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I think this article misses the point. It's not about doing the chores. It's about being the one who has taken ownership of the chores being done, by whom, when

I think this article misses the point. It's not about doing the chores. It's about being the one who has taken ownership of the chores being done, by whom, when, etc. When people say it about chores, they mean they are in an unacknowledged managerial role, and that "just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it" doesn't solve the problem, because knowing what needs to be done and when in the first place is a huge part of the work in question. So sure, "emotional labor" is the wrong term. But it'd be better if the argument against using it in this broad way were directed at the strongest version of the claim, instead of a strawman.

mobileexpert 7y ago
One of the aspects related to an unacknowledged managerial role with chores, is that I find it often comes with caring about the outcome more strongly or more specifically than others. Expecting everyone to care about your hobby horse as much as you do is a recipe for feeling overburden and under-appreciated. If people are happy with your work NOT happening then your “emotional” or other labor will not be something they find valuable.
- josephg 7y ago
  I read a piece awhile ago where they asked a lot of people (particularly women) to describe the unacknowledged emotional labor they were doing in their relationships. (Using / misusing the term as they like. Hochschild would be appaled.) One of the stories stuck out for me was a woman who was sick of writing birthday & christmas cards for her husband's relatives. She tried not doing it, but her mother in law got snippy with her for not writing a card. Her husband didn't care at all and refused to help. So she felt stuck doing an unacknowledged and unappreciated job. I find this story really interesting because there are so many approaches here. To name a few, 1. She could suck it up and keep unhappily writing cards. 2. Her husband could write the cards. 3. She could stop writing the cards, but tell her mother in law to talk to her son if she didn't get a card. 4. She could ask her husband to run interference with the mother in law and back her. 5. She could just stop writing cards and tell everyone to piss off. I understand the perspective of "I feel like I have to write these cards. People expect me to write these cards. But I hate it and I feel like I don't have an out". But I think its too simple to label it as sexism and call it a day. Her husband is legitimately allowed to ignore the card thing, and so is she. In a sense, the pain comes from caving to a bad expectation - and thats something she does, not something anyone does to her. But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.
  - klipt 7y ago
    > But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated. I don't think that's true, it's more that society has different expectations for men and women. Men are expected to make money to prove their worth (hence the wage gap). Women are expected to maintain social connections to prove their worth (hence the friendship gap).
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      We don't have a wage gap. We have a motherhood gap. It is very difficult to monetize an investment that doesn't pay off for 18/20/25 years.
      - Mirioron 7y ago
        Not only that though. Choices in what interests people have matter as well. A deep interest in care-giving is much less likely to lead to a higher income compared to a deep interest in computers or engineering.
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    The other part of the story is that one of the reasons the husband is able so easily not care about the cards is because he does not get judged by anyone for not doing it. It isn't just that he is IGNORING the judgement... he is literally not getting any. I am not sure what the solution is, but just wanted to point out why it is reductive to just say "why can't the wife just not care like the husband doesn't care?" Maybe the husband would care if he was judged like the wife. Also, your #3 suggestion won't necessarily solve the issue... sexism is very ingrained, and even if you tell the MIL to talk to the husband, it doesn't mean the MIL will suddenly start holding her son responsible for the cards... she very well might still expect them from the DIL.
    - elefanten 7y ago
      But good communication can solve all those obstacles. If in that family the expectation is distributed unevenly across gender roles, someone can point that out and make a case for changing it. If terminally the problem is that these people can't communicate with each other or some people in the equation are unwilling to engage in communication, then the problem is much lower level than gendered expectations about emotional labor.
skybrian 7y ago
Maybe "household management" would be a better term?
protonimitate 7y ago
I don't think it's a strawman argument, and even if it is, I dont think that negates the point of the article. My take is that we have poor terminology and a bad shared understanding of how to qualify the types and amount of work that go into maintaining relationships of any kind. Instead of being able to say "I don't want to be the manager of this relationship" we misappropriate "emotional labor" since it's a catch phrase of sorts. I also think the article didn't do a good job of explaining concept creep in other contexts, which would have been more interesting imo.
notacoward 7y ago
