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- [00:00]
Sarah Marshall
Let a woman take a sick day, for God's sake. Welcome to youo Wrong About. I'm Sarah Marshall and today we have a Valentine's Day special of sorts with the hosts of Bad Therapist, Rachel Monroe and Ash Compton. I always like to try and do a Valentine's Day episode, although normally it's a bit tough to remember that there are other holidays coming up after Christmas. But I was really thrilled to have Rachel and Ash on this week to talk about emotional labor because I think that really there's nothing more romantic than learning effective communication. And that's what this story gets into a little bit today. Rachel is a journalist and has been on quite a few previous episodes of the show. Ash is a psychotherapist and about their show they write at a moment when therapy speak has made it into the mainstream and trauma is a national preoccupation. I wonder why. It's high time to examine the shadow side of mental health and that's part of what we're trying to do together today. I had, surprisingly, a really good time. If you like bonus episodes, we have some for you over on Patreon and Apple, plus subscriptions. The one we have out right now I really adore. Especially it is with Sarah Archer, our Home Economics correspondent. And we're talking About Peg Bracken's 1960 masterpiece, the I Hate to Cook book, which is for people who hate to cook and also for people who don't hate it or maybe hated a little bit more than they are willing to admit. It was a lovely episode for me to get to record with her to talk about what it means to try and feed ourselves when everything is scary. I think we came up with some solutions and it's also got recipes in it. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for listening. Please take care of yourself this week. And here is your episode foreign welcome to youo're Wrong about the Podcast where we talk about useful ideas that perhaps become so diluted and confusing that they are no longer valuable, especially when people's boyfriends start using them. And I am joined today by longtime friend of the show, Rachel Monroe and new time friend of the show, Ash Compton. You are both here to tell us about your podcast and also today's topic, emotional Labor.
- [02:52]
Rachel Monroe
Yay. Our podcast is called Bad Therapist and it's about bad therapists. There isn't really like one bad therapist, I would say, in this world of emotional labor, but it is definitely a concept that started in the world of like sociology and academia and Then like, morphed into one of these kind of therapy speak words that we end up talking a lot about on the podcast. So it seemed like a good thing to. To talk about with you, Sarah.
- [03:24]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. And I requested this because we were. I was like, we should do a Valentine's Day episode. And this is my version of that kind of. And what I. One of the things that I find really compelling about emotional labor as a concept in terms of, like, the whole story of, like, who came up with this term and why, and what was it originally meant to mean? And then how did it sort of, I guess, in the sort of Miranda Priestly effect of it all, like, trickle down into the bargain bins of YouTube, you know, charlatan therapy speak and become, at a certain point, in my estimation, a code that some people use to mean anything in a relationship that I don't feel like doing right now.
- [04:05]
Rachel Monroe
Anything that I have an emotion, a negative emotion about becomes emotional labor.
- [04:09]
Ash Compton
So classically American. I would like to redelegate this to someone else.
- [04:15]
Sarah Marshall
The buck continues to go around and around here. Yeah. What inspired you to dive into the world of bad therapists?
- [04:23]
Ash Compton
I don't think, Rachel, you can correct me, but I don't think a singular therapist was like, aha. But more so it was around, like, the mental health sphere becoming kind of bloated and more multi billion dollar loaded. And so we were looking at, like, who is added to this, who's acting out around it and toward it. And of course, we had a couple ideas like Reich and what's the history of Freud, who we both like, but has, you know, an interesting past.
- [04:52]
Sarah Marshall
He's a wild and crazy guy. I feel. I feel like when I read Freud, half the ideas, I'm like, that's really quite something. And then he'll say something incredibly bizarre right after that. Not in a good way. And you're like, well, yeah, yeah.
- [05:07]
Ash Compton
The pioneers, as we call them, like, you know, had some great ideas that we still call upon. And of course, you know, like someone building a map to a world they'd never traveled to, had some throwawayable concepts as well.
- [05:23]
Rachel Monroe
I feel like we should say that Ash is a therapist herself, which I feel like will come up when we talk about emotional labor, you know, showing up in the world of. Of therapy and interpersonal relationships.
- [05:36]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah.
- [05:36]
Rachel Monroe
And I'm a journalist.
- [05:38]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. And, Rachel, I feel like you've, you know, you've done some great episodes of the show that I encourage people to listen back to, but I feel like you've been like, from your. In your own milieu, like covering a lot of stories that involve trying to sort of see deeply into people in a way that feels sort of like. Like you're not a therapist, but you've done a lot of hours in some kind of like therapy adjacent practice. It almost seems.
- [06:03]
Rachel Monroe
Well, I'm like. It's like the Janet Malcolm book where like the journalist is sort of like the corrupt, indefensible therapist.
- [06:11]
Sarah Marshall
Well, and yeah, so let's get into the original definition. How is this phrase born? And what's the first chapter here?
