Now that you’re aware of it, have you talked to her about that? That’s a very common form of “emotional labor” that women find themselves responsible for, and it can be exhausting.
If you are basing this on the PSID report they are only counting household chores typically done by women, so their numbers can't be trusted [1] and are heavily politicised by people seeking to further a particular ideology through using statistics that intentionally misrepresent the world:
"Housework was defined as “core chores,” or routine housework that people generally do not enjoy doing such as washing dishes, laundry, vacuuming floors and dusting … Routine housework, like cooking dinner or making beds, was captured … . Other activities such as home repairs, mowing the lawn, and shoveling snow were not in the study. Items such as gardening are usually viewed as more enjoyable; the focus here is on core housework."
Also, in addition to the chores that are not counted men tend to sacrifice at a higher rate in other ways to provide for the family. They have longer commutes and more frequently work away from home [2], and on average work longer hours when working fulltime [3]. Women also more frequently work part-time with a man supporting the family doing the sacrifices mentioned here [4].
We are happy to do all of this, but the deal is that one partner don't get to discount what the other do and then talk bad about how we all contribute to the whole based upon this misrepresentation.
Emotional labor is not referring to the completion of material tasks / chores, nor is it referring to the amount of hours completed at a workplace. So I'm not sure what it is that you're trying to communicate by responding to a comment that was specifically about emotional labor with this comment - emotional labor has nothing to do with "talking bad" about relative degrees of contribution in a relationship.
edit: now I see - it's related to the comic in the GP comment. That comment implies that the comic is explaining emotional labor, but it isn't (the comic pretty much states this in the final panel). So that GP comment confused the thread. I'll respond directly to that comment.
The concept of emotional labor is not much different. Emotional labor in itself is a description of a carefully selected subset of actions we do when we mutually care for people we are close with and that most people gain meaning through doing, and it is associating the word labor with these meaningful actions due to how labor to many has a negative connotation. People that further emotional labor as a grievance intentionally misrepresent the world in order to further a specific political ideology, and it is typically the same groups that create the misrepresentations in the PSID report. This is Grievance Studies 101.
Emotional labor as a concept is manipulative, and it makes it harder for us all to appreciate the part each of us play in making a whole in exactly the same way as the PSID misrepresentations and make it harder for us to gain the meaning we normally do through mutually caring relationships.
The sad thing about both the PSID and the emotional labor concept is that it discourages the ones with few healthy relationships from mimicking the actions that will most likely help build them.
Thanks for explaining your viewpoint - sounds like we have incredibly different definitions of the concept of "emotional labor". I have never experienced it as being manipulative, nor in support of a specific political ideology, and based on my understanding of this concept, these traits are completely orthogonal to the core message.
While I'm highly skeptical of the notion that this concept is inherently manipulative, I certainly understand that select people will use whatever tools they have at their disposal to affect manipulation. I'm fascinated that you have had this experience and I'd like to hear more about what brought you here.
I would like to learn why we have such different viewpoints. Do you see emotional labor as a concept as something else than a grievance? What do you think is a good definition of the term? It is reasonable that we have different definitions since it seems to be used without a clear or consistent definition.
This is where I come from: The claims I can find about emotional labor mostly seem to refer to the PSID report, and it currently seems like there is an effort at claiming the conclusions of the PSID report support a similar claim about how the genders relate in the workplace. Emotional labor seem to be interchangeable be used for both contexts without a clear definition, and as a generalization of the PSID report. However, I can't find any data supporting that this is how the genders relate in the workplace and as I showed earlier the PSID report is also not a good representation of how people relate at home due to its misrepresentations.
That's an interesting comic. Though I think it's very one-sided especially in the last parts and written from the point of a women, who had bad luck with her partner. Staying with these stereotypes there are other mental tasks that a man would have on his mind like keeping the car running: changing tires, changing oil, etc.
Anecdotally:
I did a big junk of the organizational stuff for my girlfriend during her five years of university (we basically met a month before she started) including pushing her through her bachelor and master thesis. Basically I kept a mental todo list for her and kept nagging her "like a boss". I also organized us moving different places, getting insurances, setting up contracts (like for tv and internet), shopping for tech, getting her car fixed and planning our holidays. I also organized and execute all the household related fixing. That's mostly stuff that happens on occasion and takes a lot of time and mental capacity then, but is not a daily load.
On the other hand she does a lot of the daily load stuff like washing, shopping and cleaning (basically because I'm fine cleaning once every 2 weeks when I can actually see the dust lying around, but she gets furious at this point). I probably do not appreciate this enough from a mental load / organizational point of view.
I'm sure though that I will be the one keeping track of doctor appointments and nannies, when we have kids, while she will keeping track of feeding, grocery shopping and changing diapers. I hopefully will remember this post and appreciate the small, but frequent and steady organizational load she takes and not only think about the rarer, bigger ones I take care off.
> That's an interesting comic. Though I think it's very one-sided
Of course. It provides a perspective, not all perspectives. But it's an important perspective. Not every household is this skewed in responsibilities, but many are. And just paying a bit of attention to what's going on and taking on some of these responsibilities, can alleviate a lot of stress.
