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Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward
From Gemma Hartley, the journalist who ignited a national conversation on emotional labor, comes Fed Up , a bold dive into the unpaid, invisible work women have shouldered for too long—and an impassioned vision for creating a better future for us all . Day in, day out, women anticipate and manage the needs of others. In relationships, we initiate the hard conversations. At home, we shoulder the mental load required to keep our households running. At work, we moderate our tone, explaining patiently and speaking softly. In the world, we step gingerly to keep ourselves safe. We do this largely invisible, draining work whether we want to or not—and we never clock out. No wonder women everywhere are overtaxed, exhausted, and simply fed up . In her ultra-viral article “Women Aren’t Nags—We’re Just Fed Up,” shared by millions of readers, Gemma Hartley gave much-needed voice to the frustration and anger experienced by countless women. Now, in Fed Up , Hartley expands outward from the everyday frustrations of performing thankless emotional labor to illuminate how the expectation to do this work in all arenas—private and public—fuels gender inequality, limits our opportunities, steals our time, and adversely affects the quality of our lives. More than just name the problem, though, Hartley teases apart the cultural messaging that has led us here and asks how we can shift the load. Rejecting easy solutions that don’t ultimately move the needle, Hartley offers a nuanced, insightful guide to striking real balance, for true partnership in every aspect of our lives. Reframing emotional labor not as a problem to be overcome, but as a genderless virtue men and women can all learn to channel in our quest to make a better, more egalitarian world, Fed Up is surprising, intelligent, and empathetic essential reading for every woman who has had enough with feeling fed up.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 13, 2018
514 people are currently reading
11855 people want to read
About the author
Gemma Hartley
3 books102 followersGemma Hartley is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in Glamour, Women’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post, among other outlets. She lives in Reno, Nevada with her husband and three children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 579 reviews
December 30, 2018
2½ stars.
When I first saw the main title of this book - those two words "Fed Up" - before I even knew what the book was about, I thought of my mum. I pictured her juggling the wants and needs of three kids after a day of work, arms full of laundry that she would load into the machine in between making us dinner. I remembered distinctly the way she sometimes would find a rare moment to sit down and say with a tired sigh: "I'm fed up."
Fed Up is for a more modern woman than my mother. My mum worked full time, did most of the household chores, and took on an immense emotional burden as well. This book is talking to the women who have achieved what seems like a decent level of equality with their husbands or male partners, but still bear a disproportionate amount of the emotional burden.
It is really important to factor in emotional labor when considering equality. I'm glad we're beginning to discuss it. Hartley shares how her husband seems happy to do household chores, but it remains her responsibility to manage and delegate tasks. "Why didn't you just ask me to do that?" He might ask, instead of recognizing it as something that needs to be done and using his own initiative. She is responsible for organizing parties and holidays, getting gifts for both of their families, and she must constantly remind him to call his mother.
It may sound like nitpicking, but it is emotionally draining to always be responsible for what everyone else is doing. It is also emotionally draining to feel responsible for defusing every argument, and to feel like it is probably just easier to do a task yourself than to deal with the trouble of delegating it.
However, I think the major problem with the book is that it is presented as a study of emotional labor, but is actually a memoir of Hartley's personal experiences with her husband and kids. She carries out very few interviews with other women, returning again and again to her own anecdotes. I would have liked to see her do more research; reach out to more women who are not white and middle class. Her few attempts to touch upon other kinds of experiences seem to get buried under the repetitive descriptions of her own life.
Emotional labor is a topic that could speak to many women, but I think only a small group will see themselves in this book. I personally don't.
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When I first saw the main title of this book - those two words "Fed Up" - before I even knew what the book was about, I thought of my mum. I pictured her juggling the wants and needs of three kids after a day of work, arms full of laundry that she would load into the machine in between making us dinner. I remembered distinctly the way she sometimes would find a rare moment to sit down and say with a tired sigh: "I'm fed up."
Fed Up is for a more modern woman than my mother. My mum worked full time, did most of the household chores, and took on an immense emotional burden as well. This book is talking to the women who have achieved what seems like a decent level of equality with their husbands or male partners, but still bear a disproportionate amount of the emotional burden.
It is really important to factor in emotional labor when considering equality. I'm glad we're beginning to discuss it. Hartley shares how her husband seems happy to do household chores, but it remains her responsibility to manage and delegate tasks. "Why didn't you just ask me to do that?" He might ask, instead of recognizing it as something that needs to be done and using his own initiative. She is responsible for organizing parties and holidays, getting gifts for both of their families, and she must constantly remind him to call his mother.
It may sound like nitpicking, but it is emotionally draining to always be responsible for what everyone else is doing. It is also emotionally draining to feel responsible for defusing every argument, and to feel like it is probably just easier to do a task yourself than to deal with the trouble of delegating it.
However, I think the major problem with the book is that it is presented as a study of emotional labor, but is actually a memoir of Hartley's personal experiences with her husband and kids. She carries out very few interviews with other women, returning again and again to her own anecdotes. I would have liked to see her do more research; reach out to more women who are not white and middle class. Her few attempts to touch upon other kinds of experiences seem to get buried under the repetitive descriptions of her own life.
Emotional labor is a topic that could speak to many women, but I think only a small group will see themselves in this book. I personally don't.
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November 30, 2018
"My husband does a lot. He helps me out with the housework, he takes care of our children if I will be out, he will do anything I ask him to. Personally, I think I'm pretty lucky." In response to praise such as this, author Gemma Hartley asks, “Does he do a lot compared to other men or does he do a lot compared to you?” Emotional labor is the invisible job handed down to women of every generation to make sure the days run smoothly, the household is efficiently managed, and everyone is happy and not inconvenienced. It's the mental energy spent on managing and micromanaging, all without rocking the boat. Hartley suggests that if women want help with this extra load, the options generally are, “Do it alone, be a nag, or let it go”, and any help that may be offered is met with the expectation of resounding gratefulness. After all, they're doing us a favor. It's our job. Even when it's their house, too. Their children, too. Their life, too. Note: I am very fortunate in my partnership at home to have a spouse who shares home responsibilities. Thank you, honey, for being my beautiful rarity xoxo.
In Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward, Hartley gives personal examples from her household, but also discusses how emotional labor has followed women into the workplace which I can personally attest to. I've had work positions in which the phone for our team was placed on my desk. I was the woman, the subliminal secretary. Committee assignments for female employees were themed with in-office morale improvement and potluck/birthday celebrations versus males who were assigned to out-of-office opportunities where networking could occur...opportunity. I could go on. So could Hartley, and she does.
“Women aren't fed up because we expect too much. We're fed up because we're told we shouldn't expect anything at all. We should just let it go as if it were so easy. As if our work were so easily disposable.” Hartley suggests that all the dots connect to the underlying theme of undervaluing the work of women. Hartley does a good job of pointing out the imbalance and how it hurts everyone. It's not only a heterosexual issue, but it is a patriarchal issue, and when women accept this extra load without contradiction, when we continue to train the next generation to do the same, we naturally create a barrier for men and enable it to continue. With honesty, she documents the results of her personal attempts at finding balance at home and it's clear that finding a solution will require much trial and error but it's worth it because we're worth it. It starts with books like this that raise awareness and inspire dialogue. Insightful reading material.
My favorite quote:
"It's OK to want more."
In Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward, Hartley gives personal examples from her household, but also discusses how emotional labor has followed women into the workplace which I can personally attest to. I've had work positions in which the phone for our team was placed on my desk. I was the woman, the subliminal secretary. Committee assignments for female employees were themed with in-office morale improvement and potluck/birthday celebrations versus males who were assigned to out-of-office opportunities where networking could occur...opportunity. I could go on. So could Hartley, and she does.
“Women aren't fed up because we expect too much. We're fed up because we're told we shouldn't expect anything at all. We should just let it go as if it were so easy. As if our work were so easily disposable.” Hartley suggests that all the dots connect to the underlying theme of undervaluing the work of women. Hartley does a good job of pointing out the imbalance and how it hurts everyone. It's not only a heterosexual issue, but it is a patriarchal issue, and when women accept this extra load without contradiction, when we continue to train the next generation to do the same, we naturally create a barrier for men and enable it to continue. With honesty, she documents the results of her personal attempts at finding balance at home and it's clear that finding a solution will require much trial and error but it's worth it because we're worth it. It starts with books like this that raise awareness and inspire dialogue. Insightful reading material.
My favorite quote:
"It's OK to want more."
December 28, 2018
Cathartic af, you guys. To be honest, you can probably get the point and a measure of the release you might need on this topic from reading the Longreads article the author wrote (which is essentially most of Chapter Three of this book), but man if you wanted more like I did, this book is here to deliver the “and another thing...!” you need. It also dives into underdiscussed groups that don’t get enough voice on this (women of color, stay at home fathers), and the last part does offer some ways forward that she recommends for spreading out the load of emotional labor a bit more evenly in the future. So there is some value here. But I did feel that even for someone like me- some who is 100% at the place in life where I’m just waking up and seeing all of this going on and wondering how on earth I can get off the merry go round and neeeding to read this- even for me it did get a bit repetitive by the end. Hence the three stars.