- [06:19]
Ash Compton
So who first came up with it was a sociologist, Arlie Russell Hochschild. And she wrote a book in 1980, 83 called the Managed Heart, the Commercialization of Human Feeling. And so in that subtitle you can kind of sense where she was going. But Hostchild attended initial and reoccurrent trainings at the Delta Airlines Corporation. Yes, they were known in terms of like, when all the airlines were getting more popular and more kind of like commercialized and standardized. Delta was known for its customer service. And in fact, all airlines actually had sort of like a type. It reminded me of sorority rushing only that I know from Bama Rush chalk, by the way, my only entrance into it. But when I was reading about the airlines and like, why Delta was chosen, it reminded me of like this, you know, Delta prefers kind of like a Southern belle, like a Rosalynn Carter type of person. This one prefers like kind of more buttoned up, possibly sophisticated.
- [07:19]
Sarah Marshall
And this one, they wear turbans and you work in space, but you have Velcro shoes.
- [07:25]
Ash Compton
Where is that flight? I'd like to take it.
- [07:27]
Sarah Marshall
So few passengers. It's wonderful. Yeah.
- [07:32]
Ash Compton
So she was like using this as a case study. She interviewed extensively flight attendants. She attended the trainings and she came up with this term when a pilot. When she witnessed a pilot telling one of the recruits to smile like you mean it and like, really kind of this is your biggest asset. Like, really make sure to dial it in, you know, at its most basic. She's talking about and like, working through the management of feeling to create this, like, publicly observable facial and bodily display, you know, for a corporation to make more money.
- [08:06]
Sarah Marshall
Right. And like, and to get back into flying and sort of what commercial airlines were sort of about. Because I think, like, it's funny for me to hear and I suspect for a lot of people to hear that, like, there used to really be that much to differentiate the different airlines because now you just kind of like choose whoever has the cheapest ticket and who isn't Spirit?
- [08:29]
Rachel Monroe
You know, I did meet a man who was, like, had the worst emotional labor job ever, who worked at the, like, like, outside the spirit counter and had to just, like, explain to people, this was in Las Vegas. I just had to explain to people, like, no, I'm sorry, you bought this ticket. These are the stupid rules for the ticket.
- [08:45]
Sarah Marshall
Oh, my God, the enforcer.
- [08:46]
Rachel Monroe
Remember when you bought it and it was cheap, like, this is why. And just sort of had to, like, remind people what they did. And he was so, so worn down by this job of people just coming to him, being angry about the choice that they had made. You know, we all do this. We, like, click through, you scroll through, and you're like, oh, it is. It's $50 cheaper. Which seems fine until you show up at the airport and they won't let.
- [09:10]
Sarah Marshall
You have a personal item.
- [09:11]
Rachel Monroe
They charge you $25 to print out your boarding.
- [09:14]
Ash Compton
Wait, wait, this was Spirit?
- [09:16]
Rachel Monroe
Yes, yes. And this guy was like, look, I'm sorry you bought the ticket. You knew what you were getting into anyway.
- [09:23]
Sarah Marshall
And, I mean, flight attendants still have to do this. It still seems like an incredibly grueling and thankless job, you know, that you at least have to pretend to be trying to be nice. But I imagine that, you know, in this period, it was like there was a. The facade was meant to be a lot more seamless than it is now.
- [09:45]
Ash Compton
Absolutely. And there were of note, like, fewer flights happening, fewer passengers. And then alongside, there was sexualization happening in ad culture. So other flight attendants from, like, different airlines, depending on what. Which one. I think Pan Am was, like, pretty well known for that. Flight attendants would be upset about, like, the merging of this assumption that, like, they were there to be kind of the sexual object. Like, I don't work for that airline. They're the ones like, advertising sex, not ours. Ours is more about Brandon Gentleness. Right? Yeah. So this is like. It's like rising alongside. Of course, it's the move from manufacturing to more service oriented jobs, in particular in general, in America. But it's also like, you know, kind of happening alongside advertising culture being more integrated into corporate worlds.
- [10:38]
Sarah Marshall
So. Yeah. And then what is the initial definition that we end up with because of this?
- [10:43]
Rachel Monroe
It's funny because in her book she defines it in a footnote. But, like, I don't think she knew when she was doing it that she was, like, creating something that was gonna hit so hard. So it's like, almost kind of hard to find, but it is. Yeah. It's in a Footnote.
- [10:57]
Sarah Marshall
It makes me think of Judith Butler being like, I didn't really think that that many people would read Gender Trouble. And it is like, yeah, I don't know why you would have thought that many people would read it either, but. And yet it happened. Right?
- [11:10]
Ash Compton
But in 2018, she kind of re notes it as the Work for what youh're Paid, which involves trying to feel the right feeling for the job. This involves evoking and suppressing feelings. Some jobs require a lot of it, some a little of it from the flight attendant, whose job it is to be nicer than natural to the bill collector, whose job it is to be, if necessary, harsher than natural. There are a variety of jobs that call for this. And of note too, she has a section. She divides the book into public and private work and lives. And so relationships are kind of lightly talked about off and on in the private life part. But in the public, she also. I think, I am thinking at the time it was to include men, which this is a whole other topic we can get into. But that's where she gets into bill collectors. And so Hostchild often talks about this, like, pinch point, which is more or less the contrast between what you actually feel like perhaps livid at a. What they call an irate person on a flight who like, throws a drink at you or grabs your thigh or something, and then what you are kind of forced or trained to, like, explicitly trained to emote instead. And then. So the bill collector would be kind of the inverse of that. Like where the flight attendants kind of wanting to be subordinate to the customer. The bill collector is actually trained to teach you like you're a piece of shit so they can collect the bill and they're like, above you. So she, she, you know, she includes it, I think not just to have, like, men included as well, who just at the time were like a far fewer section of flight attendants, which has changed. But I think she's also showing kind of the inverse emotionality that this can include.
- [12:53]
Sarah Marshall
Yes. Which is interesting because I feel like to the extent that I've even been aware of it in terms of its original definition, I've generally thought of it as like forced cheerfulness and like the way that, you know, especially like Disney Parks employees or cast members rather, have to behave. But like the idea of bringing in sort of like all these different affective roles. And also seeing. I think it's actually quite great to think about the way men behave at work as an emotional sort of like a trained affect or a sort of training into a certain emotional choreography. The same way that we see stewardesses and cocktail waitresses doing that, to use early 80s terminology, because it's like.
- [13:38]
Rachel Monroe
It's all just as fake. It's all fake.
- [13:40]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah, it's all. A federal judge is performing as much as a Delta flight attendant is.
- [13:46]
Rachel Monroe
I was just rewatching Twin Peaks, and I was thinking. Thinking about emotional labor because Andy. Do you guys remember Andy?
- [13:55]
Sarah Marshall
Of course.
- [13:56]
Rachel Monroe
Andy has this thing when he sees, like, when he sees Laura Palmer's body or when he goes to the crime scene where he just starts, like, crying. And that's.
- [14:04]
Sarah Marshall
She.
- [14:05]
Rachel Monroe
She uses it. I mean, cops aren't, like, a great example because there's a lot more going on there, and she's mostly talking about service economy stuff. But I was thinking about Andy, and I was like, oh, that's such an appropriate response to seeing a body or to being at a place where somebody was murdered is to weep. But that is not permitted emotional expression for a police officer. And so in the show, it comes off as really incongruous, but it also seems completely appropriate and correct and human. It's like his humanity makes him a little bit of a fool as a cop, but, like, a better human.
- [14:43]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. And then. But then that, like, according to our training and, you know, the cop media we watched growing up, that it would be correct, emotionally for him to, like, ransack a room and knock a bunch of stuff over because he's so angry. Because he can't be sad, but he can be mad.
- [15:00]
Rachel Monroe
Exactly.
- [15:00]
Ash Compton
I think of that with athletes, too. Like, where you're. There's this, like, permitted expression of, like, tossing Gatorade on your co chair, but also, like, tearing something down. I guess this goes with fans, too. Maybe we'll see with the Super Bowl.
- [15:15]
Sarah Marshall
When you think about it, the fans are working very hard. Yeah. I mean, whatever the Eagles do, it's.
- [15:19]
Ash Compton
You know, they're gonna burn that city down. I mean, generally in this era, it's basically like companies are like, oh, we can commodify emotions. Excellent. You know, that's like, the long and short of it.
- [15:33]
Rachel Monroe
In a way, it's like corporate branding. The employee becomes an extension of the corporate brand. I've been thinking a lot about Trader Joe's. There's, like, stuff coming out now about, you know, their bad labor and sourcing practices and stuff. But, like, Trader Joe, like, the brand of Trader Joe's is, like, we're the nice grocery store Hawaiian shirts.
- [15:54]
Sarah Marshall
I know. And the worst is that I do fall for it. I'm like, man, that cashier really likes me. Wait a minute.
- [16:00]
Ash Compton
Yeah, and actually it's, you know, maybe this has shifted. Maybe it's way, way shifted. But at the time when this book was written, I think it was about, like, a flight attendant might spend like one, one and a half hours with you. Longer if the flight is longer. But actually, every person on a flight has a hundred hours of labor behind it. Like the bag person or, you know, someone who's like, you know, on the customer service lens, someone who's in the office, like, arranging things, all the pilot situations, you know. Obviously, I know nothing about flight work.
- [16:36]
Sarah Marshall
Right. And I wonder to what extent this sort of, like, helped fertilize the robust American Karen type. Because I feel like if you're of a certain age, then you grew up when a lot of service workers were, like, doing a better job of pretending to like you.
- [16:50]
Ash Compton
Totally.
- [16:51]
Sarah Marshall
Yes. Right.
- [16:52]
Ash Compton
That expectation dies hard.
- [16:54]
Sarah Marshall
The person who you interact with at a desk is like, the victim of so much cost cutting and so many razor thin margins that they're under so much stress and are in so little control of anything because so much has also been automated around them. And just the way that business has moved in so many directions that they don't really have the power to make you happy and they're too tired to pretend that they care.
- [17:23]
Ash Compton
Totally.
- [17:23]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. That fantasy has died hard, like you said.
- [17:25]
Rachel Monroe
So Arlie Hofchild wrote this book, and this definition that was just mentioned in the footnote, like, really caught on. And there were a ton of subsequent studies and stuff. And one of the interesting things that came out of, like, these thousands of studies of this in the sociological realm was that, like, sometimes, sometimes emotional labor works. I think the one study that I was looking at called it, like amplified enthusiasm or amplified positive affect can, like, in the right conditions, have this resonance. And so, like, if you do. If. If the, like, Trader Joe's employee, like, really does seem like they like your banana or whatever, like, you can have, like a nice interaction there.
- [18:05]
Sarah Marshall
Or if you're like a tour guide, you don't want to be like, and here is the city I live in that I see every day.
- [18:13]
Rachel Monroe
Probably annoyingly to everybody who knows me, I'm like a chit chatter with the retail worker. I think Ash and I are opposite, probably.
- [18:19]
Sarah Marshall
Yes, you are.
- [18:20]
Ash Compton
Chit chatter. Like, let's go, we gotta go.
- [18:22]
Rachel Monroe
I'm like, just born to be somebody's annoying mom. What tends to be difficult in an emotional labor context is this idea of dissonance. So when you're like, the further that the emotion you're feeling is from the emotion you're expected to perform. And I think as these jobs get, like you're saying Sarah, more and more difficult, and these constraints are imposed from outside that make your job worse and make your ability to actually perform care harder, then the dissonance increases. Like, she talks about, like, she talks about nurses and, like, in kind of hospitals, that's always going to be a hard job, and you're always going to be, like, performing care that is, you know, for money for somebody that you don't know, there's some level of, like, faking the emotion that's always going to be there. And that's not necessarily bad. But when hospitals, you know, are taken over by private equity and you have, like, a timeline that you're supposed to meet and you don't, you're not allowed, you're disincentivized to, like, form any sort of relationship or spend any time with somebody, then the care becomes, like, more and more performative and, like, more and more distant from any sort of reality.
- [19:44]
Sarah Marshall
It feels like what you're talking about is almost kind of like an uncanniness that can take over where, like, if someone is just, like, way too cheerful given the obvious circumstances or something, then, like, you start to feel like you're being taken care of by an automaton. But what we really want is just like 15% fakery, right? Like the whole hog.
- [20:05]
Rachel Monroe
Yeah, it's like that gulf is. The gulf is the problem.
- [20:08]
Ash Compton
And some of it. So much of it maps onto, like, civil society, like, how to, you know, whatever if you're in a really bad mood, how to, like, be nice to someone who comes to your door with a package for you. You know, it's like this happens all the time when we bump, bump up against other humans. But hostile would talk about, like, deep acting versus, like, surface acting. And so in the mid 20th century, while there's this, like, rise of the managed heart, as she called it, like, with this.
- [20:35]
Sarah Marshall
That's beautiful.
- [20:36]
Ash Compton
Yeah, right.
- [20:37]
Sarah Marshall
What is that, a Larry Kramer play?
- [20:40]
Ash Compton
I know, right? Yeah. So with this commercialization of healing, one of the key components was where employees were trying to, as Rachel is noting, genuinely feel the emotions that they were meaning to display. Not just for the branding purposes, which are of note, but the healthcare industry is a really big part of this, too. As you're saying, with nurses or any hospitalists, you, you know, you know, people are in pain at times or they've just lost a loved one or they're about to. And like. So even if you are exhausted on your feet for a 16 hour ship shift, the deep acting is sort of necessary here versus the surface acting where it is more inauthentic.
- [21:23]
Sarah Marshall
That's interesting.
- [21:24]
Rachel Monroe
Yeah.
- [21:24]
Sarah Marshall
And I mean this does cause me to reflect on like something I've always thought about journalism, which is that it's like one of the weird professions. And, and I, into this bucket I would also put like therapy, sex work, house cleaning and some other stuff I'm not thinking of but like jobs that involve like, and, and also like healthcare professions, nursing especially where you're like directly interacting with people so much of the time and talking to them and like, and also detectives. But these jobs where part of the job is talking like neutrally or in a way that encourages people to open up about topics that they have perhaps never talked about with anyone in their entire life.
- [22:05]
Ash Compton
Right.
- [22:06]
Sarah Marshall
Or to just like show up and sort of like have this profession based intimacy that is socially acceptable because of the context and in a way that feels completely different than like any of the other training that we're put through in terms of how to interact in.
- [22:22]
Ash Compton
A society that hopefully has ethical boundaries that contain it in some way. And this is why we brought up coaching on Bad therapist too. Because it's like, well, this just kind of play acts, something that like is actually regulated in another form.
- [22:37]
Rachel Monroe
You have to learn how to do that in a way that's safe for you and the other person.
- [22:41]
Sarah Marshall
Right. And to get more specific, are you. Were you saying in your show that basically life coaching is a job for people who want to be therapists but don't want to be hindered by a governing body or anything like that.
- [22:53]
Ash Compton
People are going to get mad at me in the comments.
- [22:55]
Sarah Marshall
Life coaches are.
- [22:56]
Ash Compton
Yeah, no, I mean there is a, a place for them. I think like health coaching is one version where like I'm not gonna check up on, you know, maybe some therapists would, but it's not within my training to check up on like if someone hitting their macros and like you know, having enough water, you know, like I think coaching actually definitely has a place and. But I think some of the especially like creator Instagram versions of life coaching that's just like, let's talk about boundaries with your family. Like I'm just like just become a therapist. I don't know. There's a whole language.
- [23:29]
Sarah Marshall
I love how that's such a voice that I've heard so many times and that like what is that? Yeah, you're really Good at it.
- [23:35]
Rachel Monroe
You're like alarmingly good.
- [23:36]
Ash Compton
I can dip into it. Yeah.
- [23:40]
Rachel Monroe
Something that the subsequent studies found is that like ways that you can kind of minimize the strain or like the burnout effect of this emotional labor one is by having like a supportive co worker environment so you have people that you work with. Again, there was a study with nurses and it's like, okay, if the nurses can go talk to each other and be authentic with each other, then it makes it, it kind of resets them or renews them to go then deal with the patients and perform whatever needs to be performed. And the other thing which I think is maybe so obvious, but also maybe under covered is like financial compensation. Like, there's a lot that we'll do if we feel like we're being paid fairly for it. People don't usually talk about like therapists being burdened by emotional labor because it's like, well, that's fundamentally the expectation and you get paid pretty well to do it.
- [24:34]
Ash Compton
Right.
- [24:35]
Sarah Marshall
And it's considered like the main thing that you're doing as opposed to like the thing you have to do on top of getting Diet Cokes for everybody or whatever. Right.
- [24:43]
Ash Compton
And of course, because the industry feels like it's losing money, it's like, get Diet Cokes for people. You have like two minutes to serve everyone two drinks and a whole meal, if a meal is even provided. And so some of the more recent flight attendants have talked about how they have to kind of like condense the smile in a certain way because they only have like 30 seconds per person to give. Which reminds me of healthcare too, in terms of like a doctor has like 15 minutes with you go. And it's like, okay, hold on. Where's my list of symptoms I've encountered in the last two years? You know?
- [25:15]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah, yeah.
- [25:16]
Rachel Monroe
And that's how you get. People say like, say one nice thing. So nice to meet you. You know, like, you can feel it kind of the checklist.
- [25:21]
Sarah Marshall
You can. It's also like, I don't know, I'm in like a weird part of my period, so I guess was feeling very dysregulated and paranoid. And I was like, I bet there are people in America who are voting for a lot of stuff who have felt this way for like years or just in like a, you know, and I'm speculating but just are in like a years long state of dysregulation. And it's so funny to think about like we are living in a culture where I think like a lot of people are Being encouraged in our political landscape to stay as paranoid and as riled up as possible. And then totally, we have, you know, as we're talking about here, like, the counterbalance of that in a way of like, people who have to, at least within a certain frame, like, be so in command of their emotions or at least the performance that they're providing, that you have to control what you're allowing yourself to feel based on, like, you know, how many hours you have in your shift or something like that.
- [26:18]
Ash Compton
Sienna guy, this. She's a great cultural theorist and writes books on aesthetics.
- [26:22]
Sarah Marshall
I know her work because she wrote. She co wrote an article on Candyman that I read.
- [26:28]
Ash Compton
Yeah, she does. She really highly recommend her work. She like, really includes great, like, film references, which I'm sure you.
- [26:34]
Sarah Marshall
It was a great Candyman article. Yeah, good stuff.
- [26:37]
Ash Compton
But like, one of her. One of her small points because it's just like her books are like, jam packed. You're like, wait, hold on. Can I see a whole book about that? One paragraph. But one thing she kind of more or less casually mentions in and out of the chapter is what we used to see as like, female competencies which comes up in this, like, you know, rise of the managed heart, then becomes assigned to men because of the loss of manufacturing jobs. So like Walmart greeters and cable guys. And she even talks about the film cable guy and kind of like the awkward interactions he's. Jim Carrey's having. And like customer service agents and IT people over the phone.
- [27:17]
Rachel Monroe
Nursing.
- [27:17]
Ash Compton
Yeah, exactly, nursing. All these other, like, previously gendered into kind of a feminine category but now are like, assigned to men more or more. So she's assigning some of the backlash and this like, fetishization of the coal mining and like, bringing back car manufacturing as like, no, we don't want these jobs. Like, we don't want these care jobs. You know, it's sort of this unconscious collective thing she's pointing out. But like, the new archetypes of men in these care roles, how they come up. And again, she uses like, the toy, the film and cable guy and all these other ones. So it's like either like, okay, either redefine the archetype or and, you know, make it multifaceted or like, we're gonna keep seeing this backlash in a way.
- [28:04]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah, well, which makes me think of Mr. Mom, a movie that felt the need to invent a new title for a male parent who takes care of children so necessary.
- [28:15]
Ash Compton
It's like when men babysit their children.
- [28:19]
Sarah Marshall
Their very own children. Yeah. It's, it's really.
- [28:22]
Rachel Monroe
Yeah, it's something. It's super generous of them, really.
- [28:25]
Sarah Marshall
Well, okay, so we have this term that is in the footnote of a book. And I assume that there's kind of like a rocky road between that footnote and regular people throwing this terminology around. And I would love to hear about that.
- [28:40]
Rachel Monroe
Yeah. When Arlie Hochschild is writing her book, she's very much thinking of emotional labor. Like that word labor is really important to her. And she talks briefly in the book about like other kinds of emotion management, like when it happens in an interpersonal, like a non work setting. But it's very important for her to like create a distinction. She calls that emotion work or emotion management because it's like not being exchanged for wages. It's not like a labor context. And like these days when you hear people talk about it, it's much more. They're much more likely to be talking about like their intimate relationships and like nothing to do with serving customers. Just kind of looking into like how that happened. I mean, there was always a little bit of like slippage with the term. But I do think that you can trace like its current therapy speak social media kind of fad moment to like this period between 2015 and 2017 when it suddenly became this circulating word. And I think this is what we see sometimes with these therapy speak words is like something will go viral and then it just like spawns a bunch of other content that is like maybe kind of loosely related or, you know, everybody's just kind of like riffing on whatever's trending at the moment. And I kind of think that's what happened in this era to emotional labor. I think what like one of the first important timeline moments is there's an article in the toast. Remember the toast?
- [30:16]
Sarah Marshall
Oh my God, I loved the toast. Wow.
- [30:19]
Rachel Monroe
A dear departed website in July 2015 by Jess Zimmerman, which is like about emotional labor. And she talks about like a bunch of different stuff, but like one of one of her main points is about, I don't know, she goes through like men catcalling women on the street. And then she also talks about like her male friends who call her up and like vent about their breakups or something and like don't ask her about hers. And she talks about sex work. And it's just like it's a little bit all over the place in its examples, but it is well written and taps into a certain emotional frustration.
- [30:59]
Sarah Marshall
And it feels weird to have to describe this, but I mean, you and I actually Met because we were both publishing stuff in the Hairpin and the Awl at the same time in like 2012. Yeah.
- [31:08]
Ash Compton
Wait, really? I didn't know that.
- [31:10]
Rachel Monroe
That is the origin.
- [31:12]
Sarah Marshall
That's the origin story. And those were. The Hairpin was the first place that I ever published anything.
- [31:19]
Rachel Monroe
Me too.
- [31:19]
Ash Compton
I think that's gone too, right? Hairpin is gone, is no longer.
- [31:24]
Sarah Marshall
Yep. There are no more.
- [31:26]
Rachel Monroe
But the article went pretty viral. But then like, what even like took it over more was there was a. It got reposted on MetaFilter. Do you guys read MetaFilter?
- [31:35]
Sarah Marshall
Oh my God. Is MetaFilter still around?
- [31:38]
Rachel Monroe
I mean it's just like this remnant of the old school Internet and there's like just a robust community there. It feels like an old message board almost in a way. So somebody posts the Toast article on MetaFilter and then people just start commenting like crazy. It just hits a nerve and people are like, ah, yes, like emotional labor. That's. That's the phrase for the thing that's been bothering me in my relationship. And I mean it's like hard to explain how crazy this thread got. Like somebody made a PDF, like a condensed annotated PDF of like the best parts of it, which is like 50 pages long. It's like a 50 page PDF and that's just, I mean there are just like thousands of posts. People are like coming back, chiming in. It's just like when something hits a nerve like this totally hit a nerve.
- [32:34]
Sarah Marshall
Are is this when people start using it to talk about relationships? And I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, are like women being like, I have to do this with the men in my life all the time?
- [32:45]
Rachel Monroe
Totally. I mean I think like first of all it's like explicitly very gendered. You know, in the Hustell book she's like talking about the gender aspects of the way that like emotional labor can be like gender coded or there's like a gender layer to it. But what starts coming up here is like first of all like emotional labor is something that like basically like women do for men or like to compensate for men. So people are talking about their like intimate relationships, their friendships and their like romantic partnerships. One of the really stuck out in my mind was like a woman saying, you know, my, my mother in law like gets mad at me when my husband forgets her birthday. So just like these kind of like things that get like emotion relationship management that gets like routed through women.
- [33:33]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah, I feel like we grew up.
- [33:36]
Ash Compton
In the era of like the commercials that Were, like, making dipshits of husbands. Like, oh, my gosh, my husband. We need the cereal bar because he's trapped in the blinds behind me. You know, I don't know what he's doing. And it just feels like it's a little bit of. It's giving a little tiny bit of that in a way.
- [33:53]
Sarah Marshall
Oh, yeah. There's a Robitussin commercial from the late 80s that just happens to be on something that my family taped at that time that I was. That. That makes me think of where it's like, robitussen, because when mom is sick, your husband is obviously no goddamn help.
