Link: Emotional Labor

[sonia]

Olivia K. Lima summarized the amazing MetaFilter thread on Emotional Labor. Thank you, Olivia, for your labor in putting this together.

Summary: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx-xbuASOkWccFk3ekRzcmZSajg/view?pli=1

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! I read parts of the original thread, but didn't have the emotional energy (hm!) to read all of it. This summary is still 63 pages but was easier for me to take in.

Reading, I viscerally realized that I've had several fortunate escapes in my life. Something in me rebels at having my emotional labor taken for granted, and I've always had enough privilege to walk away.

Most recently, a male friend would sit expectantly at my table, and, puzzled, I would say, "The food is in the kitchen" (as usual). I'm happy to cook for folks, but they have to serve themselves. There was a related story in the summary, and I realized, oh, it's an automatic expectation of being served. Wow, patriarchy oozes in everywhere.

Comments

[untonuggan]

I remember staying with various older family members and asking how many people wanted coffee so I knew how full to make the french press. my uncles (only the dudes really) told me exactly how much cream and sugar they wanted in their coffee. the women in my family just said "yes please" or "no thank you." my mom thought I was rude for not making my uncles the coffee the way they asked, because obviously since I had offered coffee it meant full service.

*facepalm*

(also, thanks for the metafilter summary!)

[sonia]

ooooooy! Good on you for sticking with what you (kindly) offered to do.

Were you aware of the pattern at the time? I mean, I knew about all this stuff, men expecting to be served, yadda yadda, but somehow I missed that it was this bad, and this pervasive. I grew up in the 70's thinking feminism had succeeded!