But please don’t let that diminish how important this message in and how much many many people need to know what emotional labor is (and that it is labor) understand its various faces and evaluate how they can help with it.
But please don’t let that diminish how important this message in and how much many many people need to know what emotional labor is (and that it is labor) understand its various faces and evaluate how they can help with it.
February 2, 2019
Let me start out by saying that Hartley ain't wrong.
Secondly, my credentials. I am a stay at home dad, I do much of the schedules, maintaining shopping lists, remembering to set up the kiddos' doctor's appointments, then setting them up, then taking the kids to them, and so on. I do the stuff Hartley is talking about. It's not easy. I don't do 100% of it, but let's get to that in a moment.
The biggest gap in Hartley's book is this: while she characterizes as "emotional labor" pretty much everything women do, and declares it invisible, she is notably silent on the similar work that men do. It is as if this work is, well, invisible to her.
At one point she is interviewing another woman, talking about that woman's emotional labor, and into the conversation as an aside we see that the interviewee is happy to let her husband take care of the insurance.
This is telling. Hartley believes that remembering the birthday present for the party is qualitatively different from buying insurance. That it is "emotional labor" whereas acquiring insurance is, something else. Something easier. Buying insurance isn't easier. It involves much of what looks a whole lot like emotional labor, as defined by Hartley. There are phone calls, comparisons, complex and emotionally charged decisions to make, and then there are payments to be remembered, to be made.
(I will use "man stuff" and "women stuff" to refer to traditional gendered jobs, and trust me, I know what a ridiculous breakdown that is)
As a dad who does a blend of "man stuff" and "women stuff" I can assure you that the gestalt of work around, say, coping with a leaking roof is not that different from the gestalt of stuff around getting Susie to her friend's birthday party with a present, a suitable costume, and the signed waiver for Trampoline Zone. I have done both. But to Hartley, the leaking roof, the car that needs an oil change, the life insurance policy that needs to be updated, the house that needs to be painted next year at the latest, these things are not "emotional labor", and therefore are basically easy work. Hartley is too busy telling us about how *her* work is undervalued to value *that* work, or even, let us be honest, mention it.
I can state unequivocally that the "man stuff" involved in running a house is modestly easier than the "woman stuff." It typically comes in large painful bites, but when you're done, you're done and there is a sense of accomplishment and completion in a way that there is not when dealing with many of the traditionally female work. Laundry never ends. Maintaining the grocery list, and the schedule of which child needs to be where, with what stuff, never ends. These are real, qualitative differences.
But there are also many similarities between the roles, there is much of what Hartley would call "emotional labor" in the life of Ward Cleaver. June Cleaver has no monopoly on emotional labor, it turns out. Hartley just can't see it.
Separately, I find myself puzzled by Hartley's descriptions of her husband. On the one hand she praises him endlessly, recognizing him as so much better, by her lights, then other husbands. On the other hand, when it comes to actually telling specific details of his life, he comes across as a doltish man-child. Is this guy real? Are these stories real? Are they composites? Are they outright fictional? Is Rob a doltish man-child or a great guy? I can't tell, and the whole narrative refuses to reveal him to me.
Ultimately, I have to agree, the book is just a magazine essay, fluffed up to book size by endless repetition of kind of muddled material.
It's not *wrong*, though. Hartley is right, there is work here, and it is hard, and we don't really appreciate it fully.
Secondly, my credentials. I am a stay at home dad, I do much of the schedules, maintaining shopping lists, remembering to set up the kiddos' doctor's appointments, then setting them up, then taking the kids to them, and so on. I do the stuff Hartley is talking about. It's not easy. I don't do 100% of it, but let's get to that in a moment.
The biggest gap in Hartley's book is this: while she characterizes as "emotional labor" pretty much everything women do, and declares it invisible, she is notably silent on the similar work that men do. It is as if this work is, well, invisible to her.
At one point she is interviewing another woman, talking about that woman's emotional labor, and into the conversation as an aside we see that the interviewee is happy to let her husband take care of the insurance.
This is telling. Hartley believes that remembering the birthday present for the party is qualitatively different from buying insurance. That it is "emotional labor" whereas acquiring insurance is, something else. Something easier. Buying insurance isn't easier. It involves much of what looks a whole lot like emotional labor, as defined by Hartley. There are phone calls, comparisons, complex and emotionally charged decisions to make, and then there are payments to be remembered, to be made.
(I will use "man stuff" and "women stuff" to refer to traditional gendered jobs, and trust me, I know what a ridiculous breakdown that is)
As a dad who does a blend of "man stuff" and "women stuff" I can assure you that the gestalt of work around, say, coping with a leaking roof is not that different from the gestalt of stuff around getting Susie to her friend's birthday party with a present, a suitable costume, and the signed waiver for Trampoline Zone. I have done both. But to Hartley, the leaking roof, the car that needs an oil change, the life insurance policy that needs to be updated, the house that needs to be painted next year at the latest, these things are not "emotional labor", and therefore are basically easy work. Hartley is too busy telling us about how *her* work is undervalued to value *that* work, or even, let us be honest, mention it.
I can state unequivocally that the "man stuff" involved in running a house is modestly easier than the "woman stuff." It typically comes in large painful bites, but when you're done, you're done and there is a sense of accomplishment and completion in a way that there is not when dealing with many of the traditionally female work. Laundry never ends. Maintaining the grocery list, and the schedule of which child needs to be where, with what stuff, never ends. These are real, qualitative differences.
But there are also many similarities between the roles, there is much of what Hartley would call "emotional labor" in the life of Ward Cleaver. June Cleaver has no monopoly on emotional labor, it turns out. Hartley just can't see it.
Separately, I find myself puzzled by Hartley's descriptions of her husband. On the one hand she praises him endlessly, recognizing him as so much better, by her lights, then other husbands. On the other hand, when it comes to actually telling specific details of his life, he comes across as a doltish man-child. Is this guy real? Are these stories real? Are they composites? Are they outright fictional? Is Rob a doltish man-child or a great guy? I can't tell, and the whole narrative refuses to reveal him to me.
Ultimately, I have to agree, the book is just a magazine essay, fluffed up to book size by endless repetition of kind of muddled material.
It's not *wrong*, though. Hartley is right, there is work here, and it is hard, and we don't really appreciate it fully.
December 7, 2018
I was expecting a more researched book given what a fascinating and dense topic this is. I understand why the author would've wanted to insert her personal experience at times, but she did so to such an extent that the end result felt closer to a memoir. Ultimately, 'Fed Up' left me with more questions than answers.
December 19, 2018
Oof. Stretching an essay that went viral to an entire book was a bit too ambitious for this one. I felt half of the book was just repeating itself (we get it, dads/husbands don’t clean or take care of kids as much as women do, no need to spell out every example) and the anecdotes got repetitive and not very insightful. I barely got through the 250 pages of this one. The point she makes is very important and the mission was noble but I wish it had gone deeper, particularly in terms of at the workplace. Emotional labor goes beyond motherhood. I also couldn’t help but feel that some of her personal anecdotes about her husband were just cringeworthy. I hope that guy isn’t getting nasty hate mail. She does do a nice summary of other work on this topic and that was interesting. Otherwise, I’d pass if I were you.
December 4, 2018
Man this book sucked. I was so ready as this is a very important topic within feminism but she quoted Sheryl Sandberg in the opening chapter and I rolled my eyes. Really? I just feel more research was needed into this - it was all very personal and poorly supported when there is great information about this topic out there! The conversations around REAL emotional labour are actually much more in depth than this book provided. She seems like a first year feminist theory student who got a book deal. Disappointed
June 11, 2020
It’s been a long time since I haven’t finished a book. This one was a shame - I was really interested in the topic of women’s emotional labour, but thought the author had real problems expanding an article she wrote for Harper’s Bazaar into a book. There’s some interesting information on a surface level, but it’s very repetitive, an uneasy blend of would-be social commentary and analysis with a more self-help tone. And - So. Much. About. Her. Marriage. Not even juicy stuff. Sock drawer/laundry basket stuff. I got about half-way through, but just couldn't keep on.
September 11, 2018
Necessary. I’d like to see this be required feminist reading. Gemma tackles The hard stuff here with insight and intellect. Next step: CHANGE.
August 9, 2024
I've been seeing this book mentioned around the feminism/equality/equity spheres for quite a while, and so I finally got around to reading it last month (and obviously and as usual I'm behind in my reviewing). I blew through it in two days. Immediately after finishing, I was like YES, THIS! OMG THIS! But... with a bit of time and distance, it lost a little shine. I feel like this book was just good, not great.
I do think that this book was quite a bit memoir-y, in that Hartley's own relationship was the primary example on offer for any of the various scenarios and stories. There were other women's stories as well, but I think Hartley maybe felt that women would identify most with her own words and anecdotes. So that's what we got. And there were some parts where I definitely saw myself and my husband's relationship clearly, disturbingly represented, but other parts where I found myself very thankful that that wasn't us.
I love my husband - he's my best friend, knows me better than anyone, gets all my weirdness, in-jokes and references, we have basically a secret language, and he listens while I tell him all about whatever book I'm reading at the time that he has NO interest in outside of the fact that I am sharing my excitement/nerding/annoyance/whatever about it at him. We've been together literally half of my life, and I honestly cannot imagine my life without him.
