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

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#201

Post by nostoc » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

hasbroslasher wrote: post #191

Describing cleaning as emotional labour is weird to me. I'm fully on board with the "many women do lots of emotional labour that goes unnoticed" logic but to me cleaning is labour and that's that. It's a job, and it should be talked about as hard labour, not some mysterious emotional nebula that men avoid because of gendered conditioning. I think the danger here is that by conflating emotional labour and cleaning, we…

Cleaning is not emotional labour, and the article doesn't claim so.

Being in charge of cleaning is the emotional labour.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#202

Post by scott_s » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #72

musha68k wrote: post #6

I found this comic on the topic also insightful: “You should’ve asked” https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/

I find that comic sexist; many men are house managers. Not all, but to assume that men are passive parents is insulting.

The comic's author addresses this:

https://emmacliten.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/you-shouldve-...

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#203

Post by ianmcgowan » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

brookside wrote: post #44

didgeoridoo wrote: post #7

I'm not sure I buy this. In my experience at least, it all comes down to standards — it sounds like this woman has higher standards for what constitutes a "running household", and gets frustrated when her husband doesn't share those standards. It sounds like he would be content with boxes on the floor, dirty bathrooms, etc. When she asks him to raise the house to her standard, she is asking him to adopt her perspecti…

I'm not in love with the phrase "emotional labor" but I would suspect if you reflect more deeply you will see the scenarios in this article playing out in your own and others' relationships. It's not really about standards, more the fact that it's not fair to women when the default assumption is they are in mental charge of household and child-rearing duties - certainly when both partners are working. I'll share a co…

That's an interesting comic and I enjoyed reading it, but wow those comments are hard to take..

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#204

Post by eradicatethots » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:29 PM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #172

eradicatethots wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should you be ashamed of this?

I think automatically jumping to a defensive posture, even when one isn't being attacked (or there's nothing to defend) isn't a great response. It seems reasonable that I should be able to listen to someone else's gripes without jumping to the conclusion that I am somehow to blame. In this article, it seemed to me that the author's goal was to try and get recognition for work performed, not to make their partner feel…

People usually don’t express their goals. And what’s the harm in being defensive? If you’re wrong they c an explain that to you

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#205

Post by mercer » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:29 PM UTC

zubspace wrote: post #110

Waterluvian wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm in a similar position. My wife's a planner. She over-thinks alot, creates lists for everthing and needs to discuss details with me/friends/parents which most of the time I deem unnecessary. I realized that I can't change her. There's no single solution, but there are a few things she did, which helped her being more relaxed: Yoga, talk therapy, less coffee/more sleep, taking time outside of family. She also had i…

And in some cases satisfy the need/desire despite it seeming unnecessary or illogical (or even problematic). This is something I struggle with immensely, and ironically for no logical reason!

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#206

Post by saint_fiasco » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

nostoc wrote: post #201

hasbroslasher wrote: post #191

Describing cleaning as emotional labour is weird to me. I'm fully on board with the "many women do lots of emotional labour that goes unnoticed" logic but to me cleaning is labour and that's that. It's a job, and it should be talked about as hard labour, not some mysterious emotional nebula that men avoid because of gendered conditioning. I think the danger here is that by conflating emotional labour and cleaning, we…

Cleaning is not emotional labour, and the article doesn't claim so. Being in charge of cleaning is the emotional labour.

That sounds like normal labour to me. Just a more administrative/managerial type instead of the hard physical type.

If my boss asked me to call some cleaning companies and arrange a schedule so they come clean the office, all on my "free" time, I'd expect extra payment because that is extra labour.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#207

Post by BarkingChicken » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

hasbroslasher wrote: post #191

Describing cleaning as emotional labour is weird to me. I'm fully on board with the "many women do lots of emotional labour that goes unnoticed" logic but to me cleaning is labour and that's that. It's a job, and it should be talked about as hard labour, not some mysterious emotional nebula that men avoid because of gendered conditioning. I think the danger here is that by conflating emotional labour and cleaning, we…

I think you might be missing the point. The gift that she wanted was the house cleaning service. She had already been planning/considering hiring someone anyway. The gift was that she would not have to do the work to find, vet, make the calls, research, arrange payment, schedule, etc. for this task. The gift was supposed to be him taking over that work.

> The gift, for me, was not so much in the cleaning itself but the fact that for once I would not be in charge of the household office work. I would not have to make the calls, get multiple quotes, research and vet each service, arrange payment and schedule the appointment. The real gift I wanted was to be relieved of the emotional labor of a single task that had been nagging at the back of my mind. The clean house would simply be a bonus.

also

> I had wanted to hire out deep cleaning for a while, especially since my freelance work had picked up considerably. The reason I hadn’t done it yet was part guilt over not doing my housework, and an even larger part of not wanting to deal with the work of hiring a service. I knew exactly how exhausting it was going to be. That’s why I asked my husband to do it as a gift.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#208

Post by mercer » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

dan00 wrote: post #197

zethraeus wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who often has anxiety: that anxiety is often irrational. Extrapolating fears rooted in one environment to another in which there is no danger is: 1) very human 2) irrational.

I think my point is: yes, the fear is irrational, but you're not irrational because you have the fear. Or saying it the other way, you can't be just rational and the fear will disappear. So it's quite unempathic to think about someone being irrational because he's anxiously, and you don't have anxiety because you're rational.

Thanks for that! I suffer from some severe anxiety (diagnosable so, even) and one of the most difficult things for me to accept is that it is irrational. Removing the source of anxiety just makes my mind find something else to be anxious about, for example.

I find it extremely uncomfortable to admit to myself that my own mind, my 'self', can actually be the source of self-sabotage. My rational side, irrationally, often 'solves' the problem by simply denying this fact and carrying on dysfunctionally.

What makes all this worse is people who in various ways encourage this denial, even if they mean well.

Thankfully, I have at least two people in my life, as well as my mother, strange as it feels to admit this as a grown man, that I can confide in, and whenever I take the courage to at least express the irrational fears in all their irrationality, they help me by, well, observations like yours. Somehow merely the acknowledgement that my irrational fears are legitimate despite their irrationality is a tremendous help in dealing with them. I'd encourage everyone to keep this in mind when dealing with people suffering from what I guess we'd call 'mental disorders'. You have no idea how much just acknowledgement can do for them/us, and it doesn't have to take much effort!

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#209

Post by fatbird » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

zethraeus wrote: post #131

dan00 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thes…

As someone who often has anxiety: that anxiety is often irrational. Extrapolating fears rooted in one environment to another in which there is no danger is: 1) very human 2) irrational.

Yes, but the irrationality is a property, not a cause, so "be more rational" is a terrible approach to dealing with anxiety because, on par with "just don't be depressed".

Anxiety is a relatively easy to address problem, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) works pretty well. It's also amenable to short-term talk therapy, usually.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#210

Post by juancn » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

This is housekeeper neurosis. She cares a lot about the house, he doesn't hence conflict, plus the fact that she essentially want's her husband to be able to read her mind.

They should consider doing some psychotherapy.

The article has a few interesting points about gender, but she stretches them almost to the breaking point. The call for budgets I get that as emotional labor goes, but the "he should know better and read my mind and satisfy all my emotional desires as my idealized husband would" crap I don't buy.

That's just plain old neurosis and an underhanded slap on the wrist for her husband.