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

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#341

Post by CodeWriter23 » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 8:50 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #315

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point. Yes, she wanted a house cleaning service. But that’s not the gift she wanted. The gift she wanted was for her husband to magically divine that she wanted him to use her emotionally-laden approach (seeking recommendations via social) to solving the problem of hiring the service instead of his pragmatic approach of identifying the cost of the service, which he then used his prior training…

It seems to me that she felt like his attempt to do the task was pretty half-hearted.

Expectations are an opportunity for disappointment.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#342

Post by RickJWagner » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 8:51 PM UTC

This might be part of it.

A bigger part is the political opportunism that practically guarantees that about half the population will oppose the other half, effectively neutralizing progress.

An example: If you ask anyone (of any political affiliation) if they favor more beneficial time off for birth-related activities, you will probably get a positive response. But if you accuse someone of being sexist because they vote the 'wrong' way, then you're demonizing half the country and putting them on the other side of the playing field.

The same thing happens with racism. When the word is exploited for political purposes, it dilutes the effectiveness of the term and artificially sets people opposite each other.

It's high time we define certain standards for what should be political and what should be universally agreed upon. Gender equality and racial equality should be in the latter category.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#343

Post by ZenoArrow » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 8:53 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #329

ZenoArrow wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're not the one that conflated gender with understanding, and that's what I found interesting about your exchange. The rest of the discussion was just a common form of miscommunication that happens when someone wants to talk about specifics and the other wants to talk in generics, and the two collide.

I am not conflating anything and I have no idea why you would claim that I am.

What did you intend to suggest with "given that this is an overwhelmingly male forum"?

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#344

Post by Mz » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 8:53 PM UTC

gkya wrote: post #336

ZenoArrow wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Those implications are entirely inaccurate, but given that this is an overwhelmingly male forum, it is a no win situation for me." How does the fact that HN is an overwhelmingly male forum make this a no win situation for you? Are you suggesting that only a few HN members could ever see things from your point of view? For what it's worth, I thought that this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15359215 wa…

English is not my mother tongue, so maybe I've done a silly language transfer using "you" to mean "one, people". I've definitely heard native speakers use second person in similar ways though, but mostly British.

Americans do that a lot too. I have done it and had it go sideways in public discussions. That really was the only explanation needed to straighten things out with me.

The problem is that isn't what you said to me. Instead, you informed me of your discomfort and asked me to delete my remarks out of deference to your comfort.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#345

Post by Mz » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #343

Mz wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not conflating anything and I have no idea why you would claim that I am.

What did you intend to suggest with "given that this is an overwhelmingly male forum"?

I am the top ranked openly female member here. That observation is informed by long experience. In gendered discussions that get heated, the majority of people on HN will tend to side with the man or the male point of view.

Once a man says or does something moderately problematic that is a stereotypically gendered issue, the odds are long against a woman getting a fair shake. Your choice to reply to me and accuse me of making this a gendered issue instead of siding with me and letting them know that their remark is a sort that does not work well is completely consistent with that pattern.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#346

Post by j45 » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #112

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…

Not all problems are solved or can only be seen through a lens of rationality or irrationality. Many things have to be understood with the heart, rather than the mind, or vice versa. I don't believe women or men are more logical or emotional based on their gender alone - most are adults who do not continue to develop both emotional awareness and thoughtfulness. When I'm presented with similar anxiety, instead of dism…

It's interesting the number of up and down votes this has received but no comments - open to feedback on and offline if you prefer.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#347

Post by ZenoArrow » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #340

ZenoArrow wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point of the article. The husband screwed up with the cleaning too, even though he did the cleaning. It was never about the cleaning, per se, but the mental drain of running a household. Read the article again. This is the key part... "I was gifted a necklace for Mother's Day while my husband stole away to deep clean the bathrooms, leaving me to care for our children as the rest of the house fell into…

I agree with you, but I think we are using different semantics. He technically did the cleaning. He screwed up because he didn't consider what the point of cleaning was (like you say, giving her wife a day off) and he just did something that he thought was approximately equivalent to what she literally asked. I call that "not really caring". If he cared, he would have realized he should have cleaned the day before an…

> "I call that "not really caring"."

I call it "not really understanding". The cleaning was most likely more work than a few more phone calls to cleaners for quotes would've been. If it was about not caring then why wouldn't the husband put in the minimum effort and get in someone else to do the cleaning?

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#348

Post by tejohnso » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

aoenstkn4nto wrote: post #239

tejohnso wrote: post #35

"If I were to point out random emotional labor duties I carry out—reminding him of his family’s birthdays, carrying in my head the entire school handbook and dietary guidelines for lunches, updating the calendar to include everyone’s schedules, asking his mother to babysit the kids when we go out, keeping track of what food and household items we are running low on, tidying everyone’s strewn about belongings, the une…

> ""Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job." Isn't that what she's saying? She doesn't want to have to tip-toe around her husband's feelings the way she seems to have to. She spends a lot of emotional labor (or capital, if you prefer) trying not to point out obvious things like, "I shouldn't have to tell you to put away the thing you took out…

"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"

What she's saying is she wants to do less work, and then she throws the term "emotional labor" in there as though that's a catch-all description for any work that she normally does that she would rather not be doing. But maybe I just don't understand the term.

"Then I tried to gingerly explain the concept of emotional labor: that I was the manager of the household, and that being manager was a lot of thankless work. Delegating work to other people, i.e. telling him to do something he should instinctively know to do, is exhausting. "

Nope, again, she's just saying she's doing a lot of work, specifically here delegation and managerial work. This is the way she is explaining the concept of "emotional labor" but most people just call it work and/or management.

I'm not sure how it helps to call it "emotional labor". It just confuses the issue putting focus on the individual's personal symptoms as the result of a problem rather than the problem itself. The real issue seems to be a work imbalance which leads to frustration. Fix the work imbalance, the frustration goes away.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#349

Post by losteverything » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 9:19 PM UTC

When you have been married decades, for me, this article has "historical" relevance. As in our past.

I would not say it's a gender thing though

Everything became clear to us once "we were at the head of the table." when both sets of parents died.

Our greater understanding of each other gained clarity when we were parentless.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#350

Post by gkya » Thu, Sep 28, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #344

gkya wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is not my mother tongue, so maybe I've done a silly language transfer using "you" to mean "one, people". I've definitely heard native speakers use second person in similar ways though, but mostly British.

Americans do that a lot too. I have done it and had it go sideways in public discussions. That really was the only explanation needed to straighten things out with me. The problem is that isn't what you said to me. Instead, you informed me of your discomfort and asked me to delete my remarks out of deference to your comfort.

You called your ex husband a pig, in responding to me. That was what I said I wanted you to remove, because I feel strong discomfort having caused someone I don't know at all getting insulted at in public. I'm still very uncomfortable with it and still, I'd be happy if you edited your comment to remove that particular word. Wrt the other issue, well, I've said I'm sorry enough times and all I've gotten was bias and aggression. You've said that I'm acting to create a certain impression on other readers, and you've implied that I'm sexist. I won't add any more comments to this thread because this is becoming really annoying and actually offending.