AND YET.
Sometimes, he drives me to the brink of sanity. Today was one of those days.
He was off work today, and because it has been cool here, we opened all the windows throughout the house to give the A/C (and the bank account) a break. Then it started to rain. I was on a work call (I work from home), and I muted myself to yell down the stairs that it is raining.
This man, THIS ADULT HUMAN WITH A FULLY FORMED FRONTAL LOBE, PROBABLY, says "What does that mean?"
As though we have never experienced rain before.
As though he is not 100% aware of the fact that "rain" is water droplets falling from the sky, water droplets which can and usually do like to visit us via our OPEN WINDOWS and bring lots of friends.
Apparently my statement that "it is raining" was NOT a sufficient indication that action was needed, because I did not explicitly instruct him to close the open windows. >_>
So anyway, I read this book, and... yeah. I now have some commiseration and a new vocabulary to help explain the sheer RAGE I feel at times. But not really any solutions. (I'm told stabbing is frowned upon.) There were some methods and techniques that seemed to work for some people, like just letting go of high standards or perfectionism, or changing up your communication style, or just delegating tasks and trusting that those things will get done, or being OK with the fallout if they aren't.
Honestly, I've tried all of these, and they all suck to varying degrees. All of these pieces of "advice" (?) feel a bit... blamey to me. Like If you weren't such a stickler for The Way Things Must Be or If you just communicated your needs better, or If you just accept the risk that your husband might "forget" to take care of life-sustaining stuff, think how much less you'd stress!
But all of those things STILL put the onus on women to do the work of getting their partner to understand they should actually be a PARTNER. The options are just... try and hope he steps up, or try and accept the consequences if he doesn't. Or leave.
Letting things go is risky. We aren't talking about things like "Oh, Dave is responsible for getting the kids to school now, so that's why little Billy is wearing one flip-flop and one scuba fin, and a parka as a shirt under purple overalls, and Stevie is wearing a ballerina tutu with his hiking boots and a Freddy Krueger mask." I don't have kids, but I think if I did, I wouldn't worry too much about what they wear. You do you, kid! (And honestly, if Thomas put outfits like those on our cats, I would LOVE IT SO MUCH. They wouldn't but I would. :D)
We ARE talking about "Whoops! Gary forgot to pay the mortgage for 6 months, so welcome to our new tiny house - A 1994 Subaru Impreza sedan! The best thing about it -- NO PROPERTY TAX! (If you don't count parking tickets.)" I just can't bring myself to be OK with that potential outcome. Not even a hatchback porch?! *shudder*
Communicating "better" is... fucking hard. I have tried asking, I've tried hinting, I've tried being direct. IE: I need you to NOTICE THINGS, be considerate, think of the household needs, participate as though you live here because you DO live here. I shouldn't have to SPECIFY that if you take the trash out, you need to replace the bag. I shouldn't have to ASK you to do dishes if you see that literally every single one we own is dirty and we're currently eating pasta out of old SmartBalance tubs.
It works for a while... and then our life slips back into old patterns. And I communicate needs again. And again. AND AGAIN. I have high expectations of him to know me well enough, after 6 years of marriage, 21 years of partnership, and 25 years of knowing each other, to predict the kinds of things that will annoy me, or make things difficult for me. Like... maybe don't put things that I will need to access frequently on the highest shelf in the cabinet and then say "we have a stepstool" when he knows DAMN WELL that it takes ZERO EFFORT to just put that item on the vacant shelf directly below it that my short ass can reach perfectly fine without having to drag out a freaking HALF-LADDER. Or, maybe don't wait until I say that I'm going to cook dinner to decide that he must load the dishwasher RIGHT NOW. Or unload the dishwasher and put things away in mysterious places that I will literally never be able to find. I shouldn't have to SAY these things. They should just be intuitive considerations.
I feel like this review has become mostly about my marriage instead of the book, and paints this picture of my husband as some sort of inconsiderate man-child, and he's really not. He is not the villain in our marriage. I definitely have my issues and am NOT a perfect wife. Big blowout FED UP kind of issues are thankfully few and far between in our marriage, really. For the most part, we get along fine, we have a great time together and love each other and have routines and norms and we just get each other. But... those times when it's not great, those take up so much emotional space that it crowds out the no-problems time.
The no-problems times are unremarkable. They are normal. They are like breathing, and we don't notice every breath we take... until it stops being easy to do it. Then it's an emergency that we need to fix, ASAP and that need to breathe easy again fills up everything.
I do think that this book was quite a bit memoir-y, in that Hartley's own relationship was the primary example on offer for any of the various scenarios and stories. There were other women's stories as well, but I think Hartley maybe felt that women would identify most with her own words and anecdotes. So that's what we got. And there were some parts where I definitely saw myself and my husband's relationship clearly, disturbingly represented, but other parts where I found myself very thankful that that wasn't us.
I love my husband - he's my best friend, knows me better than anyone, gets all my weirdness, in-jokes and references, we have basically a secret language, and he listens while I tell him all about whatever book I'm reading at the time that he has NO interest in outside of the fact that I am sharing my excitement/nerding/annoyance/whatever about it at him. We've been together literally half of my life, and I honestly cannot imagine my life without him.
AND YET.
Sometimes, he drives me to the brink of sanity. Today was one of those days.
He was off work today, and because it has been cool here, we opened all the windows throughout the house to give the A/C (and the bank account) a break. Then it started to rain. I was on a work call (I work from home), and I muted myself to yell down the stairs that it is raining.
This man, THIS ADULT HUMAN WITH A FULLY FORMED FRONTAL LOBE, PROBABLY, says "What does that mean?"
As though we have never experienced rain before.
As though he is not 100% aware of the fact that "rain" is water droplets falling from the sky, water droplets which can and usually do like to visit us via our OPEN WINDOWS and bring lots of friends.
Apparently my statement that "it is raining" was NOT a sufficient indication that action was needed, because I did not explicitly instruct him to close the open windows. >_>
So anyway, I read this book, and... yeah. I now have some commiseration and a new vocabulary to help explain the sheer RAGE I feel at times. But not really any solutions. (I'm told stabbing is frowned upon.) There were some methods and techniques that seemed to work for some people, like just letting go of high standards or perfectionism, or changing up your communication style, or just delegating tasks and trusting that those things will get done, or being OK with the fallout if they aren't.
Honestly, I've tried all of these, and they all suck to varying degrees. All of these pieces of "advice" (?) feel a bit... blamey to me. Like If you weren't such a stickler for The Way Things Must Be or If you just communicated your needs better, or If you just accept the risk that your husband might "forget" to take care of life-sustaining stuff, think how much less you'd stress!
But all of those things STILL put the onus on women to do the work of getting their partner to understand they should actually be a PARTNER. The options are just... try and hope he steps up, or try and accept the consequences if he doesn't. Or leave.
Letting things go is risky. We aren't talking about things like "Oh, Dave is responsible for getting the kids to school now, so that's why little Billy is wearing one flip-flop and one scuba fin, and a parka as a shirt under purple overalls, and Stevie is wearing a ballerina tutu with his hiking boots and a Freddy Krueger mask." I don't have kids, but I think if I did, I wouldn't worry too much about what they wear. You do you, kid! (And honestly, if Thomas put outfits like those on our cats, I would LOVE IT SO MUCH. They wouldn't but I would. :D)
We ARE talking about "Whoops! Gary forgot to pay the mortgage for 6 months, so welcome to our new tiny house - A 1994 Subaru Impreza sedan! The best thing about it -- NO PROPERTY TAX! (If you don't count parking tickets.)" I just can't bring myself to be OK with that potential outcome. Not even a hatchback porch?! *shudder*
Communicating "better" is... fucking hard. I have tried asking, I've tried hinting, I've tried being direct. IE: I need you to NOTICE THINGS, be considerate, think of the household needs, participate as though you live here because you DO live here. I shouldn't have to SPECIFY that if you take the trash out, you need to replace the bag. I shouldn't have to ASK you to do dishes if you see that literally every single one we own is dirty and we're currently eating pasta out of old SmartBalance tubs.
It works for a while... and then our life slips back into old patterns. And I communicate needs again. And again. AND AGAIN. I have high expectations of him to know me well enough, after 6 years of marriage, 21 years of partnership, and 25 years of knowing each other, to predict the kinds of things that will annoy me, or make things difficult for me. Like... maybe don't put things that I will need to access frequently on the highest shelf in the cabinet and then say "we have a stepstool" when he knows DAMN WELL that it takes ZERO EFFORT to just put that item on the vacant shelf directly below it that my short ass can reach perfectly fine without having to drag out a freaking HALF-LADDER. Or, maybe don't wait until I say that I'm going to cook dinner to decide that he must load the dishwasher RIGHT NOW. Or unload the dishwasher and put things away in mysterious places that I will literally never be able to find. I shouldn't have to SAY these things. They should just be intuitive considerations.
I feel like this review has become mostly about my marriage instead of the book, and paints this picture of my husband as some sort of inconsiderate man-child, and he's really not. He is not the villain in our marriage. I definitely have my issues and am NOT a perfect wife. Big blowout FED UP kind of issues are thankfully few and far between in our marriage, really. For the most part, we get along fine, we have a great time together and love each other and have routines and norms and we just get each other. But... those times when it's not great, those take up so much emotional space that it crowds out the no-problems time.
