What really crushes women is not just "invisible labor", but also...

In the past two days, the topic #The invisible housework after marriage can really make people collapse has resonated with many people:

Image source: Weibo screenshot

One netizen listed what he would do in a day:

Image source: Weibo

But when she told her husband, "There are so many houseworks, and I can't take care of both housework and childcare," her husband always said that there weren't so many houseworks to do - this may be a scenario that many married women have experienced.

To a certain extent, it is not so much these "invisible housework" that makes people collapse , but rather the accompanying "emotional labor" that has long been invisible and unrecognized.

Those that are assumed by women

"Housework" and "emotional labor"

Emotional labor is a concept proposed by American sociology professor Arlie Russell Hochschild in 1983. It refers to the control and regulation of one's own and others' emotions in a work environment based on work considerations and work requirements.

Later, some psychologists and sociologists extended the concept of "emotional labor" to life situations. That is to say, as long as you show corresponding emotions in the corresponding "plot" according to the emotional rules of the role or situation, you are doing "emotional labor."

"Emotional labor" itself is a neutral term. If a person does too much emotional labor but fails to gain value or comfort from others, emotional labor will consume his mind and make him physically and mentally exhausted. If a person's emotional labor also gains emotional value or sufficient material value in return from others, emotional labor will become a way to gain a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

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In the "family" scenario, what are the types of "emotional labor" and how do they arise?

First of all, we must admit that in most cultures today, “doing housework” is tacitly classified as part of the behavioral norms of the “wife” role.

A best-selling "housework book" in Japan, "The List of Housework That Husbands Don't Know About", lists all the housework that housewives need to do, a total of 211 items, and 162 of them are "unnamed housework", also known as "hidden housework", which are trivial housework that no one usually mentions but someone has to do, including planning menus before cooking, keeping track of daily necessities inventory, recording family schedules, etc.

It would be fine if you were just exerting physical energy. After washing the pots and pans, scrubbing the floor and furniture, and hanging up the clothes, shoes and socks, you would actually feel more of a "physical tiredness". This kind of "tiredness" is similar to the "tiredness" of running 5,000 meters. You can recover fully after a rest or a good sleep.

But when these chores are placed in the context of “family”…

Gemma Hartley, author of "They're Not Nagging, They're Just Fed Up: The Invisible Emotional Labor," tells a story of her own:

On Mother's Day, Hartley wanted a full house cleaning as a holiday gift because she wanted to take a day off from the tedious housework, without having to call to compare prices or worry about checking the quality of the cleaning.

But when the husband called to make an appointment, he found that the gift was too expensive and "not cost-effective", so he proposed to buy a necklace for his wife and then clean the bathroom himself.

Early that morning, the wife passed by the bathroom door and saw her husband busy in a small space, but when she looked around other corners outside the small space, she saw chaos.

There were shoes and socks scattered on the floor. The dishes in the kitchen sink were still lying quietly. Yesterday, my husband asked him to wash the dishes. He did wash the dishes, but he just washed them...

Hartley opened the refrigerator and found that the milk at home was gone, so she opened her phone and made a note in the memo, even though her husband drank the last sip.

When she turned back to the bedroom, she was blocked by the storage box across the hallway. Hartley's emotions suddenly collapsed. Her husband came over with tools in his hand and stood at the door. "What's there to be angry about? Just ask me to put it back."

"I don't want me to ask for something like this!" For two consecutive days, the box lay there, and the husband could have put it back in its place, but he avoided it.

Maybe many men cannot understand whether it is so tiring to just "arrange" things. But only those who have experienced it know that as soon as you open your eyes, you start thinking about what vegetables to buy today, whether the paper at home has been used up and whether you need to buy new ones, how your children are doing with their homework, whether you need to communicate with the teacher... These "little things that maintain the normal operation of the family" can drain your emotions.

And if you are the one who worries about these things and try to find ways to remind the other person over and over again, you have to pay attention to your tone, otherwise you may be regarded as "difficult to serve", "nagging", and "fussy".

