don't get that perspective, only that she's putting more effort than him into the parts she cares about - which might go both ways.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#83

Post by oijoinoifsnf » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

gyardley wrote: post #70

mmjaa wrote: post #48

This is a highly charged, and - frankly sexist - article about how people have expectations that are unfulfilled because they simply don't communicate with each other . There isn't a single example of this "emotional labor" in the article, where a consideration is given to "the man" about how much labor it takes, emotionally, to keep up with someone who has high expectations for their environment, but does not commun…

In my experience communication happens again and again and again over a period of years until the woman gives up in exasperation and just seethes silently. It's hard to get someone to engage in emotional labor (or as I like to call it, 'giving a fuck') when they simply don't give a fuck, no matter how much you communicate. Since not caring enough to do the basic gruntwork associated with a decent relationship is almo…

It's weird that the Internet is the first place to say things like: "Maybe women don't WANT to be in tech", "there are biological differences", etc. but also turn around and complain that it's sexist to imply men (on average) have difficulties with emotional communication.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#84

Post by mmjaa » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

gyardley wrote: post #70

mmjaa wrote: post #48

This is a highly charged, and - frankly sexist - article about how people have expectations that are unfulfilled because they simply don't communicate with each other . There isn't a single example of this "emotional labor" in the article, where a consideration is given to "the man" about how much labor it takes, emotionally, to keep up with someone who has high expectations for their environment, but does not commun…

In my experience communication happens again and again and again over a period of years until the woman gives up in exasperation and just seethes silently. It's hard to get someone to engage in emotional labor (or as I like to call it, 'giving a fuck') when they simply don't give a fuck, no matter how much you communicate. Since not caring enough to do the basic gruntwork associated with a decent relationship is almo…

>almost always a male problem

That is sexist.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#85

Post by seattle_spring » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

I love working 10+ hours a day to pay for 100% of me and my fiancé's expenses, coming home, cooking dinner, and cleaning up everything while she studies for med school; going to bed early so I can do some shopping before work; and then being told I'm a useless man by some nobody with a shitty marriage on a website that's supposed to be about technology.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#86

Post by JPKab » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

mmjaa wrote: post #48

This is a highly charged, and - frankly sexist - article about how people have expectations that are unfulfilled because they simply don't communicate with each other . There isn't a single example of this "emotional labor" in the article, where a consideration is given to "the man" about how much labor it takes, emotionally, to keep up with someone who has high expectations for their environment, but does not commun…

If my wife wrote this article, I'd be furious.

I agree: This article is blatantly sexist, and the author is essentially complaining about her partner not telepathically reading her mind to "sense" her completely arbitrary standards for cleanliness in the home. She makes a big point of how she "controls the budget", and yet I have a strong suspicion that she wouldn't allow her husband to do so if he offered.

Let's be clear: Socks laying on the floor doesn't affect people's health. The standards of cleanliness adopted by western women (starting in the middle of the 20th century) were created by a patriarchal consumerist advertising industry working to market new chemical household cleaners. They are, scientifically, wholly excessive and even counterproductive. I say this as someone who keeps my home clean and uncluttered, and washes the dishes and cleans the kitchen every night. Edit: The marketing psychology used for this prays on people who measure higher on tests for neurotic tendencies. From a statistical perspective, the distribution for women on this trait is significantly to the right of men. For more examples of "purity" marketing to people higher on the neuroticism scale, see numerous illogical products that are environmentally damaging: bottled water, soap with "cleansing beads", "flushable" wipes, etc, etc.

If I wrote a blog post ranting and raving about how my wife never wants to manage the maintenance of our vehicles, and how I'm emotionally tired of trying to get her to keep track of the mileage of her vehicle to ensure she gets an oil change, I'd be called a whiner at best and sexist at worst.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me tire of the self-proclaimed Northeastern intelligentsia. You can package this up as a well-written, intellectual essay all you want. It doesn't change the fact that this is no different than the person at lunch whining about their spouse to their coworkers while they all roll their eyes.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#87

Post by dan00 » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #38

nkrisc wrote: post #29

This is a topic where the more I learned about it the more I opened my eyes to it and saw it happening on my own life. I'm very easy going and there isn't much I get too worked up about. My wife, on the other hand, is a meticulous planner. I could see her getting stressed out making decisions for a vacation. I realized that by not caring, I wasn't helping and offloading the burden to her. Now I truly didn't care if w…

That resonates with me. But I struggle a lot. I feel like my wife's irrationality on some subjects forces us to both spend some of our very limited time here feeling anxious and negative. It's frustrating and feels very one sided. Why can't she meet me half way and stop being so anxious on half the events? Well.. because irrationality doesn't work that way; I get that. I think that true zen for me is finding a way to…

Please don't directly connect irrationality with anxiety.

Sure, there's a connection between the rational and emotional parts in humans, but this doesn't mean that being anxious automatically means being irrational.

Quite a few fears have their origin in the childhood, when the rational parts of the brain haven't been that developed, and perhaps that's the reason why these fears can have such a deep impact.

When these fears come up in an adult they might overwhelm him and it can be quite hard for the rational part to counter them in any way.

When you don't have these fears it's less about being more rational and perhaps a lot more about not having made harmful experiences in your youth.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#88

Post by fjsolwmv » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #39

I understand the husband was naive for expecting that it would be easy to find an inexpensive and convenient house cleaning service. He wanted "something he could one-click order on Amazon", and housecleaning services are not like that. But why is that the case? Why can't there be an Uber* for housecleaning? Even better, why can't they pay an actual maid to clean the house all the time? Every hour she is cleaning the…

Amazon is literally advertising housecleaning services all over their website right now.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#89

Post by exergy » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:29 PM UTC

chadlavi wrote: post #71

saint_fiasco wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are kind of exemplifying the attitude that the parent comment complains about. You have standards that are not being met, but instead of communicating clearly you just try to shame the other person. I understand communicating such simple things is not as simple as the thing would make it seem. In fact, the point of the article was that such work is unappreciated. But just because it's not appreciated it doesn't m…

Let me be more clear, then: saying that a female author is sexist for expecting her partner to take an equal share of the emotional labor of their shared life is beyond disgusting. I can't say I'm at all surprised to see that sort of mens-rightsism around ycombinator, though.

There are things in life that are "beyond disgusting", but this age-old tradition going back to as long as there have been marriages scarcely makes that cut. Chomping at the bit and flying off the handle is hardly going to get you anywhere.

Also, in two comments, you've failed to address the central point of the OP: What if the guy has lower standards for cleanliness? What if he doesn't mind the odd gift box not kept away for two days? The OP is saying that the woman seems not to have paused to wonder about whether they agree on the fundamental standards for "how much effort is worth putting into our living spaces"

Mind you, I lean towards your side of the argument. I grew up witnessing what the woman perfectly described: there are millions of tasks that women quietly do that men demand that they be applauded for. My parents are definitely in that mould.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#90

Post by mmjaa » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 3:29 PM UTC

chadlavi wrote: post #71

saint_fiasco wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are kind of exemplifying the attitude that the parent comment complains about. You have standards that are not being met, but instead of communicating clearly you just try to shame the other person. I understand communicating such simple things is not as simple as the thing would make it seem. In fact, the point of the article was that such work is unappreciated. But just because it's not appreciated it doesn't m…

Let me be more clear, then: saying that a female author is sexist for expecting her partner to take an equal share of the emotional labor of their shared life is beyond disgusting. I can't say I'm at all surprised to see that sort of mens-rightsism around ycombinator, though.

Only men are sexist? Are you serious?