The no-problems times are unremarkable. They are normal. They are like breathing, and we don't notice every breath we take... until it stops being easy to do it. Then it's an emergency that we need to fix, ASAP and that need to breathe easy again fills up everything.
October 24, 2018
I was excited to read this book because the blog post that had led to this book being written resonated so strongly with me. I read it in a day and was not disappointed. It's not a long book but there is so much in here that matters that I'm going to take it chapter by chapter after my overview.
Overall, it's about women doing the vast majority of the "emotional labor" "Invisible work" "mental labor", for the purposes of this book, we will call it 'emotional labor' . This review will be a bit more personal because it was impossible for me to read it without the filter of my own personal experiences. And I'm certainly not blaming a person or particular people or saying that men are 'bad' or anything like that. It's not about demonizing anyone but more about changing a culture that has put all of this on women. I also understand that some will say that it simply isn't true because it's not how it is in their house...that may be true or maybe it's perception, but this isn't about the exceptions. This is society in general. And if it weren't so widespread and common, her blog post wouldn't have blown up like it did.
This has been a source of resentment and frustration in my life since before I could give it a name. This is a book that I could have written except for a couple of major ways my life differs from the author. (and that I differ from the author)
Chapter one : How did we get here
This chapter is about how women are socialized while growing up to do the emotional labor. They are raised by a society that tells us that we are to cater to men emotionally and that it's our job to care for others. The author talks about how she saw the females in her family doing this so she internalized it as normal.
This is a major differing point between the author and me. I did not grow up in a family where I saw the things she refers to because I was in a single parent household where the single parent was way too busy to do a lot of these tasks she refers to (organizing social calendar, reaching out to relatives and friends on birthdays, doing holiday cards, etc etc etc) The author does seem to assume that everyone grew up like she did which I found odd. (but then again, we are talking about 'general' rather than 'exceptions')
Chapter 2: The Mother Load- This is when a lot of women find the imbalance becoming severe. It is still a society where parenting is seen as the mother's job and fathers are the helpers. The outdated stereotype of the bumbling father who can't be trusted to watch his own child/children is still played out on memes and sitcoms (which I refuse to watch) and in various other outlets. This is ridiculous, not only does it give men an 'out' for sharing full responsibility for their children, it is also incredibly insulting to them.
Chapter 3: Who Cares- I've actual got this part down. I honestly do not care if people think I'm 'dropping the ball'. because I'm not tilling my organic garden for greens that I feed my children in morning smoothies. This whole thing where women (and men) are so concerned about how they appear to others as parents is not an issue I deal with. The author writes about how part of the problem is that she expects her husband to do things 'her' way and I side with the husband on that. Let it freaking go. I have been on the other end of that. Expectations need to be realistic. You can't have a perfect showcase of a house when you are raising children, not without other things falling through the cracks and devoting your entire life to cleaning. I don't do things like holiday cards and reminding anyone to call someone on their birthday , perhaps because I didn't see these things being done, it never occurred to me to do them. The idea that they would even be MY job if I'm in a relationship with an adult is nonsensical to me.
Chapter 4: It's Ok to Want More-This chapter really resonated with me because I get so very sick of hearing about how dads are doing more than they used to so they need to be praised for it constantly (want a trophy too?) and that we just need to be grateful that they participate at all. Bullsh!t. You can be grateful while at the same time insisting that someone else do their part, fully do their part. It's not doing us a 'favor' to pull your own weight.
Chapter 5: What We do and Why we do It- this chapter is about how relentless mental labor is, how it occupies an incredible amount of energy and time that no one in the household sees unless something doesn't get done. This is something I've tried to explain but defensiveness is always the response which isn't helpful and simply silences. When you have everything from thinking about what's out in the fridge, who needs new shoes, how is your child going to get to that activity when you are at work , the slipping of grades, paying the lunch bill (this list could literally be a thesis so I will stop here), it's exhausting. I had this wild idea that when I became a sahm, that I would finally have time to write (I know, cue laughter here) but what I didn't realize was how emotionally and mentally exhausted I would be from a day of doing relentless continuous physical and mental and emotional labor. I had nothing left in me to be creative.
Chapter 6-Whose Work is Anyway-This is about the fact that this is considered the women's job. Why? And how is it fair? There is an idea that women naturally like to do it (yes, some do but even they need appreciation and recognition for it generally)and that women are naturally better at it (some but not enough to consider it a majority) . This results in women being judged/criticized/blamed when something falls through the cracks and men being treated like they've done their wife a favor for doing a household chore/errand. Are women really better at it or have they been socially conditioned to believe it's their job? A lot of people will say "but men take care of the car/household repairs/lawn in a traditional marriage" and maybe they do but those things don't even come close to making up the difference. The idea that those things are 'men's work' and literally everything else is "women's work' is an unfair division. This idea that men are 'helping' when they do what they should be doing may seem like mere semantics but it isn't because it still places the burden on the women and gives him points for doing a 'favor'.
Chapter 7- A Warm Smile and Cold Reality-basically about how women are expected to always be pleasant and accommodating and are criticized harshly when they aren't.
Chapter 8-Too Emotional to Lead?-about the ridiculous assumption that women can't lead because they are emotional. Many other countries have had women Presidents and Prime Ministers and women have been leading for eons (think Cleopatra) so this doesn't even have a basis in reality
Chapter 9-What Quiet Costs-talks about the resentment that builds up because of the unfair division of labor
Chapter 10-Finishing the Fight-references Betty Freidan's problem with no name and how we haven't finished that fight because now we are expected to do it all. Why should we have to do it all? When we have partners?
Chapter 12-Nature vs Nurture-addresses the assumption that women are better at it because they are women when in fact society forms us to be a certain way. And of course some women are more naturally suited to the role but so are some men. The interesting thing is that men generally have a period of living alone before marrying and manage to do things like notice what needs to be done around the house but once they marry, that switch goes off (in many). Subconsciously, they no longer see it as their job yet of course they are capable of noticing what needs to be done and doing it. Men are intelligent aware human beings. I give them more credit than that.
The last few chapters are about what to do about it. They are about actually making lists of everything that needs to be done to make partners aware of it all because usually they don't know what it takes to keep a household running. It is about becoming situational aware. There is this idea that if one parent takes one child to their physical and the other takes the other child, then 'well I did my part 50/50' but no, who had to remember the kids needed physicals and then go through the mental gymnastics and logistics of finding times that worked and scheduling them and being on hold, etc. It doesn't sound like much but when you multiply it by exponential issues, it is.
It also discusses how many women criticize how a man loads the dishwasher, etc...and I agree that anyone who does that, needs to stop. If you want a partner to do their share, then you can't cut them down constantly.
Last chapter is about finding balance. Things will never be 50/50 because of different phases and stages but one partner shouldn't be killing themselves while another one has time to pursue hobbies and hang out on the couch. It's about making your partner aware of everything that has to be done and giving them ownership of those tasks. (having to constantly delegate is still work)
This was long but overall, I recommend this book to all women who are struggling with these issues. It's about damn time we talked about it.
(and no, even if one partner is a sahp, I don't think it should still ALL fall on them, that leaves one partner working 24/7 and the other getting to pursue what they want for hours a day outside of work (even if they do the traditionally male things like lawn, car, repairs). Being a sahp is work. And in the vast percentage of marriages, both partners have outside jobs.
Overall, it's about women doing the vast majority of the "emotional labor" "Invisible work" "mental labor", for the purposes of this book, we will call it 'emotional labor' . This review will be a bit more personal because it was impossible for me to read it without the filter of my own personal experiences. And I'm certainly not blaming a person or particular people or saying that men are 'bad' or anything like that. It's not about demonizing anyone but more about changing a culture that has put all of this on women. I also understand that some will say that it simply isn't true because it's not how it is in their house...that may be true or maybe it's perception, but this isn't about the exceptions. This is society in general. And if it weren't so widespread and common, her blog post wouldn't have blown up like it did.
This has been a source of resentment and frustration in my life since before I could give it a name. This is a book that I could have written except for a couple of major ways my life differs from the author. (and that I differ from the author)
Chapter one : How did we get here
This chapter is about how women are socialized while growing up to do the emotional labor. They are raised by a society that tells us that we are to cater to men emotionally and that it's our job to care for others. The author talks about how she saw the females in her family doing this so she internalized it as normal.
This is a major differing point between the author and me. I did not grow up in a family where I saw the things she refers to because I was in a single parent household where the single parent was way too busy to do a lot of these tasks she refers to (organizing social calendar, reaching out to relatives and friends on birthdays, doing holiday cards, etc etc etc) The author does seem to assume that everyone grew up like she did which I found odd. (but then again, we are talking about 'general' rather than 'exceptions')
Chapter 2: The Mother Load- This is when a lot of women find the imbalance becoming severe. It is still a society where parenting is seen as the mother's job and fathers are the helpers. The outdated stereotype of the bumbling father who can't be trusted to watch his own child/children is still played out on memes and sitcoms (which I refuse to watch) and in various other outlets. This is ridiculous, not only does it give men an 'out' for sharing full responsibility for their children, it is also incredibly insulting to them.