What's the strawman here? "Emotional labor" very clearly is being used for things that Hochschild did not mean when she coined the term. You might disagree with her belief that the things covered by these other uses are sufficiently different that they should be addressed separately or differently, but there's still no strawman. When you say "the strongest version of the claim" it's not even clear that you're talking about a claim that exists outside of your own head, so if there's a strawman here I'm afraid it's yours. Can you clarify what claim you're trying to refute and why you think it's incorrect?
- pmichaud 7y ago
  The article says that the term "emotional labor" is used incorrectly to refer to things like doing chores. What people actually use the term incorrectly for is the internal tracking necessary to manage the process of maintaining a household and relationship, including doing chores. The first version is a strawman because no one thinks that the straightforward action of chore-doing is also, secretly, emotional labor. The stronger version makes it more clear why any person acting in good faith would try to apply the term at all: the managerial work is unseen, mostly unacknowledged, internal, and as a bonus it's emotionally taxing under many conditions. That is to say, it has a lot in common with the real concept of emotional labor. So it's true that the wrong term in being used, but a stronger understanding of what the incorrect people are trying to refer to makes it clear why there is a problem here to discuss in the first place.
  - notacoward 7y ago
    > no one thinks that the straightforward action of chore-doing is also, secretly, emotional labor. The article leads with examples of people doing just that, most notably the one from Gemma Hartley, so your axiom is false.
  - baked_ziti 7y ago
    It would be reasonable I think, to extend to the woman who devised the concept enough charity of interpretation to believe that she is capable of understanding the nuance involved in discussions and arguments of this sort.
BurningFrog 7y ago
> It's about being the one who has taken ownership of the chores being done, by whom, when, etc. But you can also view that as a power relationship. If one person demands to set the standard for what chores should be done, when and how, and expects the other person to obey, it seems fair that the orders should be spelled out explicitly to the powerless person.
- notacoward 7y ago
  > If one person demands to set the standard for what chores should be done... ...then they are exerting dominance over the other person. That's true regardless of whether they're setting the standard above or below what the other would prefer. They might also be taking on a greater burden in meeting that standard ... or they might not. There are plenty of families where one person sets the standard for the other to execute, or to work and pay for hired help to execute. In the end, it's usually impossible to address the work-imbalance issue without addressing the power-imbalance issue first, and anyone who makes assumptions about who exercises the power within a household is a fool.
shantly 7y ago
Management is still normal labor. The emotional part would be putting on a meaner or nicer face than you otherwise would to get a result for the job. It's acting.
thrower123 7y ago
Generally, I find that those who fall back on emotional labor as a concept, are work-multipliers. They generate more work that needs to be done and kept track of than they clear, and usually they are the only ones that actually care that that work is done. There's a lot of empire-building in play too. It's really obvious when you come up with more efficient ways to get what they want done done, and they get angry that it isn't being done exactly as they wanted.
- foobar1962 7y ago
  > Generally, I find that those who fall back on emotional labor as a concept, are work-multipliers. Oooh, I've never hard of work multipliers before, thanks. I disagree with your main premise (in that sentence) though. It's the first I've heard of "emotional labor" and I think its a great concept, as valid as "mental" or "physical" labor in the original author's context: a flight attendant (male or female) would have tasks that require all three types of labor during their work day.
klipt 7y ago
If you hire a maid, you generally have to manage them, tell them what to do and when. But it would be hard to argue that the maid is oppressing you because you have to manage them.
neonate 7y ago
An interview with the woman who coined the phrase, about what she meant when she coined it, is hardly "missing the point". How people have used the term may have moved on, but that's what the article is about.
- notacoward 7y ago
  Exactly. This isn't about her missing the point; it's about hijacking a discussion she started to make his own point. Kind of like "he-peating" her idea, but with the added twist of denigrating instead of ignoring her contribution.
- pmichaud 7y ago
  I guess I wasn't clear, but I didn't mean the woman who invented the term is missing the point. I meant the introduction to the article, written by the author/interviewer, framed the misuse of the word in a way that hides the reason that someone might be tempted to misuse the word in that way. And one thing I was very clear about was that even when you use the better frame, the people are still misusing the term, so I'm explicitly not disagreeing with the inventor of the term.
  - neonate 7y ago
    Thanks for the clarification.
around_here 7y ago
The article addresses this specifically. It’s mental labour, and that includes the division of duties. It’s not emotional.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

