Shining a Light on Invisible Work

00:23:28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUCzeQ6D7BY

Summary

TLDRGemma Hartley's book "Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward" expands on the concept of emotional labor, originally coined by Arlie Hochschild in the 1980s. Emotional labor involves managing emotions and expressions to ensure others' comfort, both personally and professionally. Hartley discusses that this labor is predominantly handled by women, often remaining invisible and unrecognized, contributing to gender inequality. The book explores the effects on personal relationships, with women shouldering more emotional responsibilities, causing stress. It emphasizes societal conditioning from a young age and promotes conversations to redistribute emotional tasks. Hartley also links strong social bonds formed through emotional labor to women's longevity and critiqued societal double standards in parenting. The book advocates for greater awareness, showcasing Iceland's policies as a model for equality.

Takeaways

  • 📝 Emotional labour is managing emotions to comfort others, often unrecognized, and mostly handled by women.
  • 🕰️ Emotional labour traces back to the 1980s, coined by Arlie Hochschild.
  • 🏠 Affects personal relationships by creating an imbalance where women take on more emotional responsibilities.
  • 👶 Double standards in parenting; mothers face harsher judgments, whereas fathers are praised for basic involvement.
  • 🔍 Emotional labour involves community building that strengthens social bonds, contributing to women's longevity.
  • 🇮🇸 Iceland's policies are highlighted as positive examples of promoting equal emotional labour responsibilities.
  • 👥 Conversations are crucial for recognizing and redistributing emotional labour tasks equitably.
  • 🕵️‍♀️ The invisibility of emotional labour makes it hard to quantify, complicating awareness and recognition efforts.
  • 💡 Raising awareness about emotional labour's importance is essential for gender equality.
  • ⚖️ Societal gender conditioning from a young age shapes expectations for emotional labour.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    In past struggles, women highlighted unequal labor division, focusing on housework and child-rearing.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Gemma Hartley adds emotional labor to the list of unequally divided tasks. The term was introduced by Arlie Hochschild about flight attendants.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Emotional labor involves suppressing one's emotions to benefit others, causing personal disconnect. Airlines enforced this to ease passengers' anxieties.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    An example from the movie When Harry Met Sally is discussed as a portrayal of subtle emotional labor tasks women traditionally undertake.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    Housework and childcare by fathers have increased, yet emotional labor remains unchanged due to its invisible nature.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    Emotional labor is linked to women's longevity due to strong social bonds it builds.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    The book aims to raise awareness about emotional labor's invisible burden, especially among men.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:40:00

    Gender roles in emotional labor are socially conditioned rather than biologically innate.

  • 00:40:00 - 00:23:28

    Addressing emotional labor involves cultural reflection and adjusting societal expectations and roles.

Show more

Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • Who coined the term 'emotional labour'?

    Arlie Hochschild in the 1980s.

  • What is 'emotional labour'?

    It refers to the emotional effort required to manage personal feelings and expressions in both personal and professional settings to keep others comfortable.

  • Why is emotional labour considered gendered work?

    Emotional labour is often performed by women and is not always recognized or valued, contributing to gender inequality.

  • How does emotional labour affect personal relationships?

    It often results in an imbalance where women tend to take on more emotional responsibilities, leading to stress and exhaustion.

  • What societal expectations contribute to emotional labour imbalance?

    Societal conditioning and gender roles learned from a young age contribute to women taking on emotional labour tasks.

  • How does the book suggest we tackle the imbalance of emotional labour?

    By raising awareness and encouraging conversations about emotional labour to recognize and redistribute such tasks more equitably.

  • How does emotional labour link to women's health and longevity?

    Emotional labour includes community and relationship-building, which improves social bonds that contribute to longer and healthier lives.

  • Why is emotional labour hard to quantify?

    Because it involves mental and emotional effort, which is largely invisible and not easily measured.

  • How is emotional labour treated differently between genders in parenting?

    Mothers are judged more harshly for mistakes, whereas fathers are praised for basic involvement, reflecting societal double standards.

  • What cultural differences does the book highlight regarding emotional labour?

    It highlights Iceland's paternal leave policies as a positive example of promoting equal emotional labour responsibilities.