Chapter 3: Who Cares- I've actual got this part down. I honestly do not care if people think I'm 'dropping the ball'. because I'm not tilling my organic garden for greens that I feed my children in morning smoothies. This whole thing where women (and men) are so concerned about how they appear to others as parents is not an issue I deal with. The author writes about how part of the problem is that she expects her husband to do things 'her' way and I side with the husband on that. Let it freaking go. I have been on the other end of that. Expectations need to be realistic. You can't have a perfect showcase of a house when you are raising children, not without other things falling through the cracks and devoting your entire life to cleaning. I don't do things like holiday cards and reminding anyone to call someone on their birthday , perhaps because I didn't see these things being done, it never occurred to me to do them. The idea that they would even be MY job if I'm in a relationship with an adult is nonsensical to me.
Chapter 4: It's Ok to Want More-This chapter really resonated with me because I get so very sick of hearing about how dads are doing more than they used to so they need to be praised for it constantly (want a trophy too?) and that we just need to be grateful that they participate at all. Bullsh!t. You can be grateful while at the same time insisting that someone else do their part, fully do their part. It's not doing us a 'favor' to pull your own weight.
Chapter 5: What We do and Why we do It- this chapter is about how relentless mental labor is, how it occupies an incredible amount of energy and time that no one in the household sees unless something doesn't get done. This is something I've tried to explain but defensiveness is always the response which isn't helpful and simply silences. When you have everything from thinking about what's out in the fridge, who needs new shoes, how is your child going to get to that activity when you are at work , the slipping of grades, paying the lunch bill (this list could literally be a thesis so I will stop here), it's exhausting. I had this wild idea that when I became a sahm, that I would finally have time to write (I know, cue laughter here) but what I didn't realize was how emotionally and mentally exhausted I would be from a day of doing relentless continuous physical and mental and emotional labor. I had nothing left in me to be creative.
Chapter 6-Whose Work is Anyway-This is about the fact that this is considered the women's job. Why? And how is it fair? There is an idea that women naturally like to do it (yes, some do but even they need appreciation and recognition for it generally)and that women are naturally better at it (some but not enough to consider it a majority) . This results in women being judged/criticized/blamed when something falls through the cracks and men being treated like they've done their wife a favor for doing a household chore/errand. Are women really better at it or have they been socially conditioned to believe it's their job? A lot of people will say "but men take care of the car/household repairs/lawn in a traditional marriage" and maybe they do but those things don't even come close to making up the difference. The idea that those things are 'men's work' and literally everything else is "women's work' is an unfair division. This idea that men are 'helping' when they do what they should be doing may seem like mere semantics but it isn't because it still places the burden on the women and gives him points for doing a 'favor'.
Chapter 7- A Warm Smile and Cold Reality-basically about how women are expected to always be pleasant and accommodating and are criticized harshly when they aren't.
Chapter 8-Too Emotional to Lead?-about the ridiculous assumption that women can't lead because they are emotional. Many other countries have had women Presidents and Prime Ministers and women have been leading for eons (think Cleopatra) so this doesn't even have a basis in reality
Chapter 9-What Quiet Costs-talks about the resentment that builds up because of the unfair division of labor
Chapter 10-Finishing the Fight-references Betty Freidan's problem with no name and how we haven't finished that fight because now we are expected to do it all. Why should we have to do it all? When we have partners?
Chapter 12-Nature vs Nurture-addresses the assumption that women are better at it because they are women when in fact society forms us to be a certain way. And of course some women are more naturally suited to the role but so are some men. The interesting thing is that men generally have a period of living alone before marrying and manage to do things like notice what needs to be done around the house but once they marry, that switch goes off (in many). Subconsciously, they no longer see it as their job yet of course they are capable of noticing what needs to be done and doing it. Men are intelligent aware human beings. I give them more credit than that.
The last few chapters are about what to do about it. They are about actually making lists of everything that needs to be done to make partners aware of it all because usually they don't know what it takes to keep a household running. It is about becoming situational aware. There is this idea that if one parent takes one child to their physical and the other takes the other child, then 'well I did my part 50/50' but no, who had to remember the kids needed physicals and then go through the mental gymnastics and logistics of finding times that worked and scheduling them and being on hold, etc. It doesn't sound like much but when you multiply it by exponential issues, it is.
It also discusses how many women criticize how a man loads the dishwasher, etc...and I agree that anyone who does that, needs to stop. If you want a partner to do their share, then you can't cut them down constantly.
Last chapter is about finding balance. Things will never be 50/50 because of different phases and stages but one partner shouldn't be killing themselves while another one has time to pursue hobbies and hang out on the couch. It's about making your partner aware of everything that has to be done and giving them ownership of those tasks. (having to constantly delegate is still work)
This was long but overall, I recommend this book to all women who are struggling with these issues. It's about damn time we talked about it.
(and no, even if one partner is a sahp, I don't think it should still ALL fall on them, that leaves one partner working 24/7 and the other getting to pursue what they want for hours a day outside of work (even if they do the traditionally male things like lawn, car, repairs). Being a sahp is work. And in the vast percentage of marriages, both partners have outside jobs.
December 11, 2018
I tip my Portland Trailblazers cap to Hartley for opening a much needed cultural conversation about an unjust but invisible division of labor between the sexes. Combining research and interviews with courageously personal self-disclosures about her own marriage, she walks us through the many facets of "emotional labor," which she defines as "the unpaid, invisible work we do to keep those around us comfortable and happy."
It is at this point, however, where she loses me . . . because she takes Arlie Hochschild's brainchild and creates her own free-ranging definition. (Hochschild herself, by the way, sets the record straight in this interview: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/ar... ) It therefore made me grimace to hear the term "emotional labor" echoed throughout this book at drinking-game frequency. I understand with razor sharp empathy the message that Hartley is trying to convey and relate on a most personal level to her struggles. But "emotional labor" in this book becomes a misnomer where a neologism is actually needed; the "problem that has no name," so succinctly identified by Betty Friedan, remains with out a name. (Sorry, Hartley. I have no suggestions).
I also felt put off by some of the over-simplifications. Christians, for example, are painted as a monolith. Homeschoolers are, as well, leaving this free-wheeling, feminist, homeschooling Episcopalian of a reader wondering which peg shape I need to be to fit into one of Hartley's holes.
Most difficult to bear, however, was the clear lack of editing and guidance. I'm all for an explosive conclusion, but this one flickered off gradually . . . and tediously. The final 3-4 chapters repeatedly feature phrases such as "as I noted earlier" and "as I said," signaling that a late night spent with the editor and some Chinese take-out would have done readers a great favor by condensing four final chapters into one. Better yet, Hartley could convey her point even more succinctly, perhaps as an article for Harper's Bazaar . . . .
It is at this point, however, where she loses me . . . because she takes Arlie Hochschild's brainchild and creates her own free-ranging definition. (Hochschild herself, by the way, sets the record straight in this interview: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/ar... ) It therefore made me grimace to hear the term "emotional labor" echoed throughout this book at drinking-game frequency. I understand with razor sharp empathy the message that Hartley is trying to convey and relate on a most personal level to her struggles. But "emotional labor" in this book becomes a misnomer where a neologism is actually needed; the "problem that has no name," so succinctly identified by Betty Friedan, remains with out a name. (Sorry, Hartley. I have no suggestions).
I also felt put off by some of the over-simplifications. Christians, for example, are painted as a monolith. Homeschoolers are, as well, leaving this free-wheeling, feminist, homeschooling Episcopalian of a reader wondering which peg shape I need to be to fit into one of Hartley's holes.
Most difficult to bear, however, was the clear lack of editing and guidance. I'm all for an explosive conclusion, but this one flickered off gradually . . . and tediously. The final 3-4 chapters repeatedly feature phrases such as "as I noted earlier" and "as I said," signaling that a late night spent with the editor and some Chinese take-out would have done readers a great favor by condensing four final chapters into one. Better yet, Hartley could convey her point even more succinctly, perhaps as an article for Harper's Bazaar . . . .
January 24, 2019
Read my full review on my blog here: https://ivoryowlreviews.blogspot.com/...
I remember talking to girlfriends when "The Break-Up" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn came out. We were discussing the scene where Aniston asks her man-child boyfriend Vaughn to help her do the dishes after they have hosted a dinner party (that she cooked and decorated for--but hey he got her 3 lemons!) When Aniston says that she wants him to want to do the dishes and he just can't wrap his mind around that concept, my mind was blown. I thought "YESSSS! This is where the disconnect is!" It's not that a partner won't help when asked but why should they have to be asked? Why are they not aware of the steps that come before an end result? For clothes to appear in a drawer cleaned, for food to appear on a table, for a dinner party to happen, there are massive amounts of tasks which need to be performed.