mobileexpert 7y ago

One of the aspects related to an unacknowledged managerial role with chores, is that I find it often comes with caring about the outcome more strongly or more specifically than others. Expecting everyone to care about your hobby horse as much as you do is a recipe for feeling overburden and under-appreciated. If people are happy with your work NOT happening then your “emotional” or other labor will not be something they find valuable.

josephg 7y ago
I read a piece awhile ago where they asked a lot of people (particularly women) to describe the unacknowledged emotional labor they were doing in their relationships. (Using / misusing the term as they like. Hochschild would be appaled.) One of the stories stuck out for me was a woman who was sick of writing birthday & christmas cards for her husband's relatives. She tried not doing it, but her mother in law got snippy with her for not writing a card. Her husband didn't care at all and refused to help. So she felt stuck doing an unacknowledged and unappreciated job. I find this story really interesting because there are so many approaches here. To name a few, 1. She could suck it up and keep unhappily writing cards. 2. Her husband could write the cards. 3. She could stop writing the cards, but tell her mother in law to talk to her son if she didn't get a card. 4. She could ask her husband to run interference with the mother in law and back her. 5. She could just stop writing cards and tell everyone to piss off. I understand the perspective of "I feel like I have to write these cards. People expect me to write these cards. But I hate it and I feel like I don't have an out". But I think its too simple to label it as sexism and call it a day. Her husband is legitimately allowed to ignore the card thing, and so is she. In a sense, the pain comes from caving to a bad expectation - and thats something she does, not something anyone does to her. But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated.
- klipt 7y ago
  > But its also true that we somehow raise girls to be more sensitive to societal expectations than men. The whole thing is deliciously complicated. I don't think that's true, it's more that society has different expectations for men and women. Men are expected to make money to prove their worth (hence the wage gap). Women are expected to maintain social connections to prove their worth (hence the friendship gap).
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    We don't have a wage gap. We have a motherhood gap. It is very difficult to monetize an investment that doesn't pay off for 18/20/25 years.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      Not only that though. Choices in what interests people have matter as well. A deep interest in care-giving is much less likely to lead to a higher income compared to a deep interest in computers or engineering.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  The other part of the story is that one of the reasons the husband is able so easily not care about the cards is because he does not get judged by anyone for not doing it. It isn't just that he is IGNORING the judgement... he is literally not getting any. I am not sure what the solution is, but just wanted to point out why it is reductive to just say "why can't the wife just not care like the husband doesn't care?" Maybe the husband would care if he was judged like the wife. Also, your #3 suggestion won't necessarily solve the issue... sexism is very ingrained, and even if you tell the MIL to talk to the husband, it doesn't mean the MIL will suddenly start holding her son responsible for the cards... she very well might still expect them from the DIL.
  - elefanten 7y ago
    But good communication can solve all those obstacles. If in that family the expectation is distributed unevenly across gender roles, someone can point that out and make a case for changing it. If terminally the problem is that these people can't communicate with each other or some people in the equation are unwilling to engage in communication, then the problem is much lower level than gendered expectations about emotional labor.

skybrian 7y ago

Maybe "household management" would be a better term?

protonimitate 7y ago

I don't think it's a strawman argument, and even if it is, I dont think that negates the point of the article. My take is that we have poor terminology and a bad shared understanding of how to qualify the types and amount of work that go into maintaining relationships of any kind. Instead of being able to say "I don't want to be the manager of this relationship" we misappropriate "emotional labor" since it's a catch phrase of sorts. I also think the article didn't do a good job of explaining concept creep in other contexts, which would have been more interesting imo.

notacoward 7y ago

What's the strawman here? "Emotional labor" very clearly is being used for things that Hochschild did not mean when she coined the term. You might disagree with her belief that the things covered by these other uses are sufficiently different that they should be addressed separately or differently, but there's still no strawman. When you say "the strongest version of the claim" it's not even clear that you're talking about a claim that exists outside of your own head, so if there's a strawman here I'm afraid it's yours. Can you clarify what claim you're trying to refute and why you think it's incorrect?