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Housework is assumed to be undertaken by women, while men are unable to properly see the efforts behind it . This misalignment between the two causes women to experience more "mental fatigue" -

This is a kind of "tiredness" that requires others to comfort you and provide you with emotional value in order to recover quickly. However, in the emotional rules of many "husbands", there is no provision for comforting your wife or doing emotional labor for her.

Effective ways to reduce emotional labor

Studies have found that in intimate relationships, those who do not do any emotional labor at all and those who do emotional labor from the heart can achieve the highest relationship quality.

In other words, there are two effective ways to reduce emotional labor in intimate relationships and interactions:

1

Both parties have been given the right to be completely themselves

The right to be fully yourself means pursuing your authentic self without disguising or changing your essence, without giving up your beliefs, values, and uniqueness to fit in with others or role rules.

Being completely yourself in an intimate relationship means that in this relationship, you do not need to hide your emotions or care about the judgment of others. For example, on your days off, you can go to bed and get up at whatever time you want, order takeout when you want, and be comfortable and at ease. You will not blame me for doing this or that, and I will not ask you to do anything. Neither of you needs to waste energy on emotional labor. In each other's eyes, you are the real you, and both parties can accept that "you are you, no need to change, no need to be better."

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2

Both parties can care for each other and understand each other

In an intimate relationship, emotional labor itself is a form of care for loved ones and relatives. However, if only one party does emotional labor while the other enjoys it, it is not only an unlimited exploitation of the emotional laborer, but also a deliberate destruction of the intimate relationship.

In fact, many times, wives worry about how much housework their husbands do and how much time they spend with their children, not because housework is tiring or spending time with children is annoying, but because these behaviors reflect the husband’s level of commitment to the marriage and family.

If only one party is fully committed and engaged, while the other is isolated, the relationship will naturally be unbalanced. Whether it is housework and childcare or emotional labor, both parties need to care for each other, understand each other, and work together.

Therefore, reducing the consumption of "emotional labor" is essentially about both parties ensuring fair attention and care for each other. It does not necessarily mean that you and I do the same amount of housework or devote the same amount of energy to the children. As long as both parties find a way to provide "emotional value" to each other fairly, they can ensure the continuation of a high-quality relationship.

Here are some more specific suggestions:

To the wife currently trapped in “emotional labor”:

Even if you cannot get the "right to be completely yourself" in an intimate relationship, you can try to break out of the role script appropriately and not abide by the norms and emotional rules of one or several role scripts .

For example, break away from the norm of "having to cook every day" and the emotional rule of "feeling guilty and self-blaming if you don't cook", and enjoy the right to eat out when you want to and order takeout when you want to.

For husbands who often “don’t know why their wives are angry”:

You should see and recognize your wife's efforts. In addition, you can also try to praise your wife in various ways, tell jokes to make her happy, express sincere gratitude and thanks to her for her efforts at home , prepare surprises for her, etc., to prove that you are "valuable".

Finally, I would like to add that we hope that everyone will see women’s “emotional labor”, which does not mean denying men’s “emotional labor” . The real win-win situation is -

I can understand your hard work at work, and you can appreciate my contribution to the family. There is no "gender" label in this process. Only by providing emotional value and emotional comfort to each other can the energy consumed in emotional labor be quickly replenished and restored to full blood.

References

[1]Hochschild, AR (1979) 'Emotion work, feeling rules and social structure', American Journal of Sociology, 85: 551-575.

[2]Hochschild, AR (2003) The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work, Berkeley: University of California Press.

[3]Invisible labor can negatively impact well-being in mothers | ScienceDaily

[4] Richard Firth-Goldbehill, A History of the Human Emotions

[5] Core Sociological Thinkers (3rd edition) by Rob Stones

[6] Oxytocin: The hormone that creates intimacy, relaxation, selflessness, and love, by Kirsten Moberg

Planning and production

Author: Su Jing, National Level 2 Psychological Counselor

Review | Zhang Xin, Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Peking University

Planning｜Lin Lin

Editor: Yang Yaping

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin