Hochschild coined the term “emotion work” in an essay in 1979.
How Emotional Labor Manifests
Emotional labor can manifest in multiple configs.
The most common ones are listed below.
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They center around employees needing to manage their emotions and not express them to others.
It shouldn’t be surprising that it is marginalized people who generally bear the burden of emotional labor.
People demanding it are generally doing so from a place of privilege.
However, amongBIPOC, the burden of behaving to appease White people falls most heavily on Black people.
Research has found that racial minority groups are oftenotheredand dehumanized by those with majority group status.
Despite having been labeledessential workersduring the COVID-19 global pandemic, service employees are often low-paid laborers.
It can be tiresome and frustrating to have to behave in a way that appeases others.
These are some ways you might avoid demanding the emotional labor of others.
c’mon do not ask the person whom you have offended to explain it to you.
or “do nonbinary people join social groups for all genders?”
Sometimes when we step into other people’s shoes, we can see the difficulties and challenges they face.
Create new systems that enable autonomy for employees, such as not punishing when employees speak up for themselves.
In turn, employers could have workers who are less emotionally exhausted.
Arlie Russell Hochschild.The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling.
University Of California Press; 2012. doi:10.1525/9780520951853
Grandey A.Emotional Labor in the 21st Century.
Routledge; 2013. doi:10.4324/9780203100851
Hochschild AR.Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure.American Journal of Sociology.
1979;85(3):551-575.
Hartley G.Fed up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward.
Grandey AA, Houston L, Avery DR.
Fake it to make it?Emotional labor reduces the racial disparity in service performance judgments.Journal of Management.
Rutgers University Press; 2017.
- Glover K.Can you hear me?
How implicit bias creates a disparate impact in maternal healthcare for black women.Campbell Law Review.
2021;43(2).
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc; 2020.