- [34:09]
Ash Compton
I remember there's. I know the end of that somewhere in the archives. It'll come to me.
- [34:15]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. And one of them is like, look, Mom's better. And she's like, oh, brother. Looks like I'm clocking in again. And it's like, let a woman take a sick day for.
- [34:24]
Ash Compton
You know what? That overworking woman could have showed up in one of the Kool Aid commercials, because it's like, who's gonna clean that wall up?
- [34:34]
Sarah Marshall
She's just, like, wandering from commercial to commercial in a bathrobe, cleaning up after. And then she's like, in the, like, Jeep ads, just, like, sweeping all the.
- [34:43]
Rachel Monroe
Mud, her hair getting frazzled.
- [34:48]
Sarah Marshall
Just, like, slugging Robitussin as she goes. Yeah, but it. Well, and it also seems like this is where. And I forget who came up with this term, but this. This idea of K. Totally. Because, I mean, it is. And this has accelerated so much in the past 10 years, but this thing where we now sort of have ideas in the shape of trends, and I'm sure that we always have, but it's just that the trend machine is so accelerated and so, like, you can monetize it so quickly that it feels different than it used to, I guess. But, yeah, it's interesting that this is clearly, like, there have been a lot of attempts that have, you know, in many cases, named something pretty incisively of, like, the things that women are doing that nobody realizes women are doing. But it seems like they all got kind of rolled into.
- [35:37]
Rachel Monroe
It's.
- [35:37]
Sarah Marshall
I'm. I'm imagining an Indiana Jones Boulder.
- [35:40]
Rachel Monroe
Yeah, totally. I imagine this, like, starts to show up in the therapy realm, too. This term that was once, like, super precise is now being used to apply to, like, a bunch of different stuff. Fall under that umbrella.
- [35:58]
Ash Compton
Totally. It's become this omni clump of emotional labor, division of labor. What else? Mental load. It just, like, sometimes. And, you know, you don't want to be like, correcting someone in a couple's therapy session necessarily getting in the semantics. You're like, actually, actually, you're talking about mental load.
- [36:15]
Sarah Marshall
You're crying about something other than what you're calling it. And what is mental load while we're on the topic?
- [36:22]
Ash Compton
Well, okay, if emotional labor is like having to perform through service or deep acting like an emotion that's commodified, generally mental load is more so like, I have to keep in mind the kids dental appointments and I have to. Okay, so yes, you're now feeding the cat twice a day, but I'm having to make sure the food is stocked up. And I have to also maybe possibly remind you.
- [36:44]
Sarah Marshall
And I feel like I do. I see that one or lately I feel like I've seen that one described in terms of like, when I asked my husband to decide what we're gonna have for dinner and he says, babe, what do you feel like that's mental load? And it's like, kind of. But, like, it's not the best example I can possibly think of.
- [37:03]
Ash Compton
Yeah, I would say it has to be more, to me, more of a burden than that.
- [37:07]
Sarah Marshall
And like, I get that we're fed up with men and we wanna find fault with them, but let's just at least convict them of what they're actually guilty of. And I mean, another thing that think about a lot as someone who is like, you know, ADHD and like, fairly incompetent in, like, a genuine way. Like, I think the term weaponized incompetence has also perhaps been one that we started to use a little bit too freely. Because this idea that anytime you tell a guy to do something and he can't do it right, that that's weaponized incompetence. It's like, well, some men, a lot of men know what side their bread is buttered on, and they have made a lifelong practice out of squirming out of responsibilities they don't feel like doing. And that's very real. But also, like, a lot of these things you're doing are skill sets that they don't have.
- [37:54]
Rachel Monroe
Well, and I do think sometimes, sometimes the emotional labor, you know, this, this vague use of emotional labor does even. It's like, thinks that it's a gender critique that ends up just like reinforcing gender norms in a way. You know, it's just like, as a woman, you know, like, I have to, like, cook and I'm like, you know, expected to, like, keep a really clean house. And. Yeah, As a person who is, like, also incompetent at things, I'm just sort of like, you're like.
- [38:21]
Sarah Marshall
And my husband is displaying weaponized incompetence and not replacing the throw pillows where they're supposed to be. And it's like, look, maybe it doesn't matter that much where the throw pillows are just possibly.
- [38:35]
Rachel Monroe
And women can be incompetent, too.
- [38:37]
Sarah Marshall
I know. Look at me.
- [38:40]
Ash Compton
I haven't cooked in so long. I am like the queen of girl dinner. I'm glad there's finally a name for it. But, yes, my partner, my male partner called it weaponized incompetence. I would be like, excuse me.
- [38:51]
Sarah Marshall
Excuse me. That is my word for you, you know? Yeah. It feels like these are useful terms, but also we can use them in a way that, like, more deeply entrenches us in this idea of like, well, women just have to take care of everything, and men are just. I don't even know why we keep them around. And it's like, if you don't know why you keep them around, then don't keep them.
- [39:14]
Rachel Monroe
Exactly. There's like, there is a. There is this nihilism in the way that some people talk about it where it's just sort of like, well, this is how it. This is how it is and this is how it will always be. And I'm just going to, like, vent about it, but not actually accept. Expect anything to change.