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  • 00:22:21
    In past struggles for equality, women have pointed to
  • 00:22:24
    a lopsided division of labour
  • 00:22:26
    such as housework and raising children.
  • 00:22:28
    Last year in an article for Harper's Bazaar,
  • 00:22:30
    journalist Gemma Hartley added another category to that list,
  • 00:22:34
    emotional labour.
  • 00:22:35
    It went viral and she's now expanded on the idea
  • 00:22:38
    in her new book, it's called
  • 00:22:39
    Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward.
  • 00:22:43
    And Gemma Hartley joins us now.
  • 00:22:44
    Hi, Gemma.
  • 00:22:44
    Hi.
  • 00:22:45
    It's nice to meet you.
  • 00:22:46
    Nice to meet you too.
  • 00:22:48
    Where did the term "emotional labour" originate?
  • 00:22:51
    So it originated with Arlie Hochschild
  • 00:22:52
    back in the 80's.
  • 00:22:54
    She coined the term to talk about the emotion work that
  • 00:22:58
    woman were doing on the job as airline attendants
  • 00:23:01
    and sort of showing how they would have to put up this
  • 00:23:04
    false front to keep the customers around them
  • 00:23:08
    comfortable and happy.
  • 00:23:09
    Like, very friendly, very accommodating.
  • 00:23:10
    Yeah. Very friendly, very accommodating.
  • 00:23:13
    You know, putting their needs last,
  • 00:23:15
    really burying what they actually felt
  • 00:23:17
    so that they could put forth this really happy,
  • 00:23:20
    comfortable, homey persona that, you know,
  • 00:23:23
    helps everyone feel at ease during air travel.
  • 00:23:26
    Why was that done?
  • 00:23:27
    So, it was done because it, you know,
  • 00:23:30
    it makes business better.
  • 00:23:33
    So airlines really wanted their stewardesses to
  • 00:23:37
    go through this, you know, intensive training
  • 00:23:40
    that showed them how to be,
  • 00:23:41
    basically, the perfect hostess in the air
  • 00:23:44
    because a lot of people had anxiety about flying
  • 00:23:47
    so they wanted to sooth that anxiety,
  • 00:23:50
    but they took it really, really far,
  • 00:23:53
    to the point where there were like absolute breakdowns when
  • 00:23:56
    these women got off work.
  • 00:23:59
    Or they wouldn't know how to turn it off.
  • 00:24:02
    They said that their smiles seemed like,
  • 00:24:04
    plastered on their face all the time,
  • 00:24:06
    even when they got home
  • 00:24:08
    and they were not in touch with their actual emotion--
  • 00:24:11
    emotional state anymore.
  • 00:24:13
    Well, I want to show you emotional labour in action.
  • 00:24:16
    You actually write about this in your book
  • 00:24:18
    and this a clip from When Harry Met Sally,
  • 00:24:21
    but it's not the other clip that everybody usually shows
  • 00:24:23
    when she's like, "I'll have whatever she's having."
  • 00:24:25
    (Laughing) Let's take a look, shall we?
  • 00:24:27
    Sheldon, please roll.
  • 00:24:29
    You're together what, three weeks?
  • 00:24:30
    A month.
  • 00:24:34
    How did you know that?
  • 00:24:35
    You take someone to the airport,
  • 00:24:36
    it's clearly the beginning of a relationship.
  • 00:24:37
    That's why I have never taken anyone to the airport
  • 00:24:39
    at the beginning of a relationship.
  • 00:24:41
    Why?
  • 00:24:42
    Because eventually things move on
  • 00:24:43
    and you don't take someone to the airport
  • 00:24:45
    and I never wanted anyone to say to me,
  • 00:24:46
    "How come you never take me to the airport anymore?"
  • 00:24:49
    It's amazing, you look like a normal person,
  • 00:24:53
    but actually you are the angel of death.
  • 00:24:55
    (Laughing)
  • 00:24:56
    NAM: So why is that an example of emotional labour?
  • 00:24:59
    GEMMA: So this the type of work that we do on a personal level
  • 00:25:03
    and taking someone to the airport I thought was
  • 00:25:07
    a really great example because
  • 00:25:09
    it's the sort of mundane everyday thing
  • 00:25:12
    that woman would absolutely tend to
  • 00:25:14
    but men tend not to want to do.
  • 00:25:17
    I love how he says, you know,
  • 00:25:18
    "I don't want to set up that expectation
  • 00:25:22
    only to get the disappointment later."
  • 00:25:24