When I first learned there were terms to define what I couldn't quite put my finger on about relationships, parenting, and domestic equality, I was in two college classes titled "Gender and Work" and "The Commodification of Care." This is where I first learned the terms "second shift," "invisible labor," and "emotional labor". I was a 31-year-old mother and step-mother working a 40+ hour/week retail job and taking a full college course load. Crippling mental to-do lists and endless tasks were part of my daily life and it is not a stretch to say I did everything that related to domestic tasks and parenting in my home on top of being a student and worker. I remember specifically making a list of all the household/family tasks I did on a daily basis to show my husband and asked him to please take something off the list. He chose to pick up his own dry cleaning. Not a huge sacrifice on his part but I'd take it. It was a start. Then I would have to remind him to pick it up. I was still "in charge" of this task because I was the one who was having to remember when it needed done. Like a million other tiny tasks I decided to simply do the damn errand myself. If I asked my husband to do something, he had no problem doing it, but that's exactly the point. Why am I, and millions of (mostly) women, tasked with all of the invisible and emotional labor in a relationship and often in the workforce as well?
In Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward, Gemma Hartley expands on her ultra-viral article "Women Aren't Nags--We're Just Fed Up" in Harper's Bazaar. I was once again saying "YESSSS" because I felt like she was able to dive down to the root of the problem with her example of requesting a house cleaning service for Mother's Day. While she definitely wanted the results of a clean house, what she really wanted was for her husband to make the calls, do the comparisons, set up the appointments--all the invisible tasks the lead to the end result.
Betty Friedan brought attention to "the problem with no name" in The Feminine Mystique, but she fell short by not including several demographics, most importantly low-income women and women of color. Hartley does not make this same mistake with her research. She includes a variety of women and men of all income levels, backgrounds, and races. She offers a few examples of the division of emotional labor in non-heterosexual couples, stay-at-home fathers and lots of her own personal examples from her marriage. I found a few of the sections a bit repetitive but I think that may have been necessary for a lot of readers who may be coming to the book with no prior knowledge of the concepts discussed. As for recommendations, I started recommending this to everyone I know as soon as I read the first chapter. Married women immediately order it when I tell them what it's about, I tell younger single women to definitely read it to prepare themselves and learn how to explain the concept to their partners (an act of emotional labor in and of itself), I recommend it to men but so far I have yet to hear that any of them have done so.
I remember talking to girlfriends when "The Break-Up" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn came out. We were discussing the scene where Aniston asks her man-child boyfriend Vaughn to help her do the dishes after they have hosted a dinner party (that she cooked and decorated for--but hey he got her 3 lemons!) When Aniston says that she wants him to want to do the dishes and he just can't wrap his mind around that concept, my mind was blown. I thought "YESSSS! This is where the disconnect is!" It's not that a partner won't help when asked but why should they have to be asked? Why are they not aware of the steps that come before an end result? For clothes to appear in a drawer cleaned, for food to appear on a table, for a dinner party to happen, there are massive amounts of tasks which need to be performed.
When I first learned there were terms to define what I couldn't quite put my finger on about relationships, parenting, and domestic equality, I was in two college classes titled "Gender and Work" and "The Commodification of Care." This is where I first learned the terms "second shift," "invisible labor," and "emotional labor". I was a 31-year-old mother and step-mother working a 40+ hour/week retail job and taking a full college course load. Crippling mental to-do lists and endless tasks were part of my daily life and it is not a stretch to say I did everything that related to domestic tasks and parenting in my home on top of being a student and worker. I remember specifically making a list of all the household/family tasks I did on a daily basis to show my husband and asked him to please take something off the list. He chose to pick up his own dry cleaning. Not a huge sacrifice on his part but I'd take it. It was a start. Then I would have to remind him to pick it up. I was still "in charge" of this task because I was the one who was having to remember when it needed done. Like a million other tiny tasks I decided to simply do the damn errand myself. If I asked my husband to do something, he had no problem doing it, but that's exactly the point. Why am I, and millions of (mostly) women, tasked with all of the invisible and emotional labor in a relationship and often in the workforce as well?
In Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward, Gemma Hartley expands on her ultra-viral article "Women Aren't Nags--We're Just Fed Up" in Harper's Bazaar. I was once again saying "YESSSS" because I felt like she was able to dive down to the root of the problem with her example of requesting a house cleaning service for Mother's Day. While she definitely wanted the results of a clean house, what she really wanted was for her husband to make the calls, do the comparisons, set up the appointments--all the invisible tasks the lead to the end result.
Betty Friedan brought attention to "the problem with no name" in The Feminine Mystique, but she fell short by not including several demographics, most importantly low-income women and women of color. Hartley does not make this same mistake with her research. She includes a variety of women and men of all income levels, backgrounds, and races. She offers a few examples of the division of emotional labor in non-heterosexual couples, stay-at-home fathers and lots of her own personal examples from her marriage. I found a few of the sections a bit repetitive but I think that may have been necessary for a lot of readers who may be coming to the book with no prior knowledge of the concepts discussed. As for recommendations, I started recommending this to everyone I know as soon as I read the first chapter. Married women immediately order it when I tell them what it's about, I tell younger single women to definitely read it to prepare themselves and learn how to explain the concept to their partners (an act of emotional labor in and of itself), I recommend it to men but so far I have yet to hear that any of them have done so.
February 3, 2019
Emotional labor! That old chestnut! This is of the genre I call "Do you like to be mad." This is very much a "do you like to be mad" book and yes, I DO like to be mad! There's an extreme occurrence of emotional labor on my personal zeitgeist right now--it's here, it's in half the episodes of Tidying Up, it's in my day to day existence, that of my friends, the world at large. Gemma Hartley does a good job articulating the WHY at the root of so many frustrations--it's not just the emotional labor and women's work, it's also MENTAL LOAD of keeping track of everything, which is why it is so frustrating to hear "just tell me what to do." Anyway, it's fun to be mad, but read this with your partner, and it should help you be less mad.
January 27, 2019
Full disclosure: I quit reading about 65 pages into the book. I have no intention of finishing. I'm a chronic book-finisher, even when it isn't exactly a really good book, so the fact that I quit without caring says a lot.
The book seems to be marketed as something thought-provoking and potentially research-based around the roles of women. I expected research. I expected evidence. I expected discussion of culture and attitude maybe some discourse on broadscale and pervasive impact that gendered emotional expectations could have on women. That's not what this is.
This is a personal memoir about a woman who has over-controlling tendencies when it comes to housework and childcare that are so extensive that she's essentially behaviorally modified her husband to expect to be told what to do and then to be corrected when he acts of his own agency. Thus far, it's been 65 pages of her complaining about the unbalanced circumstances of her relationship dynamic without any insight as to the role she played in building this dynamic. Through anecdotal (wine dates and lunches and other upper middle class white woman nonsense) evidence provided by her equally upper middle-class white woman friends she's making assertions that "we" (all women) struggle with this dynamic. She cites some research, which I can't discount the validity of, but overall she's supporting her wanking with a severely skewed/biased sample of her peers.
If you're a woman who has a lazy husband or you've accidentally groomed him/enabled him into expecting you to mother him as well as the children or if you have control issues and need to do everything in the house but also want to complain that your husband doesn't do anything right then, hey, this book might be for you. May you find comforting solidarity in its pages.
I, however, can't stomach it, and the judgments I'm making are really making my inner feminist cringe because I want to support this woman, but I really just can't.
The book seems to be marketed as something thought-provoking and potentially research-based around the roles of women. I expected research. I expected evidence. I expected discussion of culture and attitude maybe some discourse on broadscale and pervasive impact that gendered emotional expectations could have on women. That's not what this is.
This is a personal memoir about a woman who has over-controlling tendencies when it comes to housework and childcare that are so extensive that she's essentially behaviorally modified her husband to expect to be told what to do and then to be corrected when he acts of his own agency. Thus far, it's been 65 pages of her complaining about the unbalanced circumstances of her relationship dynamic without any insight as to the role she played in building this dynamic. Through anecdotal (wine dates and lunches and other upper middle class white woman nonsense) evidence provided by her equally upper middle-class white woman friends she's making assertions that "we" (all women) struggle with this dynamic. She cites some research, which I can't discount the validity of, but overall she's supporting her wanking with a severely skewed/biased sample of her peers.
If you're a woman who has a lazy husband or you've accidentally groomed him/enabled him into expecting you to mother him as well as the children or if you have control issues and need to do everything in the house but also want to complain that your husband doesn't do anything right then, hey, this book might be for you. May you find comforting solidarity in its pages.
I, however, can't stomach it, and the judgments I'm making are really making my inner feminist cringe because I want to support this woman, but I really just can't.
January 28, 2019
The ideas and content behind Hartley's largest argument--women do the vast majority of emotional labor for their families--is solid. The research is, perhaps, a little one-sided, although I appreciate that in the last half of the book she talks a little about LGBTQ couples and the enormous load of emotional labor taken up by women of color. However, somewhere in the middle the thought that kept coming to my mind was "this is a little too much Gretchen," which is a thought I had after reading the later Gretchen Rubin books. This is more memoir than research, which is fine, but not what I was looking for. (It did not surprise me one bit when Hartley quotes Rubin extensively in her last chapters.) There was very little in the way of "this is how you talk to your spouse about the division of emotional labor without it turning into a huge, months-long or years-long fight" and I felt that would have been helpful. (Hartley also quotes Brene Brown in her last chapters, Brown is exceptional in teaching her readers HOW to have these discussions, where Hartley mostly just tells us that we should have them but it will be hard.)
February 13, 2019
A complete waste of time! And I agree with her basic message, but here are my problems with the book:
1. She keeps using the word emotional labor and it's a super annoying over-use and mis-use. She's actually talking about real labor. Vacuuming and driving kids around is not emotional labor.
2. She cleans up after her husband when he doesn't do it right and then lectures him for not doing emotional labor. Why would anyone do anything if they knew someone else was going to do it?
3. There was nothing new in here and lots of whining. And I get that the imbalance of labor is unfair and awful for women with young children, but MANY people have written much better books about this. I think she's too young to give this topic its full due. Perhaps check back in when kids are older or as their roles shift? This was just a big rant.
4. Publishers, stop giving book contracts to everyone who writes an essay that goes viral. Sometimes an essay is just an essay and not a book.
1. She keeps using the word emotional labor and it's a super annoying over-use and mis-use. She's actually talking about real labor. Vacuuming and driving kids around is not emotional labor.
2. She cleans up after her husband when he doesn't do it right and then lectures him for not doing emotional labor. Why would anyone do anything if they knew someone else was going to do it?
3. There was nothing new in here and lots of whining. And I get that the imbalance of labor is unfair and awful for women with young children, but MANY people have written much better books about this. I think she's too young to give this topic its full due. Perhaps check back in when kids are older or as their roles shift? This was just a big rant.
4. Publishers, stop giving book contracts to everyone who writes an essay that goes viral. Sometimes an essay is just an essay and not a book.
November 30, 2021
2.5* rounded up
September 18, 2018
This is a thought-provoking book on the unseen emotional labor of women, how society has shaped both men and women's acceptance of this role, and what we can do about it. While well-researched it's also not a slog, and I read it in big gulps.
April 3, 2023
Very much appreciated this topic and the importance that was given to this "invisible" work that primarily falls to women. The author's POV is fairly privileged, which she acknowledges, and I appreciated the attempts throughout to bring in other voices to speak to people with other identities. While I liked the topic a lot, it ended up feeling both repetitive and a little unfocused at times, with a lot of bouncing around between macro and micro perspectives that didn't entirely feel cohesive. There were some decent suggestions around how to tackle this imbalance in your own life, but much of it seemed a little vague. I'm also not entirely sure how to put my finger on it, but something about her tone here was occasionally a little grating--there was something almost smug and judgemental that I felt like I was picking up on and that rubbed me the wrong way.
Overall, I'm glad to have read this, if only to have a more expansive way of thinking and speaking about all the work I'm doing in so many facets of my life, though I wouldn't say this particular book was a homerun.
Overall, I'm glad to have read this, if only to have a more expansive way of thinking and speaking about all the work I'm doing in so many facets of my life, though I wouldn't say this particular book was a homerun.
November 25, 2018
It's hard to overstate how valuable I found this book. It's as if Hartley has taken everything I've struggled to articulate about what goes on in my head on a daily basis and laid it all out, not just explaining what it feels like to carry the mental and emotional load in a marriage, but also figuring out how we got here and what we can do about it. It's an odd but welcome feeling to have the patterns of your own marital conversations spelled out in detail on the page, but knowing that this is a common pattern in partnerships across America (and many other countries as well) means that it's no longer enough to say, "Things are the way they are because I'm more naturally organized and he deals with anxiety." That can't be the case when millions of women in heterosexual partnerships have developed the same exact patterns, and that means it's not immutable.
The path forward that Hartley prescribes is a both/and solution. It's expecting more while letting go of perfectionism. It requires men to step up — a tall order when many men refused to even read Hartley's original article, asking their partners to summarize it for them. Hartley is not naive or optimistic enough to say that women can solve this ourselves if we just did things differently, added another layer to our mental load. But she also admits that the way forward is not just "men need to do better." It requires an honest look by both men and women at their assumptions, ingrained beliefs, stereotypes, and personal standards.
Hartley spends more than a token amount of time on the extra layers of emotional labor that exist for women of color, returning to this idea several times during the book and quoting a number of different women about their experiences. She also, more briefly, covers how this idea of emotional labor intersects with disability and gender identity, how those in marginalized groups are expected to educate and have endless patience with those who won't do the work of educating themselves. There is an extended discussion of how emotional labor comes into play at work, particularly in the service sector, and how a woman in the public eye must balance the projection of confidence with the expectation that she make everyone feel comfortable and happy. And there's a powerful chapter about how the expectation that women perform emotional labor perpetuates rape culture. These may seem like digressions from the central conversation about emotional labor at home, but I think they are important for explaining why we need to find a new path for our children's generation where emotional labor is valuable but not gendered.
Hartley does, to some extent, conflate emotional labor with the mental workload (one of the criticisms of her original article) but she also pretty clearly shows how the two are inextricably linked. As she says, we keep track of the household management not for its own sake but because our family members are happier and more comfortable when they have clean clothes and good food, when they can lay their hands quickly on anything they need, when they have a web of strong relationships maintained through responding to social invitations and sending holiday cards. And maintaining the smooth running of the household also means getting others to do their part in a way that isn't perceived as "nagging" or "picking a fight," which falls squarely in the realm of emotional labor. The term is used as a shortcut, for sure, and stretched beyond its original meaning, but Hartley does the work upfront to explain how she's using the term and why.
This book will, inevitably, be read primarily by women. That is clearly the audience Hartley is writing for, not because she doesn't think we need men's help to forge a new way forward (she does) but because she knows that women for whom her original article resonated couldn't even get their partners to read the article, let alone an entire book. That means that the men out there who believe they are #notallmen, who consider themselves feminist allies, need to take the initiative to pick up this book and be able to read it not in a defensive posture but as a way to understand what the average woman in a different-gender partnership is going through. And then they need to recommend it to their male friends.
That's not to say women shouldn't read this, because they definitely should. There is a value in seeing your lived experiences reflected back on the page and in being given context and language to explain what's going on in your head. And Hartley certainly has advice for women as well. I think if this book were not seen as a "women's" book but rightly recognized as one touching on issues affecting all of us, then we might have a chance to forge the new generation of equitable relationships that Hartley envisions.
The path forward that Hartley prescribes is a both/and solution. It's expecting more while letting go of perfectionism. It requires men to step up — a tall order when many men refused to even read Hartley's original article, asking their partners to summarize it for them. Hartley is not naive or optimistic enough to say that women can solve this ourselves if we just did things differently, added another layer to our mental load. But she also admits that the way forward is not just "men need to do better." It requires an honest look by both men and women at their assumptions, ingrained beliefs, stereotypes, and personal standards.
Hartley spends more than a token amount of time on the extra layers of emotional labor that exist for women of color, returning to this idea several times during the book and quoting a number of different women about their experiences. She also, more briefly, covers how this idea of emotional labor intersects with disability and gender identity, how those in marginalized groups are expected to educate and have endless patience with those who won't do the work of educating themselves. There is an extended discussion of how emotional labor comes into play at work, particularly in the service sector, and how a woman in the public eye must balance the projection of confidence with the expectation that she make everyone feel comfortable and happy. And there's a powerful chapter about how the expectation that women perform emotional labor perpetuates rape culture. These may seem like digressions from the central conversation about emotional labor at home, but I think they are important for explaining why we need to find a new path for our children's generation where emotional labor is valuable but not gendered.
Hartley does, to some extent, conflate emotional labor with the mental workload (one of the criticisms of her original article) but she also pretty clearly shows how the two are inextricably linked. As she says, we keep track of the household management not for its own sake but because our family members are happier and more comfortable when they have clean clothes and good food, when they can lay their hands quickly on anything they need, when they have a web of strong relationships maintained through responding to social invitations and sending holiday cards. And maintaining the smooth running of the household also means getting others to do their part in a way that isn't perceived as "nagging" or "picking a fight," which falls squarely in the realm of emotional labor. The term is used as a shortcut, for sure, and stretched beyond its original meaning, but Hartley does the work upfront to explain how she's using the term and why.
This book will, inevitably, be read primarily by women. That is clearly the audience Hartley is writing for, not because she doesn't think we need men's help to forge a new way forward (she does) but because she knows that women for whom her original article resonated couldn't even get their partners to read the article, let alone an entire book. That means that the men out there who believe they are #notallmen, who consider themselves feminist allies, need to take the initiative to pick up this book and be able to read it not in a defensive posture but as a way to understand what the average woman in a different-gender partnership is going through. And then they need to recommend it to their male friends.
That's not to say women shouldn't read this, because they definitely should. There is a value in seeing your lived experiences reflected back on the page and in being given context and language to explain what's going on in your head. And Hartley certainly has advice for women as well. I think if this book were not seen as a "women's" book but rightly recognized as one touching on issues affecting all of us, then we might have a chance to forge the new generation of equitable relationships that Hartley envisions.
January 19, 2019
People think I'm weird when I say the only good sleep I get is when I'm hospitalized. They don't get it. This author gets it though - that blissful moment when one is officially "off duty" - a moment that seemingly never comes unless under dire circumstances.
Only recently have I begun to - finally - acknowledge and recognize the huge burden of emotional labor in my life. It does begin early, and for me, kicked totally into gear when I married a man with children from a prior marriage. The day that I was judged and held responsible for kids who WEREN'T EVEN MINE is crystal clear in my memory. My step daughter was exhibiting atrocious behavior (a common event) and my husband's relatives immediately came to me, asking in effect "what are you going to do about this" - while my husband, THEIR FATHER was seated right next to me.
