I love a piece like this, that gives me words for a vague feeling I’ve been having. My husband does a lot of the kin work. He grew up in an Italian-American family, and they’re constantly calling and texting, sending gifts, and strengthening kinship ties in ways that I would have never thought to do. When we first got married, it felt over the top to me, but the more year pass, the more I recognise the value of those strong ties.
Loved this essay. I think that the problem with the term emotional labor has its roots in the erroneous notion, held by many, that the rational and the emotional are opposite ends of a spectrum of reasonableness. Which then makes emotions bad, weak, illogical - things no sane person wants anyone to think about them, which makes emotionalism=crazy. My husband says he doesn’t care about holidays and so I declined keeping up with Christmas card traditions with his family on his behalf. It causes no problems between us, but it has a cost for me in terms of my relations with some of my female in-laws.
Thanks so much Sandra - I think you’ve hit the nail on the head - ‘emotional labour’ can start to sound like ‘unreasonable labour’, or even ‘ illogical’ labour, and so why would any sane person do it! Thanks for sharing this
This is a great piece. Love that distinction between kin work and emotional labour. I lecture on 'emotional labour' in French University hospitals. I wrote an essay about it here:
Susanna, thank you so much for sharing this essay. I’m a clinical pharmacist in a hospital and also a highly sensitive person — I struggle massively with the weight of some patients’ suffering and have been trying to challenge myself not to avoid the rooms that I know are going to affect me deeply. Your piece gave me a lot to reflect on and try to carry into my work. I’ve only been in this role for a few years and still have a lot to learn!
Yes I do understand this . I taught Women’s studies and heard so many stories of real emotional loss and suffering. Of people where there should have been care and respect. I avoided them
Less than most but at my own expense and often simple generated expectations I could not fulfill .i eventually burnt out.
How to solve these deficits in an individualism and crumbling world.
Love this: "I think it is useful to call this labour out by using its proper name: ‘kin work’. Or, as my older brother once aptly dubbed it, ‘f’kin work’."
When someone does something they've never been asked to do and then expects to be rewarded in their own terms, which they've never specified, by the other party, who's never agreed to them, it's called a covert contract.
You know, when a male friend acts overly nice, or a husband goes an extra mile, in his view, to do the most basic shit a roommate would do, and expects to be appreciated sexually for it? Yes, that's it.
But when a wife goes overly neurotic about stuff that, between husbands, could be settled with two phone calls and a beer, and then expects to be validated for her neuroticism, that's also it.
By all means, do your thing and call it whatever you like, but do not expect us to be grateful for inane stuff we would happily do without. Yes, we know you put an insane amount of effort into it, but that doesn't make it any less inane in our view.
Perhaps your female friends would not drive 40 miles to help you with a stranded car because you haven't wrapped their gifts correctly. We don't care.
That’s what we often feel like. How , how, jow do we get men to pull their weight or even notice?
I came home from hospital yesterday after a day procedure and was told to rest . I caught a taxi home because my husband had forgotten to turn his on; I made the dinner, collected the grand child, we walked her dog, I tidied her bed , got the clothes that had been used while I was away in the ash , brought in the dry clothes , read to her and then replied to my sisters text from another content managed to get the day dishes in the wager while helping grandchild finish her hand-work project
The problem
Is this - it is physical and emotional and survival labour rolled in to one
And today I have opened my communications to find other women lecturing me on my failure to establish boundaries now they are f’labour
I agree with the general premise that the mental side of housework and maintaining the relationships is not and should not be called "emotional labor". I think that this should be split into "mental work" and "kin work", as suggested here, and that women should generally get more credit for it.
The reason for that is that, as a man, I have nothing against sharing mental work, but kin work is a naturally feminine thing to do (per evolutionary psychology) and I personally think it's best if women continue to do the bulk of it. If doing the bulk of kin work is too much to handle for a woman in the relationship, the solution is to do less kin work (or be less neurotic and OCDish about it), or prioritize it with respect to paid work and other responsibilities.
That being said, I started wondering: How did we end up here? Why is mental/kin work now called "emotional labor"?
The original meaning of "emotional labor", as defined by Hochschild, is the thing flight attendants and waitresses do - "enforced happiness", being nice even if you don't always want to.
I imagine that throughout history, from the ancient times all up to the 1950's tradwife times, women did the bulk of the emotional labor in relationships. They were calm and supportive and helped their husbands relax after their hard and stressful day at work.
But today, modern feminism has flipped emotional labor on it's head.
Men are now doing the bulk of emotional labor in relationships - in the original sense of "enforced happiness" and being nice even if they don't want to.
Women are now entitled to yell and vent all they want, and be provided with emotional support from their partners on demand, 24/7.
But if a man yells and vents, he is aggressive and abusive. If he needs emotional support, he is weak and childish.
So, feminists started to call mental/kin work "emotional labor" in order to allow women to pretend that they are still doing the bulk of emotional labor in relationships. While in fact, they don't.
