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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
By the last 100 pages, I felt emotionally exhausted reading this book. It's a good start for those wading into the topic, but it felt too much like an echo chamber.
In terms of resolutions:
-Women need to drop the ball and stop trying to attain perfectionism. The family will only feel the consequences if the sh!t hits the fan.
-The bar that men set (ie. "Well, I do more than my dad did.") is not a sufficient bar for success.
-Care taking needs to be universally viewed at work, and to take it a step further, those in care-taking professions (teachers, nurses, daycare workers, etc.) need to be paid more. These are mostly women and minority women majority professions.
-She tells a story that almost matched my breaking point around Christmas when I told my husband that I was "empty and have nothing left to give." And we prioritize self-care at home. Sometimes, life gets to be too much. A truly equal partnership is not realistic. We all need a teammate who helps carry the team, takes some bench when needed, and works together for the great good.
In terms of resolutions:
-Women need to drop the ball and stop trying to attain perfectionism. The family will only feel the consequences if the sh!t hits the fan.
-The bar that men set (ie. "Well, I do more than my dad did.") is not a sufficient bar for success.
-Care taking needs to be universally viewed at work, and to take it a step further, those in care-taking professions (teachers, nurses, daycare workers, etc.) need to be paid more. These are mostly women and minority women majority professions.
-She tells a story that almost matched my breaking point around Christmas when I told my husband that I was "empty and have nothing left to give." And we prioritize self-care at home. Sometimes, life gets to be too much. A truly equal partnership is not realistic. We all need a teammate who helps carry the team, takes some bench when needed, and works together for the great good.
This 100% read as an essay stretched into book length without the substance to flesh it out. The premise resonated with me - I was stoked when I first read the summary! Who hasn't struggled with this unbalance? But there was no follow-thru on what the book promised. No real way forward, other than "eh... we need to do something about this." No advice on navigating this issue in personal and professional areas. No new information or research. I'm not sure who the right audience would even be for this. What a bummer.
It was validating and cathartic for Hartley to talk about all the emotional labor women perform, but I was hoping for more solutions.
I expected a more sociological analysis; however, it more closely resembled a self-help/personal journey book.
The latest installment of commentary on the “Second Shift” feminist theme. This book was a quick read, giving concise language to the feeling of overwhelm felt by many people today who shoulder the majority of emotional and mental labor.
The benefits of the book is discussing how female-presenting persons are socialized to take on emotional labor from an early age, to the point where it is romanticized. It’s interesting to reflect on the narratives of high school where I was dating someone for half a minute but took great pride in knowing their schedules, replying to invitations for “us,” and taking care of them because they “didn’t know how.”
The two other benefits is that it helped me understand my mother on a whole new level. And I’ve become more aware of the emotional labor I’m asking other people to do for me- whether playing therapist or assuaging my ego, I ask a lot of the people around me.
For me, the draw back was the shallowness of her feminist analysis and her solution to the conundrum boiling down to “communicate with your partner” and “back off and let your partner do things their way.” Not bad advice, but not very deep or challenging. I would have liked her to discuss more about expectations for respect in a relationship and learning how to value your partner’s contribution. She could have presented exercises for how to assess one another’s strengths and limitations and find how your approaches compliment one another, or something similar that would have provided more substance. She basically ended the book with “your partner has their own way of doing things and that’s okay too” which fell flat after the first two parts of the book discussed why women are socialized to take on this burden.
Also, there was little contextualization of this labor in the broader economic experience or discussing how this type socialization is a tool of oppression and exploitation. There is actually a reason it happens this way and how it supports the current power structures.
She definitely presents as a “lean-in feminist” and it was a struggle for me to get through the last two chapters.
For a general audience, the book covers the topic well-enough and may spark new conversations with people in a household. If she was writing for a feminist audience, it needs a bit more substance to it.
The benefits of the book is discussing how female-presenting persons are socialized to take on emotional labor from an early age, to the point where it is romanticized. It’s interesting to reflect on the narratives of high school where I was dating someone for half a minute but took great pride in knowing their schedules, replying to invitations for “us,” and taking care of them because they “didn’t know how.”
The two other benefits is that it helped me understand my mother on a whole new level. And I’ve become more aware of the emotional labor I’m asking other people to do for me- whether playing therapist or assuaging my ego, I ask a lot of the people around me.
For me, the draw back was the shallowness of her feminist analysis and her solution to the conundrum boiling down to “communicate with your partner” and “back off and let your partner do things their way.” Not bad advice, but not very deep or challenging. I would have liked her to discuss more about expectations for respect in a relationship and learning how to value your partner’s contribution. She could have presented exercises for how to assess one another’s strengths and limitations and find how your approaches compliment one another, or something similar that would have provided more substance. She basically ended the book with “your partner has their own way of doing things and that’s okay too” which fell flat after the first two parts of the book discussed why women are socialized to take on this burden.
Also, there was little contextualization of this labor in the broader economic experience or discussing how this type socialization is a tool of oppression and exploitation. There is actually a reason it happens this way and how it supports the current power structures.
She definitely presents as a “lean-in feminist” and it was a struggle for me to get through the last two chapters.
For a general audience, the book covers the topic well-enough and may spark new conversations with people in a household. If she was writing for a feminist audience, it needs a bit more substance to it.
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
3.5 stars. Good, thoughtful content. My criticisms are that it was a little too heavy on the explaining/complaining and not enough focus on ‘the way forward’ as alluded in the title; and the conversation was almost solely between a husband and wife. What about single women who perform emotional labor for their friends and extended family? Or the woman who performs emotional labor in the workplace? I thought the book missed several opportunities to expand the examples to arrive at a deeper, more meaningful way forward.
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A very good book with a powerful subject! I've finally understood my years of frustration comes from emotional labor exhaustion. I believe all the women could understand and share what has been written in this book, yet I sincerely hope more guys can read it as well. I just hope there are more extensive research elaborating this subject.
Hartley is saying something important in her original Harper's Bazaar article: when women are expected to shoulder all emotional labor alone, it breeds resentment and anger. However, expanding this message to a 250 page book didn't add value to what she was trying to communicate.
Hartley's husband didn't understand the extent of the work he was offloading to her. He learned the extent of this labor, and how to perform it, when he lost his job and she became the sole breadwinner of their household. Both of their lives were improved when they achieved a more equitable divide in labor. Other women experience a similar phenomenon. Our society designates women as the ones responsible for emotional labor, and men as "helpers" at best--this should change. That's the entirety of what I'm taking away from this book, and I could have drawn these conclusions from the original article.
Hartley's husband didn't understand the extent of the work he was offloading to her. He learned the extent of this labor, and how to perform it, when he lost his job and she became the sole breadwinner of their household. Both of their lives were improved when they achieved a more equitable divide in labor. Other women experience a similar phenomenon. Our society designates women as the ones responsible for emotional labor, and men as "helpers" at best--this should change. That's the entirety of what I'm taking away from this book, and I could have drawn these conclusions from the original article.