It went on from there. Managing their behavior, frantically keeping track of not only their schedules and needs, but my own two children after they came along. Pulled in umpteen different directions, my public career crumbling in the wake of demands, ill children, and keeping the boat afloat of two busy working parents - one of which was the ex-wife. Long forgotten now is my own career trajectory, a demanding and satisfying job that I took great pride in.
But, that's what one does, right? However, all that energy has to go somewhere and so for me it went into creating a lovely and loving home, finally learning how to cook and bake, creating healthy menus, playing endless games with small children, making sure clothes were clean and actually fit, social life scheduled, bounteous christmases pulled off without a hitch and to great enjoyment of the rest of the clan. And all of it, every bit of it, largely unrecognized.
So much more to say on this, but the takeaway is that when work is unrecognized, it has no value. When it has no value, the effort is invisible. And when a life's work is invisible, so is the worker. I am struggling with this notion in ways that I can't even put into words. When the only way to get out from underneath the mountain of assumed responsibility is to either move to a remote beach or die, something is wrong.
Only recently have I begun to - finally - acknowledge and recognize the huge burden of emotional labor in my life. It does begin early, and for me, kicked totally into gear when I married a man with children from a prior marriage. The day that I was judged and held responsible for kids who WEREN'T EVEN MINE is crystal clear in my memory. My step daughter was exhibiting atrocious behavior (a common event) and my husband's relatives immediately came to me, asking in effect "what are you going to do about this" - while my husband, THEIR FATHER was seated right next to me.
It went on from there. Managing their behavior, frantically keeping track of not only their schedules and needs, but my own two children after they came along. Pulled in umpteen different directions, my public career crumbling in the wake of demands, ill children, and keeping the boat afloat of two busy working parents - one of which was the ex-wife. Long forgotten now is my own career trajectory, a demanding and satisfying job that I took great pride in.
But, that's what one does, right? However, all that energy has to go somewhere and so for me it went into creating a lovely and loving home, finally learning how to cook and bake, creating healthy menus, playing endless games with small children, making sure clothes were clean and actually fit, social life scheduled, bounteous christmases pulled off without a hitch and to great enjoyment of the rest of the clan. And all of it, every bit of it, largely unrecognized.
So much more to say on this, but the takeaway is that when work is unrecognized, it has no value. When it has no value, the effort is invisible. And when a life's work is invisible, so is the worker. I am struggling with this notion in ways that I can't even put into words. When the only way to get out from underneath the mountain of assumed responsibility is to either move to a remote beach or die, something is wrong.
November 27, 2018
Worth listening to via audio. The narrator, Therese Plummer, did an amazing job and doesn't sound at all like she's reading nonfiction. They made a great choice.
I liked that Hartley referenced another book I read this year called Drop the Ball by Tiffany Dufu. I thought this was great because it shows the author wasn't writing this in a vacuum and builds upon other works on this topic.
Overall, a good intro to the topic of emotional labor if this might be the first time you are really delving in. Personally, I got a bit tired of the self-flagellation the author was doing in the "why do I feel this way? Can't I just get over it? My husband already does more than other men, so why am I still frustrated?" vein. She seemed to need to justify her feelings and explain to the reader that it's not awful for women to feel this way and you aren't a horrible person if you do. As a reader it got tiring after a while and I was like I get it and I'm on board. I understand and am not beating myself up over it. Move on into the meat of what to do about it.
Given that I just read this, this article from The Atlantic interviewing the woman who coined the term on emotional labor about the scope creep of the definition is interesting.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/ar...
I liked that Hartley referenced another book I read this year called Drop the Ball by Tiffany Dufu. I thought this was great because it shows the author wasn't writing this in a vacuum and builds upon other works on this topic.
Overall, a good intro to the topic of emotional labor if this might be the first time you are really delving in. Personally, I got a bit tired of the self-flagellation the author was doing in the "why do I feel this way? Can't I just get over it? My husband already does more than other men, so why am I still frustrated?" vein. She seemed to need to justify her feelings and explain to the reader that it's not awful for women to feel this way and you aren't a horrible person if you do. As a reader it got tiring after a while and I was like I get it and I'm on board. I understand and am not beating myself up over it. Move on into the meat of what to do about it.
Given that I just read this, this article from The Atlantic interviewing the woman who coined the term on emotional labor about the scope creep of the definition is interesting.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/ar...
December 31, 2018
By the end, I was exhausted by the topic of emotional labor.
Some good insights but I’d recommend sticking to her Harpers Bazaar article. I haven’t read it but felt like this was too long for the topic.
Some good insights but I’d recommend sticking to her Harpers Bazaar article. I haven’t read it but felt like this was too long for the topic.
July 31, 2019
“We may think that our micromanagement is an act of love, and it often is, but it also robs those we love of the opportunity to step fully into responsibility for their own lives. They need to create their own systems, their own connections, their own priorities instead of wandering through a life that has been created around them.”
I will freely admit that I shoulder the majority of the emotional labour within our household. However, it needs to be pointed out that I also spend a great deal many more hours within our household than my husband, so it probably stands to reason that I might know more about where things are, what needs to be done, and who needs to be at what place at what time. I get tired of carrying the load, for sure, but he probably gets tired being at work for 13 hours a day as well. I suffer from migraines reasonably often, so at times I have to check out and just lay in a dark room to recover. Nobody dies while I’m doing this. And they don’t even need reminding to make sure they stay alive. I could still do with loosening the reigns though, particularly as my kids get closer to adulthood. The last thing this world needs is more useless adults. I think a lot of women martyr themselves though. A couple in particular are in my mind as I write this. Good women, who are also good friends, but they shoulder all of the emotional labour within their own households and they’re not going to let anybody forget it. That’s why I included that particular quote I started with. You can’t be angry at men who don’t shoulder your burdens if you’re unwilling to give those burdens up. But I didn’t need a whole book to tell me that.
This book is pretty much stating the obvious and it’s more memoir than research analysis – which, as you all know, I hate, but I didn’t know that’s what this was going to be when I first went into it. I didn’t mind some parts of it, but it was far too long for its topic and purpose. There was a lot of repetition and its contents will only be applicable to a small representation of women.
Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of Fed Up for review.
I will freely admit that I shoulder the majority of the emotional labour within our household. However, it needs to be pointed out that I also spend a great deal many more hours within our household than my husband, so it probably stands to reason that I might know more about where things are, what needs to be done, and who needs to be at what place at what time. I get tired of carrying the load, for sure, but he probably gets tired being at work for 13 hours a day as well. I suffer from migraines reasonably often, so at times I have to check out and just lay in a dark room to recover. Nobody dies while I’m doing this. And they don’t even need reminding to make sure they stay alive. I could still do with loosening the reigns though, particularly as my kids get closer to adulthood. The last thing this world needs is more useless adults. I think a lot of women martyr themselves though. A couple in particular are in my mind as I write this. Good women, who are also good friends, but they shoulder all of the emotional labour within their own households and they’re not going to let anybody forget it. That’s why I included that particular quote I started with. You can’t be angry at men who don’t shoulder your burdens if you’re unwilling to give those burdens up. But I didn’t need a whole book to tell me that.
This book is pretty much stating the obvious and it’s more memoir than research analysis – which, as you all know, I hate, but I didn’t know that’s what this was going to be when I first went into it. I didn’t mind some parts of it, but it was far too long for its topic and purpose. There was a lot of repetition and its contents will only be applicable to a small representation of women.
Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of Fed Up for review.
February 4, 2019
Can't decide if this was more enlightening or enraging (or if that matters). I especially enjoyed how Hartley focused in places on her own relationship and how important it is for both partners to work towards balancing the brunt of emotional labor because even when one might be doing more, it might be because they've spent years belittling the efforts of the other. Meeting in the middle and respecting each other's strengths (and weaknesses) is so important. I'm really glad I picked this up before my wedding- now I have plenty to discuss and plan with my fiancé, and, thankfully, the terminology to do so.
November 27, 2018
This packs a punch. It's a really PERSONAL book, which was fascinating, because it's also a really universal book. It's also super practical towards the end; I think I have a better idea of how to broach the subject of emotional labor with my partner, which feels really refreshing. If Hartley's original essay was the distress call, this book is her follow-up, her answering rescue. I'm super glad I read it, and I really highly recommend it for heteronormative couples, especially. (Both partners ideally, but even one, if the other is onboard with frank discussion of it.)
December 27, 2018
This is an essential, modern, necessary book that uses excellent reporting and the author's own personal story to pull on the threads of emotional labor and why it's such a key element of modern households and work environments. Really appreciated this read and have gifted to several people already (some very passive-aggressively!!!).
January 24, 2019
This is everything I have ever thought about the upside down world of women and our lives in the home and in the work place. It was so nice to have my thoughts put so eloquently into words and made me feel so good that I am not crazy and many others feel just as I do. Thank you so very much Gemma!
April 26, 2025
I genuinely enjoyed the first fourth of the book. Hartley talks about emotional labor and mental load and the impact they can have in a relationship. Both are concepts which are valuable to have language around. The last 3/4 of the book just a repetition of everything that was said in the first fourth.
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