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 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.