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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

#401

Post by Sacho »

dTal wrote: post #376
troupe wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried that and it usually goes like this... :) Her: Where are we going to eat? Me: Restuarant A. Her: But restaurant B has X. Me: Sounds good. Let's go to B. Her: But you wanted to go to A. I think the trick may be deciding before it becomes a decision on her radar in the first place.

The trick is deciding , period. The key is recognising that when she says "But restaurant B has X", she is not really suggesting that you go to B. She is offering you a chance to show that you have thought it through, that you have mastery over the situation, or at the very least are prepared to stand up for your opinions. When you shrug your shoulders and immediately defer to her, it's upsetting; it makes her feel a…

It seems like, in your scenario, the man is doing the emotional labor.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#402

Post by ZenoArrow »

CaptSpify wrote: post #250
orthecreedence wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, she asked for a cleaning service. Not a clean house.

> For Mother's Day I asked for one thing: a house cleaning service. I don't see her quoting what she told her husband, so we only have her summary to go off of. I think the details would be important here.

Her instructions are clearly clear enough to her husband, who makes one call to a cleaning service before Mother's day.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#403

Post by ZenoArrow »

philh wrote: post #163
EarthIsHome wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Socks laying on the floor doesn't affect people's health. You're missing the point. She mentions that the clean house isn't the goal, the clean house would "simply be a bonus" > complaining about her partner not telepathically reading her mind to "sense" her completely arbitrary standards She also makes the point that she has told him what she wants.

> 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.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#404

Post by Sacho »

BarkingChicken wrote: post #240
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…

I think that one of the things I'm continuously disappointed in is that comments like this tend to get more exposure and agreement than the concept that the author is trying to bring to light. I get so excited to see discussion about these concepts, but then the idea gets ignored because the author isn't using exactly the right words. It really makes me feel even more isolated and unheard. Yes, communication is a ver…

But you didn't make an effort to reword it with the right words. Only you can see your internal thoughts and monologue, all we have to work with is the words we see.

Judging by your post, we could reword the article down to this: "Men should take up more household chores". Okay, that's uncontroversial. Digging down into the first example of the article:

"What I wanted was for him to ask friends on Facebook for a recommendation, call four or five more services, do the (emotional labor) work I would have done if the job had fallen to me."

Wouldn't it be easier to just tell the guy to do this, rather than veil it in a Mother's Day gift and expect him to "do the right thing"? Is it not the partner's responsibility to communicate clearly what they want, why they want it, etc? Why is the assumption that your partner, your loved one in life, is being malicious, is unwilling to do "the emotional labor", rather than just not knowing how to do it? Would it be fair if I asked my partner to "buy me a new PC for my birthday", and then complained that she didn't do research on the manufacturers, didn't make a custom build out of individual specced components, but rather bought me the first google result?

What I am continuously disappointed about in these discussions is how the authors, almost always female, seem to treat their partners like shit. I would never think to blame my partner for not being as good as something as me; I would look for a way to teach them, I would take this as a bonding experience for our relationship. This is why I will turn the author's claim around - no, you aren't "fed up", you're nagging - when did you make an honest effort to help your partner do the things you want them to do? How is what you're doing productive?!

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#405

Post by Sacho »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #394
zug_zug wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well delivery can be just as important as the message. It sounds like she alienated male-audiences by implying it's a problem with a whole gender instead of implying it's a gender-neutral trait. After all, how does she know who does the cleaning, planning, keeping track of birthdays in my relationship? And I don't think it's fair to dismiss her gender-targeting delivery as a trivial detail such as grammar, she's clea…

> "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 emotional labor to figure out what the woman really wants and how exactly to do it. This is a counter-example to her overall argument, both in her literal words(about emotional labor), and (I'm guessing here) in the underlying meaning of "men should do more of the hidden work"(how do you expect them to do the "hidden work" if you never explain to them that you're doing it, you want to share the responsibility, etc?).

If there's a deeper underlying message that I'm missing here, please, I'm interested in knowing about it. But every time I read an article like this, all I can think of is "dysfunctional relationship" and "unreasonable expectations".