This comic addresses a very real issue, but I feel it is more universal than the feminist angle would imply. This same drama unfolds anytime you have people cohabitating who have different tolerances / thresholds / standards for how and how often they expect cleanliness and tidyness issues to be handled. If those thresholds don’t match, and especially if one person is more conflict-averse than the other, typically one person will volunteer to suffer in silence, take most of the burden for themselves, bottle up resentment, and then explode in a “I always / you never” fight. Every male I know who has male roommates during college has their own version of this story.
While it tangentially touches on it, this comic is not talking specifically about emotional labor - the final panel even says "In a future comic I'll talk about emotional work, which also gets heaped onto women."
For anyone interested, here are some resources on emotional labor:
Not sure if supposed to feel bad about this or not, but ...
10 years ago, when my wife and I had been married less than a month, there was an occasion when the dishes piled up in the sink, and my wife got upset, and asked why had hadn't I noticed them, and why hadn't it bother me enough to clean them up without her having to ask me.
The reality was, I'm not sure I had noticed it, sometimes I get lost in my own world, I have a different perception of what parts of the world need my attention than my wife does, not that my perception is better (its often worse),
anyway, we had a discussion where I stated that if she would like my help with something, a polite "hey, would you mind [cleaning the dishes, some other X, etc]" will almost always elicit a "sure", then me doing it, unless there is an extremely specific reason I'm unable to help her at that exact moment, I'm not going to refuse a request for help
I'm happy we had that talk, I think it significantly improved the communication in our marriage
I don't want her strewing over me not doing something that I'm oblivious to, (and sometimes I am oblivious to stuff)
after a few requests for the same type of help, I do get in the habit of anticipating that a particular help is needed, and try to do it before that help is formally requested (the sink rarely fills up with dishes these days)
This is a fascinating comic, thank you for sharing.
The mental load sounds like it could be largely resolved by GTD, since eliminating mental load is the reason GTD was invented.
And if it's a shared system (eg whiteboard in kitchen) then the man/breadwinner can see at a glance what needs done and pick up tasks without having to ask.
Of course, there's a much more elegant solution, but I will leave it as an exercise for the reader :)
The comic is eye opening but kind of one sided. My partner never wondered how the car (that she rides in every day) gets cleaned or the oil gets changed, how the tires seamlessly switch between seasons, how the filter on the dishwasher or washing machine get cleaned, how ours is the only shower drain in the world that doesn't get clogged with long hairs, how every hernia inducing item just moves to the right spot by itself, how computers get updated, and dozens of minor annoyances get fixed around the house, etc.
The difference is I don't ask her to do it, and I don't broadcast what I'm doing to end up on a list. It needs to be done so I do it. If you keep tally you will not have a good time either way.
On the other hand stuff I don't need or want moved (my work stuff in my closed home office) always gets "ordered" according to her standards so I have my doubts about whether much of that behavior is society's fault or some people's innate wish to see some things done a certain way or in a certain order. It has to be done based on an internal list of needs or ideals, not because society says my stuff has to be ordered by her standards.
When you're substantially better at something just do it. Your partner will do the stuff they're better at. The rest gets split or shared with a simple prior arrangement. If the result is what matters don't get stuck on the how. And if something doesn't need to be done, don't do it. You'll expend mental and physical energy for no good reason.
At one point an ex-partner of mine felt like she did way more than half the household workload. I felt under-appreciated because I was basically the only one to "fix" things if something needed to be done in the house.
We decided to set up a simple task manager for ad-hoc tasks, with some alternating recurring tasks like doing the washing. This worked quite well, as it gave some objective facts to balance our feelings and allowed us both to easily pick up our half of the work whenever we had some time.
Great, I came here to type out a similar response. You forgot big things like managing finances including investments, saving for kids, home refinancing, insurance payments, etc.
The difference in my household is that I, the husband, not only do all the things that you're talking about but also provide "Boss as a service" for my wife. It puts a ridiculous amount of load on me and burns me out. The difference as you correctly pointed out is men tend to "man up" and just do it.
This was a good reminder, habits are hard to break. As others have pointed out, the comic is a bit one sided, but it's trying to make a point, so whatever.
However, the comic does fail to recognize that the priorities of the woman (in this case) are also societal constructs. In the same way that women are taught to be the cleaners and boys are taught to go off to "save the world," women are also taught to value things like a tidy home. There's no inherent value in not keeping my jeans on the floor of the bedroom. That's something that women writ large have been taught to value.
If the men are being encouraged to think about what society has taught them to do, and change it based on this comic, I think it's only fair that the women also take a minute and consider the same.
I can't imagine walking into a kitchen then blaming my wife because of a pot of spaghetti overflowed, especially when she was busy dealing with two kids AND had her friends over. Or expect her to make dinner for me, the kids, and her friends all by herself.
I also can't imagine any of the men I know would do that...which the comic describes as a 'common scenario for many parents'.
That sounds like a low quality partner issue, not a gender role issue.
What strikes me about the comic is that the guest is talking to the husband, while she's there for the wife. It would make a lot more sense in this situation if the husband took care of the kids while the wife took care of her guest.
In hindsight its amazing how stupid and unaware people are as young new parents (myself included). Now, at my riper age, that sort of help is like an automatic reflex.
Yep. We all want them doing this service. They are truly obligated both on a local, personal level, and then in a wider sense by society.
Everyone is happy that they are providing this, and we all agree that they are definitely experiencing this real need, and not projecting something into the world that's actually just going on in their heads.
Relevant comic: https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/