    Like, "I'll just disappoint her from the beginning."
  • 00:25:26
    And then we know the bar for emotional labour is set
  • 00:25:28
    very, very low in that relationship.
  • 00:25:31
    Well, and earlier in the book you point out
  • 00:25:33
    that the amount of time that fathers spent on housework
  • 00:25:36
    more than doubled between 1965 and 2015,
  • 00:25:41
    and the amount of time they spent of childcare
  • 00:25:43
    nearly tripled.
  • 00:25:45
    That's great, right? Things are getting better.
  • 00:25:46
    Yeah, it's absolutely progress.
  • 00:25:49
    And the reason that I quote those numbers is to show
  • 00:25:52
    that there is progress here
  • 00:25:54
    but emotional labour has remained really sticky because
  • 00:25:57
    it's invisible work, it's mental and emotional
  • 00:25:59
    and it's very difficult to quantify that type of work.
  • 00:26:03
    So we can, you know, point to all of these great advances
  • 00:26:08
    that we've made in, you know, gender equality within the home,
  • 00:26:11
    but there's still this whole side that has been left
  • 00:26:14
    unexplored for decades.
  • 00:26:17
    You also make the assertion that emotional labour
  • 00:26:19
    is part of the reason that women live longer
  • 00:26:21
    and are healthier than men. Why is that?
  • 00:26:24
    So, really, emotional labour is
  • 00:26:28
    a lot of community building skills,
  • 00:26:30
    a lot of relational skills,
  • 00:26:32
    we do a lot of the kin work that keeps families together,
  • 00:26:35
    and we also do that with our friends
  • 00:26:37
    and we do it for our partners often.
  • 00:26:40
    And so for women these bonds really help keep us healthy.
  • 00:26:45
    You know, strong social bonds are something that
  • 00:26:47
    really helps people with their longevity and their happiness.
  • 00:26:51
    And for men, they get those benefits as well,
  • 00:26:55
    but if they lose their partner unexpectedly,
  • 00:26:58
    they don't have these skills already in their lives
  • 00:27:01
    and so it contributes to this cycle where
  • 00:27:04
    men are not taking care of their own needs
  • 00:27:07
    and if they lose their partner,
  • 00:27:10
    they lose that social network,
  • 00:27:11
    they lose that, you know,
  • 00:27:13
    strong family bond that has been fostered for them
  • 00:27:16
    all these years.
  • 00:27:18
    And it's really important that men learn these skills
  • 00:27:22
    and take that part of their life on
  • 00:27:24
    so that they don't fall into this, you know,
  • 00:27:28
    comfortable area where they're getting all of the benefits
  • 00:27:32
    from their partner but it's all like,
  • 00:27:36
    it's all their partner's work, it's all their doing.
  • 00:27:39
    But then how do you address something
  • 00:27:40
    that you don't even know is there?
  • 00:27:42
    So I think that's--
  • 00:27:42
    Until it's gone.
  • 00:27:44
    Yeah. So, that's part of why I wrote this book
  • 00:27:47
    is that I think it's really important that we start
  • 00:27:49
    having these conversations about emotional labour
  • 00:27:53
    and what it is and why it's important for everyone to have
  • 00:27:56
    because I think it's very invisible for men especially,
  • 00:28:01
    women usually can point to this and say, "Yeah, that's me."
  • 00:28:04
    But for men it's, you know,
  • 00:28:07
    this work that they're not even aware of
  • 00:28:08
    because they weren't conditioned to
  • 00:28:11
    see this type of work.
  • 00:28:12
    And so I think it's really important that we
  • 00:28:15
    start that conversation
  • 00:28:16
    and start talking about it so that they can see it
  • 00:28:19
    because it will become visible once you start doing the work.
  • 00:28:23
    And in the book you write about your relationship
  • 00:28:25
    with your husband,
  • 00:28:26
    so how do you--
  • 00:28:28
    how does emotional labour play out in a relationship?
  • 00:28:31
    Yes. So it usually plays out in that we
  • 00:28:35
    fall into these roles very naturally.
  • 00:28:38
    We go to these, you know, preconceived notions of
  • 00:28:42
    what we are supposed to do, by gender,
  • 00:28:45
    and we don't even question it.
  • 00:28:46
    And so, we take on, you know,
  • 00:28:50
    as women we take on emotional labour bit by bit,