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#406

Post by adrienne »

dang wrote: post #300
seattle_spring wrote: post #85

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.

I can understand why you'd feel that way. Venting like this is usually really bad for the kind of discussion we're hoping for here (the thoughtful kind!) but your comment interestingly makes up for it by being grounded in personal experience. That makes the feeling easier to relate to. It seems more genuine. I think you might be under a mis-impression of what Hacker News is. It's for stories that gratify intellectual…

The fact that you think this thread is non-horrible is a shining example of why this site is appalling to so many people.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#407

Post by rootlocus »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #400
rootlocus wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things I don't understand. First, are the women depicted in this comic stay at home moms? If so then yes, I would expect them to take care of the house. Regardless of gender. If they both have jobs, then the workload should be shared. It's not about gender. It's about distributing the work. If he goes to work 8 hours a day, she can work 8 hours a day. Staying at home and not doing anything is nothing short of dis…

> "First, are the women depicted in this comic stay at home moms?" Did you even read the comic? In the first line... "Back when I was in my first job, a colleague invited me over for dinner." What do you think that tells you about their working background? Do they sound like stay at home mums?

> Did you even read the comic?

I confess to skimming the introduction, thank you for the clarification.

> What do you think that tells you about their working background? Do they sound like stay at home mums?

This is just flogging a dead horse. They aren't stay at home moms and I wholeheartedly agree the burdens should be shared equally, as I wrote in my original comment.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#408

Post by [deleted] »

ada1981 wrote: post #45
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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#409

Post by rootlocus »

dTal wrote: post #376
troupe wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried that and it usually goes like this... :) Her: Where are we going to eat? Me: Restuarant A. Her: But restaurant B has X. Me: Sounds good. Let's go to B. Her: But you wanted to go to A. I think the trick may be deciding before it becomes a decision on her radar in the first place.

The trick is deciding , period. The key is recognising that when she says "But restaurant B has X", she is not really suggesting that you go to B. She is offering you a chance to show that you have thought it through, that you have mastery over the situation, or at the very least are prepared to stand up for your opinions. When you shrug your shoulders and immediately defer to her, it's upsetting; it makes her feel a…

> She is offering you a chance to show that you have thought it through, that you have mastery over the situation, or at the very least are prepared to stand up for your opinions.

Or, she could respect the fact that it doesn't matter for him which restaurant they go to.

> When you shrug your shoulders and immediately defer to her, it's upsetting; it makes her feel as if you believe that she is more competent than you, or that her opinions are worth more.

No, it doesn't. And if that's what she feels, it's her problem. He doesn't see the difference between A or B. He may say something like "A is closer" or "B is cheaper", but maybe that's all he cares about. She sees differences he doesn't, so why should he be burdened? My girlfriend relies on me to buy electronics. I rely on her to buy healthy food. If she wants my input she asks. If I reply with "I don't care", she just picks something in two seconds. We never argue about it.

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but if you care much more about trivialities than your partner, and you expect the other person to change or to exert extra effort just to match your expectations, then you're simply not a good match for each other and things will never work out the way you expect.

Choosing between restaurant A or B when the other person doesn't care or see a difference is something you do FOR YOURSELF. If you expect the other person to make this choice for you, you're asking for a favor.

Re: How Emotional Labor is Dragging Down Gender Equality

#410

Post by [deleted] »

logfromblammo wrote: post #302
nkrisc wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're exactly right, this was the point I was trying to make. I never realized this before. I used to only see it rationally, that she should choose since she cares and I don't. But then it turned into her always choosing and having to decide and plan it. Once I realized this is what was happening I made a conscious effort to ease that burden and take my share of the emotional labor. Of course choosing a restaurant…

My spouse has assumed the responsibility for ensuring that the family has a dinner every evening. I have assumed the responsibility for ensuring that every individual family member is capable of providing their own dinner from available materials every evening, if they choose to eat a dinner. This is "give a man a fish" versus "teach him how to fish". In this, we are at cross-purposes. I can prepare salubrious meals.…

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