Emotional Labor

November 21, 2022
“Women across the world are taught from a very young age to regulate, modulate, and manipulate their feelings in order to have a positive effect on the feelings of others,” according to this thought-provoking survey. Journalist Hackman interweaves her personal experiences with sociological and scientific research documenting how the “emotional labor” performed by women in personal and professional settings is undervalued. Profile subjects (identified by first name only) include Joann, a parks and recreation manager in California, who tells her female swim instructors to temper their coaching with encouraging words because parents expect “upspeak” from women, and Lilith, a former dominatrix whose work was “majority psychology and emotional labor, and minority sexual act.” Hackman also analyzes how criticism of Hillary Clinton’s lack of personal warmth helped derail her presidential campaign, cites neuroscience experiments suggesting that “fixed gender traits have been exceedingly exaggerated,” and analyzes the links between slavery and the American economy’s reliance on “the free labor of women.” Throughout, she makes clear that men also suffer from the societal expectation that they must rely on women for emotional support. Expertly blending case studies and statistics, this is a profound call for reorienting “our fundamental value systems.”

Starred review from December 1, 2022

The phrase "emotional labor" has recently become a common part of society's lexicon, thrown around in magazine articles and television shows. Yet this concept of being asked to perform exhausting, draining work at no extra cost has a depth that routinely goes unacknowledged or ignored, in no small part because of the very devaluation the term implies. A journalist for The Guardian, Hackman offers an overview of this approach and perception. She documents its manifestations through historical and personal examples that will feel all too real for readers. This is an inspiring, infuriating study of the toll it takes on people when they're expected to smile, while taking on more and exhausting responsibilities without getting paid more. VERDICT This is a call to action for individuals and the organizations that sustain these practices.--Emily Bowles

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2023
A Detroit-based British journalist examines the gender bias and misogyny underlying what she calls "extractive emotional capitalism." Early on, Hackman defines emotional labor as "the primordial training that, before anything else, women and girls should edit the expression of their emotions to accommodate and elevate the emotions of others." Through research and interviews conducted over seven years, the author explores how such "editing" and "elevation" constitute an invisible yet heavily exploitative form of work. She observes that such labor is tied to the enforcement of traditional gender norms intended to keep women (and men) tied to specific roles. This "enforces a system where supposedly altruistic women serve supposedly emotionally helpless men." Hackman vividly demonstrates that this system encompasses both the domestic and professional spheres, affecting the lives of women across lines of race and socio-economic class. One area in which it most visibly operates is the service industry, in which a largely female workforce is at the mercy of business owners and executives who often fail to pay servers enough to create an agreeable experience for patrons, who may (or may not) offer the remuneration one restaurant employee called "the difference between economic survival and destitution." Hackman argues that part of the way the system justifies itself is not only by devaluing women's work, but--and almost paradoxically--suggesting that emotional labor "is so valuable that it is incalculable, making it sacrilegious for it to be paid." As she critiques the neoliberalism that has given rise to an economic system built on invisible exploitation, Hackman issues a clarion call to rethink the true relationship between empathy and power. "It's time to bring emotional labor into the light and to plant the seeds for reckoning and transformation, for a new kind of understanding of what it means to live together, in society," she writes. "Our joint humanity depends on it." A thought-provoking and incisive book.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2023
It seems that women have always been in charge of keeping things on track for their boyfriends, husbands, children, and bosses. They're the ones who keep the house clean and the office running and drive the kids around. According to Hackman, this work, often unpaid and performed with a smile, is actually emotional labor. Although it tends to fall on women, restaurant servers, domestics, nursing aids, and low-level office staff are all required to provide these sorts of services. While admitting that this labor is necessary, Hackman contends that it shouldn't primarily fall on everyone except white males and that its profound value should be acknowledged and respected. Hackman goes back in history to show the evolution of emotional labor and how it became the province mostly of women. She includes interviews with a wide selection of emotional-labor suppliers, from stressed moms to sex workers. The keys to righting the balance, according to Hackman in this enlightening book, are to make these caregivers aware of their essentiality and to make sure that men understand the value of empathy and caring.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.