Egregious emotional labor

I’ve been reading an article about the IDF’s progressive approach to tackling gender separatedness and a seemingly unrelated topic came to my mind. Except, emotional labor is very much related to gender separatedness. Emotional labor also permeates every aspect of society.

Emotional labor is an act of supporting another person by listening to their personal stories without wanting to – while smiling and nodding along. A thank you might follow such an unwanted listening session or advice-giving session, but, more often than not, emotional labor is taken for granted.

Emotional labor also involves the little things like remembering birthdays of family and friends, preparing parties and guest lists, and keeping things organized. Emotional labor is almost always imposed upon women or people seen as being in the feminine role in whatever social context. The boundaries are crossed quickly when a stranger feels entitled to unload his or her personal issues onto an unsuspecting woman. While some women have no problem telling such people to get lost, way too many women are guilted into thinking it’s their duty to sit down, listen, and smile, even if they were planning to do something else entirely.

Girls are socialized to feel bad when they don’t play the role of emotional-supporters-in-chief. Girls are often punished when they use certain words and don’t show their caring side. Girls are also punished for putting themselves first. The good girl curse is drilled into them since an early age and it’s really hard, at times virtually impossible, to fully reverse the process. It’s a monumental task to reverse years of social conditioning. While we’d like to believe that we can intellectually overcome any kind of conditioning, even if we’re being conditioned by our parents or whoever is doing the conditioning – in good faith – that just isn’t true. Done in good faith or not, conditioning is conditioning.

Indeed, it can involve drilling what is perceived by our social circle as bad behaviors out of us first, only to drill new behaviors into us right after and reinforcing the new behaviors to the point where we find it hard to behave differently. The one being conditioned is rarely given a say in the matter.

When bombarded by comments from our social circle, rewarded or punished depending on our behavior, we are going to adjust our behavior and thoughts to whatever is expected of us, eventually. It’s just a matter of time. It’s the same with emotional labor. It becomes so integrated into a woman’s psyche, she doesn’t even notice that she’s being taken advantage of. Why would she after years of being brainwashed? Now, socialization is, of course, necessary, we wouldn’t be able to function otherwise, but the line between socialization and brainwashing can be a thin one.

Look at the obsessive-compulsive disorder. Checking if the stove is off five times before walking out of the house is a classic example. Sure, you know it’s absurd, yet you do it anyway. Emotional labor is similar. When a woman annoys people around her by constantly nagging them to do this and that, one wonders if she’s being her real self or is merely playing a role she’s been told by society that she’s expected to play? Sadly, after years of playing a particular role, it’s no longer just an act, but who we are.