This is yet another example of how a term has been hijacked by modern culture or ideology, much like "gay" (then - happy, now - homosexual) or "Tech/technology" (then - cars/airplanes/factories, now - software).
No scientific studies suggest that evolutionary biology dictates that one gender should do kin work. Men don’t do it for one reason - because it’s hard. Men have shifted this mutual burden to women for centuries and now claim that it is feminine work according to the actual natural order of things. As a guy older than you, I think your assertion that men do most of this work today “even though they don’t want to” is total BS. Women don’t want to do it either but life would suck if they didn’t. “Help their husbands relax after a hard and stressful day at work” is the sort of Ozzie and Harriet fantasy that ignored the incredibly difficult and draining work that women undertake.
Leaving aside the fact that men are more emotional and yell/complain more than women, women who vent because they have been getting the short end of the stick for centuries and are sick and tired of it. If men who seek emotional support are seen as weak and childish, it is only because men have made it so.
I'm not surprised that “kin work” shows a huge gender imbalance: I see it in almost every family, including mine. But I also see this as yet another area where men are missing out. Like many of the gender imbalances when it comes to the emotional life, I think men suffer ill effects when they don’t take part in building the strength of kinships. Like so many of the unequal burdens that women carry, there’s an equal and opposite effect on the other side. Why are there so many lonely, angry men? Perhaps nurturing their ties with kin earlier in their lives would have helped them form relationships to sustain their happiness and health.
Beautiful piece and gah, it's horrible when kin work becomes such frantic-drudgery and when not enough people are engaged in it. Sharing your piece along with a shout out for interesting and helpful alternatives to 1) the escalation of expectations 2) the dumping of all the work I to one family member. As an anthro, I know there's societies where this stuff is high-prestige and is men's work, societies where the expectations are distributed around an entire family, kids included, societies with tight boundaries around how large the unit of co-operation and care is allowed to grow. We can't entirely remake society, but I reckon we can look sideways for a few ideas about what might foster helpful change.
I love a piece like this, that gives me words for a vague feeling I’ve been having. My husband does a lot of the kin work. He grew up in an Italian-American family, and they’re constantly calling and texting, sending gifts, and strengthening kinship ties in ways that I would have never thought to do. When we first got married, it felt over the top to me, but the more year pass, the more I recognise the value of those strong ties.
thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it
Loved this essay. I think that the problem with the term emotional labor has its roots in the erroneous notion, held by many, that the rational and the emotional are opposite ends of a spectrum of reasonableness. Which then makes emotions bad, weak, illogical - things no sane person wants anyone to think about them, which makes emotionalism=crazy. My husband says he doesn’t care about holidays and so I declined keeping up with Christmas card traditions with his family on his behalf. It causes no problems between us, but it has a cost for me in terms of my relations with some of my female in-laws.
Thanks so much Sandra - I think you’ve hit the nail on the head - ‘emotional labour’ can start to sound like ‘unreasonable labour’, or even ‘ illogical’ labour, and so why would any sane person do it! Thanks for sharing this
This is a great piece. Love that distinction between kin work and emotional labour. I lecture on 'emotional labour' in French University hospitals. I wrote an essay about it here:
https://aeon.co/essays/why-the-emotional-labour-of-hospital-staff-is-dirty-work
oh this looks fascinating Susanna, thanks for sharing it - I'm looking forward to reading properly
Susanna, thank you so much for sharing this essay. I’m a clinical pharmacist in a hospital and also a highly sensitive person — I struggle massively with the weight of some patients’ suffering and have been trying to challenge myself not to avoid the rooms that I know are going to affect me deeply. Your piece gave me a lot to reflect on and try to carry into my work. I’ve only been in this role for a few years and still have a lot to learn!
Yes I do understand this . I taught Women’s studies and heard so many stories of real emotional loss and suffering. Of people where there should have been care and respect. I avoided them
Less than most but at my own expense and often simple generated expectations I could not fulfill .i eventually burnt out.
How to solve these deficits in an individualism and crumbling world.
Love this: "I think it is useful to call this labour out by using its proper name: ‘kin work’. Or, as my older brother once aptly dubbed it, ‘f’kin work’."
thanks Lisa!
When someone does something they've never been asked to do and then expects to be rewarded in their own terms, which they've never specified, by the other party, who's never agreed to them, it's called a covert contract.
You know, when a male friend acts overly nice, or a husband goes an extra mile, in his view, to do the most basic shit a roommate would do, and expects to be appreciated sexually for it? Yes, that's it.
But when a wife goes overly neurotic about stuff that, between husbands, could be settled with two phone calls and a beer, and then expects to be validated for her neuroticism, that's also it.
By all means, do your thing and call it whatever you like, but do not expect us to be grateful for inane stuff we would happily do without. Yes, we know you put an insane amount of effort into it, but that doesn't make it any less inane in our view.
Perhaps your female friends would not drive 40 miles to help you with a stranded car because you haven't wrapped their gifts correctly. We don't care.
By this logic, you should never have relationships and just use housekeepers and hookers.