  • 00:28:53
    and our partners really don't
  • 00:28:55
    realise that it's being done.
  • 00:28:58
    I write it's especially notable in my instance because
  • 00:29:02
    I got married very young and so my husband basically went from
  • 00:29:06
    like having his mother take care of all of his emotional labour
  • 00:29:08
    to having me take care of all of his emotional labour.
  • 00:29:12
    And so it like happens very--
  • 00:29:16
    it's not a natural progression
  • 00:29:20
    because it is not something that is hardwired into us,
  • 00:29:24
    but it is something that happens without us thinking about it
  • 00:29:27
    because we've seen this play out all around us
  • 00:29:31
    for our whole lives and it just seems like,
  • 00:29:34
    "Oh, well this is what we do."
  • 00:29:36
    And because it's invisible work it's harder to point to and say,
  • 00:29:40
    "Hey, something doesn't look quite right here."
  • 00:29:42
    Because you can see that, you know,
  • 00:29:44
    your partner is doing the dishes or doing the domestic labour,
  • 00:29:46
    they're helping out with the children,
  • 00:29:47
    but they aren't doing all of the mental and emotional work
  • 00:29:51
    that goes along with that.
  • 00:29:53
    When it comes to parenting,
  • 00:29:54
    parenting is changing a lot,
  • 00:29:55
    but when it comes to parenting you point out
  • 00:29:57
    that parenting mistakes aren't viewed as a moral failing
  • 00:30:01
    if they're made by men
  • 00:30:03
    but you say this isn't the case if a woman makes a mistake.
  • 00:30:07
    Who's making this call?
  • 00:30:09
    Yeah, So a lot of the times this will come from other women.
  • 00:30:14
    We will judge each other on our, you know,
  • 00:30:17
    on our parenting skills,
  • 00:30:18
    and we sort of have a society that sets that up,
  • 00:30:22
    we have a patriarchal system that puts mothers
  • 00:30:26
    on this very high pedestal where we have to, you know,
  • 00:30:29
    reach for perfection all the time
  • 00:30:31
    and we are expected to do all of the emotional labour that
  • 00:30:34
    goes along with parenting.
  • 00:30:36
    And when fathers step in and are doing that work,
  • 00:30:41
    the bar is pretty much non-existent, it's very low.
  • 00:30:44
    And so when they step up and start doing things
  • 00:30:47
    they get a real big pat on the back.
  • 00:30:49
    My husband goes to the store with all three of our kids
  • 00:30:52
    to run errands just as often as I do
  • 00:30:55
    and he never gets through a store without someone
  • 00:30:58
    having to like, stop and say,
  • 00:30:59
    "Oh my gosh, you are so brave. You are such a good dad.
  • 00:31:02
    Look at you."
  • 00:31:05
    And, you know--
  • 00:31:05
    Do you get the same?
  • 00:31:06
    If I go to the store, you know,
  • 00:31:08
    I'll get like, an eyeroll 'cause one of the kids
  • 00:31:09
    is throwing a tantrum.
  • 00:31:11
    And my husband said,
  • 00:31:12
    "You know, I could have all three of them
  • 00:31:14
    rolling on the ground throwing tantrums
  • 00:31:16
    and someone would still come pat me on the back."
  • 00:31:18
    So your husband's actually made that observation as well.
  • 00:31:20
    Yes, he has.
  • 00:31:21
    Now that he's become more aware of emotional labour
  • 00:31:24
    and we've really worked towards
  • 00:31:26
    more equality in our relationship,
  • 00:31:28
    it actually makes him a little bit mad when he gets that
  • 00:31:31
    because you know, he's getting this sort of
  • 00:31:33
    infantilising pat on the back,
  • 00:31:35
    like, "Oh, look at you. You're doing such a good job."
  • 00:31:38
    "You're--" you know, "you're trying so hard."
  • 00:31:41
    And he's like, "No, I'm a really capable partner.
  • 00:31:45
    I'm a very capable husband and father
  • 00:31:48
    and I want to be treated as such."
  • 00:31:50
    And so that low bar so sort of annoying for him
  • 00:31:54
    because he's surpassed it so much.
  • 00:31:57
    You mentioned that you married young,
  • 00:31:59
    you were also brought up in a Christian household.
  • 00:32:00
    Yes.
  • 00:32:01
    How much did that play into how you view emotional labour?
  • 00:32:05
    So I think it really played into how I thought
