Is It Emotional Labor, Or Is It Part Of Being In A Relationship?
Is anyone else tired of everything being labeled in the language of commodities and capitalism?
When the phrase “emotional labor” first cropped up, it intended to shed light on the exhausting aspect of service industry work that makes or breaks someone’s income. Having to smile, act chipper, and indicate interest in a customer’s day when you could not possibly care less can take it out of you. There’s something insidious about having to fake these signals of human connection in order to be paid.
This phrase, which originally served to describe that particular phenomenon, has caught on and raged through the larger discourse like a wildfire. Now, “emotional labor” ranges from listening to your friend who has had a hard time, to being the one in a relationship who tends to initiate sex. The way that we discuss labor in the United States has increasingly acknowledged the inherent exploitation of workers. For that reason, labeling parts of a relationship between two or more people who care about one another as “labor” is particularly painful. It evokes an image of caring about another person as exploitative and being owed payment.
It’s important to have boundaries and limits. It’s important to notice when you’re struggling and…