pmichaud 7y ago
The article says that the term "emotional labor" is used incorrectly to refer to things like doing chores. What people actually use the term incorrectly for is the internal tracking necessary to manage the process of maintaining a household and relationship, including doing chores. The first version is a strawman because no one thinks that the straightforward action of chore-doing is also, secretly, emotional labor. The stronger version makes it more clear why any person acting in good faith would try to apply the term at all: the managerial work is unseen, mostly unacknowledged, internal, and as a bonus it's emotionally taxing under many conditions. That is to say, it has a lot in common with the real concept of emotional labor. So it's true that the wrong term in being used, but a stronger understanding of what the incorrect people are trying to refer to makes it clear why there is a problem here to discuss in the first place.
- notacoward 7y ago
  > no one thinks that the straightforward action of chore-doing is also, secretly, emotional labor. The article leads with examples of people doing just that, most notably the one from Gemma Hartley, so your axiom is false.
- baked_ziti 7y ago
  It would be reasonable I think, to extend to the woman who devised the concept enough charity of interpretation to believe that she is capable of understanding the nuance involved in discussions and arguments of this sort.

BurningFrog 7y ago

> It's about being the one who has taken ownership of the chores being done, by whom, when, etc. But you can also view that as a power relationship. If one person demands to set the standard for what chores should be done, when and how, and expects the other person to obey, it seems fair that the orders should be spelled out explicitly to the powerless person.

notacoward 7y ago
> If one person demands to set the standard for what chores should be done... ...then they are exerting dominance over the other person. That's true regardless of whether they're setting the standard above or below what the other would prefer. They might also be taking on a greater burden in meeting that standard ... or they might not. There are plenty of families where one person sets the standard for the other to execute, or to work and pay for hired help to execute. In the end, it's usually impossible to address the work-imbalance issue without addressing the power-imbalance issue first, and anyone who makes assumptions about who exercises the power within a household is a fool.

shantly 7y ago

Management is still normal labor. The emotional part would be putting on a meaner or nicer face than you otherwise would to get a result for the job. It's acting.

thrower123 7y ago

Generally, I find that those who fall back on emotional labor as a concept, are work-multipliers. They generate more work that needs to be done and kept track of than they clear, and usually they are the only ones that actually care that that work is done. There's a lot of empire-building in play too. It's really obvious when you come up with more efficient ways to get what they want done done, and they get angry that it isn't being done exactly as they wanted.

foobar1962 7y ago
> Generally, I find that those who fall back on emotional labor as a concept, are work-multipliers. Oooh, I've never hard of work multipliers before, thanks. I disagree with your main premise (in that sentence) though. It's the first I've heard of "emotional labor" and I think its a great concept, as valid as "mental" or "physical" labor in the original author's context: a flight attendant (male or female) would have tasks that require all three types of labor during their work day.

klipt 7y ago

If you hire a maid, you generally have to manage them, tell them what to do and when. But it would be hard to argue that the maid is oppressing you because you have to manage them.

neonate 7y ago

An interview with the woman who coined the phrase, about what she meant when she coined it, is hardly "missing the point". How people have used the term may have moved on, but that's what the article is about.

notacoward 7y ago
Exactly. This isn't about her missing the point; it's about hijacking a discussion she started to make his own point. Kind of like "he-peating" her idea, but with the added twist of denigrating instead of ignoring her contribution.
pmichaud 7y ago
I guess I wasn't clear, but I didn't mean the woman who invented the term is missing the point. I meant the introduction to the article, written by the author/interviewer, framed the misuse of the word in a way that hides the reason that someone might be tempted to misuse the word in that way. And one thing I was very clear about was that even when you use the better frame, the people are still misusing the term, so I'm explicitly not disagreeing with the inventor of the term.
- neonate 7y ago
  Thanks for the clarification.

around_here 7y ago

The article addresses this specifically. It’s mental labour, and that includes the division of duties. It’s not emotional.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]