  • 00:32:09
    the research was going to bear out because I had these
  • 00:32:13
    preconceived biases about, you know,
  • 00:32:16
    I was really good at emotional labour,
  • 00:32:18
    and surely I had to be naturally better at it
  • 00:32:21
    in some way, right?
  • 00:32:22
    I had to be hardwired for it.
  • 00:32:24
    That's what I had been told my whole life.
  • 00:32:26
    And you know, I had questioned a lot of my belief
  • 00:32:31
    as I got older,
  • 00:32:33
    but this was one part that I was like,
  • 00:32:35
    "Well, I see this everywhere though,
  • 00:32:37
    it's not just like, my Christian grandmother,
  • 00:32:39
    it's like my atheist neighbour, my--"
  • 00:32:41
    you know, "my aunt, everyone around me.
  • 00:32:44
    All the women in my life are doing this work.
  • 00:32:47
    So why wouldn't it be a natural, you know,
  • 00:32:51
    part of my biology?"
  • 00:32:53
    Which is of course, not the case at all.
  • 00:32:56
    Gender is not a binary thing
  • 00:32:58
    and there is no evidence that supports
  • 00:33:01
    women being naturally better at this work.
  • 00:33:03
    So you're saying that we're conditioned in society
  • 00:33:05
    to perform these roles?
  • 00:33:07
    Yes. We're conditioned from a very young age.
  • 00:33:09
    I talked to a researcher who said that as early as three
  • 00:33:12
    we are learning these roles,
  • 00:33:14
    we're absorbing them even if we can't, you know,
  • 00:33:17
    verbalise what we're seeing,
  • 00:33:19
    we understand that this is women's work
  • 00:33:22
    and this men's work,
  • 00:33:23
    and we really absorb those gender roles
  • 00:33:26
    incredibly early and they go unchecked,
  • 00:33:30
    sometimes for decades, sometimes for a whole lifetime,
  • 00:33:32
    you know?
  • 00:33:33
    A lot of the times we will not take that extra step
  • 00:33:36
    to question our own internal biases
  • 00:33:39
    because they seem to be working so well.
  • 00:33:42
    Well how you you even have that conversation
  • 00:33:43
    about that?
  • 00:33:46
    Because I'm guessing when you do have this conversation
  • 00:33:48
    about the inequity of emotional labour
  • 00:33:49
    that's being performed in a relationship
  • 00:33:52
    one person is frustrated and one person is defensive.
  • 00:33:55
    So how do you have a conversations about
  • 00:33:57
    how to reach a balance or something that works out
  • 00:33:59
    for both of you?
  • 00:34:01
    Yeah. So I think the way to go about it is not to have like,
  • 00:34:04
    a meltdown in your closet on Mother's Day
  • 00:34:06
    which my initial way of doing it.
  • 00:34:10
    But I think what helped was approaching it
  • 00:34:13
    from that cultural perspective
  • 00:34:15
    and really talking about the way each of us were raised
  • 00:34:18
    and why there is that gap?
  • 00:34:20
    That was really what I wanted to find out in this book
  • 00:34:23
    was why is there such a wide gap in emotional labour
  • 00:34:26
    in what I considered to be a very progressive relationship.
  • 00:34:29
    And a lot of women echoed that sentiment
  • 00:34:32
    that they had partners who did the childcare,
  • 00:34:34
    who did the cleaning, who did all the right things
  • 00:34:38
    but there was this gap in the mental load
  • 00:34:41
    and in the emotional labour that was going into their lives.
  • 00:34:45
    And I think when we look at the way we were raised
  • 00:34:48
    and the expectations that we saw,
  • 00:34:51
    it really helps take that defensiveness out of it
  • 00:34:54
    because we're examining, you know, how our culture raised us,
  • 00:34:58
    not, "You're doing this wrong but maybe we're not seeing
  • 00:35:00
    the whole picture.
  • 00:35:02
    It's not about the individual, it's about the culture.
  • 00:35:04
    Yeah. Yeah, it's about the culture much more.
  • 00:35:06
    Well, something happened to you when you were in the hospital
  • 00:35:09
    and you gave birth to your first child.
  • 00:35:11
    What happened?
  • 00:35:12
    So, my first child,
  • 00:35:16
    I had a bit of a traumatic labour
  • 00:35:19
    and I was really, you know, just beat up by the end of it.
  • 00:35:23
    And I was, you know, sitting there exhausted,
  • 00:35:28