That’s what we often feel like. How , how, jow do we get men to pull their weight or even notice?
I came home from hospital yesterday after a day procedure and was told to rest . I caught a taxi home because my husband had forgotten to turn his on; I made the dinner, collected the grand child, we walked her dog, I tidied her bed , got the clothes that had been used while I was away in the ash , brought in the dry clothes , read to her and then replied to my sisters text from another content managed to get the day dishes in the wager while helping grandchild finish her hand-work project
The problem
Is this - it is physical and emotional and survival labour rolled in to one
And today I have opened my communications to find other women lecturing me on my failure to establish boundaries now they are f’labour
Thanks for your timely insight
Brilliant. And yes, kin work is important - perhaps more than ever now.
Yes, I think so too!
Excellent. Such good writing and a phenomenal argument. Love the cameo from Hannah Woolley, too. Thank you!
I think Woolley always deserves a cameo!
Thanks so much Alice, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
Ah, now it all makes sense, Tiffany... makes me appreciate the kin work I do (even though I don't do that much!)
Thanks Ann!
Wonderful!
hey Nadia! Thank you xx
What an excellent article, beautifully written and such clear thinking on something extremely important that hardly ever gets mentioned.
Thanks Jack, I'm really glad you enjoyed it
A wonderful article, Tiffany. Thank you for clarifying this distinction and the importance of kin work.
I agree with the general premise that the mental side of housework and maintaining the relationships is not and should not be called "emotional labor". I think that this should be split into "mental work" and "kin work", as suggested here, and that women should generally get more credit for it.
The reason for that is that, as a man, I have nothing against sharing mental work, but kin work is a naturally feminine thing to do (per evolutionary psychology) and I personally think it's best if women continue to do the bulk of it. If doing the bulk of kin work is too much to handle for a woman in the relationship, the solution is to do less kin work (or be less neurotic and OCDish about it), or prioritize it with respect to paid work and other responsibilities.
That being said, I started wondering: How did we end up here? Why is mental/kin work now called "emotional labor"?
The original meaning of "emotional labor", as defined by Hochschild, is the thing flight attendants and waitresses do - "enforced happiness", being nice even if you don't always want to.
I imagine that throughout history, from the ancient times all up to the 1950's tradwife times, women did the bulk of the emotional labor in relationships. They were calm and supportive and helped their husbands relax after their hard and stressful day at work.
But today, modern feminism has flipped emotional labor on it's head.
Men are now doing the bulk of emotional labor in relationships - in the original sense of "enforced happiness" and being nice even if they don't want to.
Women are now entitled to yell and vent all they want, and be provided with emotional support from their partners on demand, 24/7.
But if a man yells and vents, he is aggressive and abusive. If he needs emotional support, he is weak and childish.
So, feminists started to call mental/kin work "emotional labor" in order to allow women to pretend that they are still doing the bulk of emotional labor in relationships. While in fact, they don't.
This is yet another example of how a term has been hijacked by modern culture or ideology, much like "gay" (then - happy, now - homosexual) or "Tech/technology" (then - cars/airplanes/factories, now - software).
No scientific studies suggest that evolutionary biology dictates that one gender should do kin work. Men don’t do it for one reason - because it’s hard. Men have shifted this mutual burden to women for centuries and now claim that it is feminine work according to the actual natural order of things. As a guy older than you, I think your assertion that men do most of this work today “even though they don’t want to” is total BS. Women don’t want to do it either but life would suck if they didn’t. “Help their husbands relax after a hard and stressful day at work” is the sort of Ozzie and Harriet fantasy that ignored the incredibly difficult and draining work that women undertake.
Leaving aside the fact that men are more emotional and yell/complain more than women, women who vent because they have been getting the short end of the stick for centuries and are sick and tired of it. If men who seek emotional support are seen as weak and childish, it is only because men have made it so.
I think an underrated reason why men don't do more kin-work is all the ways they use to do kin-work have become irrelevant.
I'm not surprised that “kin work” shows a huge gender imbalance: I see it in almost every family, including mine. But I also see this as yet another area where men are missing out. Like many of the gender imbalances when it comes to the emotional life, I think men suffer ill effects when they don’t take part in building the strength of kinships. Like so many of the unequal burdens that women carry, there’s an equal and opposite effect on the other side. Why are there so many lonely, angry men? Perhaps nurturing their ties with kin earlier in their lives would have helped them form relationships to sustain their happiness and health.
Beautiful piece and gah, it's horrible when kin work becomes such frantic-drudgery and when not enough people are engaged in it. Sharing your piece along with a shout out for interesting and helpful alternatives to 1) the escalation of expectations 2) the dumping of all the work I to one family member. As an anthro, I know there's societies where this stuff is high-prestige and is men's work, societies where the expectations are distributed around an entire family, kids included, societies with tight boundaries around how large the unit of co-operation and care is allowed to grow. We can't entirely remake society, but I reckon we can look sideways for a few ideas about what might foster helpful change.
Thanks Ros! I'm glad it resonated
yup ..made up chick work to feel important.