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How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

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Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#411

Post by dan00 »

ci5er wrote: post #364
dan00 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> you can't be just rational and the fear will disappear. Are you sure? I find that mentally walking through a checklist of true-true facts makes my sweating/shaking/vomiting go away (for a while)

> Are you sure? I find that mentally walking through a checklist of true-true facts makes my sweating/shaking/vomiting go away (for a while)

Calming thoughts certainly can help, that's the whole idea behind the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

But it might not work that easily for everyone and for every fear, and it also depends how much you're feared, because you certainly can't calm down a panic attack with a few thoughts.

One should just be aware that what works for one person might not work for another.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#412

Post by dan00 »

tbabb wrote: post #381
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.

Agree; in fact I'd go further and say that anxiety is by definition irrational. If it were rational, it would simply be "worry", which is useful. The difference is that in the case of worry, it makes sense to mitigate the external thing that is worrying you, while in the latter it is necessary to address/mitigate the emotions themselves.

> Agree; in fact I'd go further and say that anxiety is by definition irrational. If it were rational, it would simply be "worry", which is useful.

If someone wants to kill you, then you're just worried?

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#413

Post by JackMorgan »

chillingeffect wrote: post #294
lliamander wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the trick may be deciding before it becomes a decision on her radar in the first place. One way my wife and I handle this is to have separate responsibilities that we each own. For instance, I handle bills. Not because I'm better at it, but because it causes her more stress than it causes me. I also proactively communicate our financial status, so that she isn't surprised by anything.

If there's a "trick," it's to have an interesting, playful discussion about it, previewing and anticipating all the choices and their potential sensory impacts and feelings and emotions of the whole experience, including the trip there and back. With both of you visualizing and making connections and learning about each other, you're making fun, exciting memories to the point that the dinner just restates or cements…

Could you detail this more?

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#414

Post by philh »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #403
philh wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The clean house is presumably a goal, here. Otherwise, the obvious solution is not to clean the house. (I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having the clean house as a goal. But it's important to know what your goals are, so that you can deci…

> "The clean house is presumably a goal, here." The goal is to reduce the mental burden of having to think about the cleaning.

There is no "the goal". There are goals, plural. One goal is to have a clean house, and another goal is not to think about cleaning the house.

You can achieve the second goal by deciding not to clean the house. But that doesn't satisfy the first goal.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#415

Post by ada1981 »

imgabe wrote: post #283
ada1981 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd offer a third option which is taking responsibility for your pain / emotions, but not trying to "control" them. Instead, welcoming and allowing all of them and creating space to engage and explore them. This can lead to much deeper connection with your self and others, and increased health. When you do this, you will also be more available to help others feel their emotions and to help them take responsibility fo…

You're right, control is the wrong word. It's more "don't let them control you". With practice I find I can feel an emotion, recognize it as an emotional response, then either find some productive action to address what's causing it or if none are available, let it go. Not that I'm always perfect at doing this, but I find it's more helpful than just being annoyed/sad/angry and waiting for some external change in circ…

I've been living my entire adult life after having been diagnosed schizophrenic at 18 (and bipolar at 31).

Choosing to live without medication, this practice of feeling emotions fully and letting them teach me whatever they are meant to, has allowed me to transcend that diagnosis.

I've found that within hard to experience emotions are often anchient patterns or old traumas waiting to be released - everything from my father cheating on my mom, to my step dad abusing us, to being circumscized, to being terrified by Catholic propaganda.

I find that when I surrender to the emotions as sacred teachers (sometime using altered states like Breathwork to get closer / amplify them), that I end up with more clarity, compassion and confidence.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#416

Post by CodeWriter23 »

emodendroket wrote: post #352
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expectations are an opportunity for disappointment.

I mean think about it. If you were tasked at your job with evaluating venders, would you talk to just one, and then tell your boss it couldn't be done within the budget? Probably not.

If I got one bid that was kinda high, and I knew I could do it myself in an hour, I would just do it. Because hiring a vendor would mean I would spend an hour dealing with them, then have to pay them on top of that. That's the "emotional" component the wife wanted to be freed from. So bottom line, she's pissed that he didn't go down the road of emotional drudgery like she would have chosen for herself and just did the job instead.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#417

Post by ZenoArrow »

Sacho wrote: post #405
ZenoArrow wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Well delivery can be just as important as the message." Only if the delivery is offensive, otherwise the message is more important. To give an example, I'm a native English speaker, and when I speak with some non-native English speakers they can make some quirky decisions on how they deliver their message. However, if I've understood the underlying message, I'll look past it, and address what they meant. To bring…

No, because I don't know what the underlying message is - you didn't spell it out, neither did parent, or anyone in this chain. If you unentangle the first example the author gives, she wants to give a task to the man, without explaining how to do it, and then complains that they don't do it properly. But it's not even just that, it's her wrapping this task into a "Mother's Day gift", i.e. forcing the man to do emoti…

> "If you unentangle the first example the author gives, she wants to give a task to the man, without explaining how to do it, and then complains that they don't do it properly."

This is where you're wrong. The wife makes it very clear to the husband how she wants the job done. This is clear because the husband reluctantly acquiesces to her request before deciding to go with a different approach. Once you accept that the wife's instructions were clear, the rest of your argument falls down.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#418

Post by ZenoArrow »

philh wrote: post #414
ZenoArrow wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The clean house is presumably a goal, here." The goal is to reduce the mental burden of having to think about the cleaning.

There is no "the goal". There are goals, plural. One goal is to have a clean house, and another goal is not to think about cleaning the house. You can achieve the second goal by deciding not to clean the house. But that doesn't satisfy the first goal.

> "There is no "the goal"."

Nope, there is a clear goal. The author made it clear that a clean house was "a bonus". What do you think that suggests about what the main goal was?

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#419

Post by philh »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #418
philh wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "the goal". There are goals, plural. One goal is to have a clean house, and another goal is not to think about cleaning the house. You can achieve the second goal by deciding not to clean the house. But that doesn't satisfy the first goal.

> "There is no "the goal"." Nope, there is a clear goal. The author made it clear that a clean house was "a bonus". What do you think that suggests about what the main goal was?

I don't think it makes sense to call something a bonus unless it's also a goal.

I never said all goals were equal, so asking which is the main goal is irrelevant; my point is just that both goals exist as goals.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#420

Post by emodendroket »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #416
emodendroket wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean think about it. If you were tasked at your job with evaluating venders, would you talk to just one, and then tell your boss it couldn't be done within the budget? Probably not.

If I got one bid that was kinda high, and I knew I could do it myself in an hour, I would just do it. Because hiring a vendor would mean I would spend an hour dealing with them, then have to pay them on top of that. That's the "emotional" component the wife wanted to be freed from. So bottom line, she's pissed that he didn't go down the road of emotional drudgery like she would have chosen for herself and just did th…

Yes, because then she's left running around watching the kids and taking care of everything else while he does that (which totally defeats the point because what she wanted was a rest) and he's only provided a one-time "solution." The article kind of goes off the rails after that but this complaint seems both fair and easy to understand.
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