    on all sorts of drugs to help me cope with the pain
  • 00:35:31
    and they came in and they addressed me as "Mom",
  • 00:35:35
    they never learned my name which I mean,
  • 00:35:37
    I guess I can see why it would be hard to learn all the names,
  • 00:35:41
    but also, like, it's right there on the chart.
  • 00:35:43
    It's on your bed.
  • 00:35:44
    It's right there.
  • 00:35:45
    Maybe we could, you know, call me by my first name
  • 00:35:47
    as an individual.
  • 00:35:49
    But they came in and started giving me
  • 00:35:51
    all of these instructions and paperwork,
  • 00:35:54
    and my husband is sitting there, fully intact
  • 00:35:58
    physically and mentally,
  • 00:36:00
    and they're telling me all of these different things
  • 00:36:02
    that I need to know
  • 00:36:04
    and these things that I need to track for the baby.
  • 00:36:06
    And I was just-- I sort of looked over at him
  • 00:36:10
    and I was like, "Why-- why are you talking to me right now?
  • 00:36:14
    There's a fully capable parent in this room
  • 00:36:17
    that could take down this information and not forget it
  • 00:36:20
    as soon as they fall into like, a drug induced coma here."
  • 00:36:23
    What was you husband's reaction?
  • 00:36:25
    He didn't realise it was happening.
  • 00:36:28
    At the time-- he said when he read the book
  • 00:36:30
    and he saw that moment, you know,
  • 00:36:32
    through my lens it was absolutely eye-opening for him
  • 00:36:37
    because, you know, he's also going through this
  • 00:36:40
    immense life change, he also just, you know,
  • 00:36:43
    had a baby brought into the world.
  • 00:36:44
    So he just sort of went with what the doctors were doing.
  • 00:36:48
    Having been in that situation,
  • 00:36:49
    he was probably shell-shocked.
  • 00:36:50
    Yeah. He was. He absolutely was.
  • 00:36:53
    And, you know, we-- he was still in school at the time
  • 00:36:55
    so he had finals the next day
  • 00:36:58
    that he had to like, leave the hospital and go and come back,
  • 00:37:00
    and you know, bless him.
  • 00:37:02
    I want to read something that you wrote in the book.
  • 00:37:04
    You write--
  • 00:37:14
    What ends are men aiming for when they
  • 00:37:16
    take on emotional labour in your experience?
  • 00:37:19
    So in my experience--
  • 00:37:21
    What I'm talking about in that section of the book is
  • 00:37:24
    usually courtship
  • 00:37:25
    and men wanting to put forth that extra effort to sort of,
  • 00:37:30
    you know, win the girl.
  • 00:37:33
    And that's, you know,
  • 00:37:35
    fraught with all sorts of damaging stereotypes
  • 00:37:39
    but I think that when men do it it's seen as really
  • 00:37:44
    an extra credit activity
  • 00:37:46
    and it's something that puts them a notch above,
  • 00:37:49
    but they don't have any societal expectation to continue.
  • 00:37:52
    And so once you get past that early stage of a relationship
  • 00:37:57
    like we saw in that clip,
  • 00:37:59
    it's not expected anymore.
  • 00:38:01
    And so women sort of brace themselves for this gradual
  • 00:38:05
    like, de-escalation of emotional labour
  • 00:38:09
    where they are taking on more and more
  • 00:38:11
    and, um, their partners are not.
  • 00:38:14
    You also write that during work hours,
  • 00:38:17
    women's emotional labour shifts to hired help.
  • 00:38:20
    How does this dynamic contribute to the problem of
  • 00:38:22
    emotional labour imbalance?
  • 00:38:24
    So especially, you know,
  • 00:38:26
    I write this from an American perspective,
  • 00:38:29
    and in the U.S. you know,
  • 00:38:31
    I know that we have a really big problem
  • 00:38:34
    with paying well for childcare
  • 00:38:37
    and for housecleaning,
  • 00:38:39
    those jobs usually go to immigrants or women of colour
  • 00:38:42
    and it really shows how little we actually value this work
  • 00:38:47
    in society because we are not willing to pay for it.
  • 00:38:51
    We will pay lip service all day long
  • 00:38:52
    to mothers and the, you know,
  • 00:38:55
    impossible job they do, and all that, you know,
  • 00:38:57
    goes along with it
  • 00:38:59
    but when we take the actual physical labour
  • 00:39:02
    and hand it off to someone else and give them the care work,
  • 00:39:06
    we aren't paying well for it
  • 00:39:07
    and we are really holding up a system of poverty
  • 00:39:11
    for the women who do this work.
  • 00:39:13
    And so it really broadens the scope of
  • 00:39:18
    what emotional labour is doing to our society
  • 00:39:20
    when we are not valuing it and so it's really--
  • 00:39:23
    What is it worth?
  • 00:39:24
    If you were able to like, put a number to it,
  • 00:39:25
    what would it be worth?
  • 00:39:27
    Well, I mean, it's hard to say, like, what I--
  • 00:39:30
    what I would like it to be worth
  • 00:39:32
    is a lot more than what it is worth, you know?
  • 00:39:35
    Because in society we don't--
  • 00:39:37
    we don't put a lot of worth on jobs that wee see as
  • 00:39:40
    women's work.
  • 00:39:42
    And so emotional labour heavy jobs generally tend to
  • 00:39:45
    fall on the lower end of the pay scale.
  • 00:39:48
    And you also talk about the control freak argument,
  • 00:39:51
    and I'm sure you've probably heard that
  • 00:39:53
    from people who've spoken to you in the past,
  • 00:39:56
    saying that maybe you are a control freak,
  • 00:39:58
    maybe you just need to chill with the stuff that's
  • 00:40:01
    happening in the house.
  • 00:40:02
    How does that ignore the real problem?
  • 00:40:05
    Yeah. So the control freak argument is a very common one
  • 00:40:08
    that I get
  • 00:40:10
    and a lot of feminist texts in the past few years
  • 00:40:14
    have advocated for letting it go,
  • 00:40:16
    that's the solution if you want to have
  • 00:40:18
    the high powered career and enjoy your family,
  • 00:40:21
    you just need to let it all go.
  • 00:40:23
    And what I write in the book is that
  • 00:40:24
    there are so few things that I do for the joy of control.
  • 00:40:29
    Like, I do these things because I know that it's
  • 00:40:31
    the most efficient way to run my household,
  • 00:40:34
    I know it's what keeps everyone comfortable,
  • 00:40:36
    I know it keeps things running smoothly.
  • 00:40:37
    And so when someone tells me that I can simply, you know,
  • 00:40:42
    really lower my standards, let things go,
  • 00:40:45
    they're ignoring the value of the work that we're doing
  • 00:40:48
    when we undertake emotional labour.
  • 00:40:51
    We are doing things that we've planned out because
  • 00:40:54
    they make sense for our families,
  • 00:40:56
    they make sense for individual,
  • 00:40:58
    you know, needs.
  • 00:40:59
    And I think that it's really important that
  • 00:41:01
    we can agree on a shared standard
  • 00:41:05
    rather then say, you know,
  • 00:41:07
    "The onus is on you to let it go
  • 00:41:10
    so your partner doesn't have to change
  • 00:41:11
    because it's not his problem,
  • 00:41:13
    it's your problem if you're exhausted by emotional labour."
  • 00:41:16
    That's, you know, that's what the argument is saying,
  • 00:41:18
    that there is no onus on men to change,
  • 00:41:21
    it is all on you to change your behaviour
  • 00:41:23
    and to change your needs, basically.
  • 00:41:26
    Changing your own behaviour
  • 00:41:28
    is very difficult and getting somebody else to change
  • 00:41:31
    their behaviours is doubly hard, right?
  • 00:41:33
    What do you mean when you say that
  • 00:41:34
    men need to stop using comparison
  • 00:41:37
    as an excuse for not changing?
  • 00:41:39
    So I think this is a very common trap for progressive men
  • 00:41:43
    is that they can look at their father's generation,
  • 00:41:46
    their grandfather's generation,
  • 00:41:47
    they can even usually look around them and say,
  • 00:41:50
    "But look at how much I do compared to my dad,
  • 00:41:53
    compared to--" you know,
  • 00:41:55
    "my friend who calls it babysitting when he
  • 00:41:57
    watches his kids."
  • 00:41:59
    And they'll say, "Look at how well I am doing
  • 00:42:01
    compared to other men."
  • 00:42:03
    And what I like to say is, you know,
  • 00:42:05
    "There is no other man in this marriage."
  • 00:42:09
    What we're comparing is, you know,
  • 00:42:11
    "What does my work look like compared to your work?
  • 00:42:14
    Because this is a partnership and so bringing in another,
  • 00:42:18
    you know, outside person is not going to help us
  • 00:42:22
    find our balance."
  • 00:42:23
    You know? It's not like I'm--
  • 00:42:25
    I'm not saying, "Well, you know, Amy over here,
  • 00:42:28
    she doesn't do her-- you know, her housework
  • 00:42:31
    so why should I do mine?" You know?
  • 00:42:33
    Or anything like that.
  • 00:42:35
    Women never use that comparison tool as a way of, you know,
  • 00:42:39
    scapegoating their own behaviour.
  • 00:42:41
    But men will do it often because
  • 00:42:43
    it's very convenient to say,
  • 00:42:45
    "Well, look at how good I'm doing
  • 00:42:46
    compared to everyone else."
  • 00:42:48
    But it should really be a talk about
  • 00:42:50
    how do we share our responsibilities
  • 00:42:52
    within our partnership?
  • 00:42:54
    Iceland had made incredible progress
  • 00:42:56
    that you highlight in the book.
  • 00:42:59
    What do we need to learn from Iceland about emotional labour?
  • 00:43:04
    Yes. So Iceland is a really interesting case study for
  • 00:43:08
    how they've dealt with emotional labour.
  • 00:43:11
    One thing is their paternal leave policy is incredible
  • 00:43:16
    and they, you know, really encourage and incentivise men
  • 00:43:20
    to take that.
  • 00:43:21
    I know that in the U.S. we don't have, you know,
  • 00:43:24
    much of anything.
  • 00:43:25
    We don't have maternity leave or paternity leave for most,
  • 00:43:30
    at least not legislated, it varies from company to company.
  • 00:43:34
    And I have heard in Canada,
  • 00:43:37
    is it correct that there is also
  • 00:43:39
    paternity leave but you know, I've heard from men
  • 00:43:43
    that they won't take it
  • 00:43:45
    because there is this sort of macho culture that says,
  • 00:43:49
    you know, "You need to get back to work."
  • 00:43:51
    And so a lot of men will not take that full paternity leave.
  • 00:43:54
    But it's different in Iceland thought.
  • 00:43:55
    But in Iceland it's very different
  • 00:43:58
    where men are incentivised.
  • 00:44:00
    They made it so that they--
  • 00:44:03
    they don't get as many benefits
  • 00:44:06
    if they go back to work earlier.
  • 00:44:07
    And so for men it makes it a no-brainer.
  • 00:44:09
    "I'm going to stay home."
  • 00:44:11
    Because most men want to do that anyway.
  • 00:44:13
    Most men I talk to said if it wasn't for their culture
  • 00:44:16
    they would want to stay home and spend that extra time
  • 00:44:19
    with their children.
  • 00:44:20
    And that can really help balance out emotional labour
  • 00:44:23
    because when you are at home constantly with, you know,
  • 00:44:28
    a new child, all of those schedules are developing,
  • 00:44:31
    all of those, you know, new metal lists
  • 00:44:34
    are starting to build in your head
  • 00:44:36
    and you want both partners to have that knowledge
  • 00:44:39
    instead of, you know,
  • 00:44:40
    I write in my book, my husband had no paternity leave
  • 00:44:43
    and so I was wracking up all of these things in my head
  • 00:44:46
    and he just found it easier to ask me,
  • 00:44:49
    "What needs to be done? How does this work?"
  • 00:44:51
    I thought it was really interesting--
  • 00:44:53
    we've run out of time,
  • 00:44:54
    but you-- in the book that you wrote that men want to stay home
  • 00:44:57
    and women want to go to work,
  • 00:44:59
    but that's not something that we talk about, is it?
  • 00:45:02
    No, it's really not.
  • 00:45:03
    I think men and women, we kind of want the same thing,
  • 00:45:07
    we want the full experience of life.
  • 00:45:10
    And I think emotional labour and men learning how to
  • 00:45:13
    perform emotional labour is how we get there,
  • 00:45:16
    where everyone is really
  • 00:45:18
    fully connected to their lives and experiencing all of it.
  • 00:45:22
    Gemma, thank you so much.
  • 00:45:23
    Yeah. Thank you.
  • 00:45:23
    Great book.
  • 00:45:24
    Thank you for your insights.
  • 00:45:25
    We appreciate you making some time for The Agenda.
  • 00:45:26
    Yeah. Thank you for having me.
  • 00:45:26
    Thank you.
Tags
  • emotional labour
  • gender roles
  • Gemma Hartley
  • emotional labor
  • women's health
  • social norms
  • parenting
  • gender equality
  • Hochschild
  • Fed Up