- [39:34]
Sarah Marshall
Right.
- [39:34]
Rachel Monroe
This kind of, like, reaches its apotheosis in some ways in 2017. So, like, you know, in the kind of, like, degraded virality of, like, people trying to, like, ring more content and more money from the subject. There's like an article in Harper's bazaar again in 2017. So this goes so viral that it becomes a book. You know, it's like one of these kind of classic, like, quote unquote relatable stories where it's like, her birthday and she wants. She asks her husband. She's just like, all I want is a professional cleaner to clean the bathroom. And instead of doing. Making that happen, he. He's like, I'm going to clean the bathroom. I mean, it's just one of these stories. It's like, it's like listening to somebody else's dream, like, listening to somebody else's, like, domestic drama.
- [40:24]
Sarah Marshall
You know, the, like, meme where somebody is like, I'm not reading all that happy for you.
- [40:30]
Rachel Monroe
Or.
- [40:32]
Ash Compton
That'S the beginning of, like, I have a no bandwidth. Right? That was the viral moment moment of like, I have no bandwidth anymore.
- [40:39]
Sarah Marshall
Oh, yeah. Yes. That was one of my favorite ones.
- [40:43]
Ash Compton
I have. I have many theories about this in the therapy space, and we'll get to it. But I also have a cultural theory that people work out in their domestic orientations and relationships. What, like, we want to collectively, especially dominant culture, avoid working out in a more systemized or systemic way, where it's like, so many hours get spent on this, and it's like, okay, well, what. Let's talk about fairness culturally at large right now.
- [41:09]
Rachel Monroe
I mean, I think it's very notable that this is happening in 2017, you know, which is like, the period of MeToo.
- [41:15]
Sarah Marshall
And, like, we'd also just discovered mansplaining. It feels like it was like the last moment before social media, just, like, completely segmented and balked. And so the last thing we all. Not we all, but the last thing a lot of people of a certain at least sort of age group shared was this, like, massive, like, are the straights okay? Moment. And, like, yeah, like, what you're saying, right? Like, we were having this, like, this kind of, like, shocking moment of, like, kind of civil war between men and women broadly in the United States. And so we enacted it partly in the housework sphere, like we probably always do.
- [41:54]
Rachel Monroe
But, I mean. But it's also, like, this isn't emotional labor.
- [41:59]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. I mean, we all have a right to complain at any time, but it's like. But at a certain point, it's like we're getting farther away from the thing we're trying to name.
- [42:06]
Ash Compton
Maybe it's abstracting.
- [42:08]
Rachel Monroe
Giving it the wrong name means that we're never actually talking about what we're talking about. Or it seems like there's we're obfuscating, like, what the conversation actually wants to be.
- [42:20]
Sarah Marshall
Well, and it occurs to me, as you're saying that, because I've always framed it to myself as like, isn't it funny that this term that, like, originated to specifically talk about the way people have to behave to customers at their jobs or, you know, to other workers as well, but, like, customer facing, you know, a lot of the time that, like, it has moved over to marriage into the home? And I always thought that was sort of a mistake, and now I'm like, what if it's a tell? And what if the tell here is that marriage is a job and marriage is the job, that, like, you know, women are expressing an awareness that they are working by talking about it that way, but it doesn't feel like that got explicitly named inside of this moment of, like, marriage is work, and that's why we're all talking about it this way.
- [43:04]
Ash Compton
It's not working hard at it as if you're like, you know, inside of a mine. Like, come on, just keep digging. But yeah, it is actual labor.
- [43:13]
Rachel Monroe
But the thing that's different about, like the, the work that you do in a relationship versus the work that you do at your job is like, ostensibly you're in a relationship of peers, you know, and you can and you. Like, I think, like, there's. I guess that's one of the things that bothers me about it is like some way in which people seem to be not admitting that they have the power to leave the relationship. Kind of like, it's different. Like when your boss exists in this corporate. You're in this corporate structure and your boss is telling you you have to perform a certain kind of way in order to keep your job, which is like how you get your health insurance. I don't know. Like, that's just like not the same dynamic as your relationship.
- [43:58]
Sarah Marshall
It reveals how we believe our relationships with men are. I think, because it's, you know, because this phenomenon I, you know, was like, mostly, you know, women writing about men that they were married or partnered with or living with. And like, it does feel like the more I think about it, this revelation of this sort of grand passive aggressive dance that's been going on for decades that culminates in the husband is not your co worker, he is your customer. And your job is to maintain this generationally taught facade of happily doing stuff you don't want to do, because if you don't, he might kill you. And now we're in a moment of, you know, I mean, we've been, we've been in many moments for, for a long time. And we will keep having them in a fairly non linear fashion. But this idea of like, feeling like we should feel freer than we are, and it does feel like, yeah, that a lot of those pieces and revelations were like, I hope by people who aren't in those marriages anymore.
- [45:00]
Ash Compton
Exactly.
- [45:01]
Rachel Monroe
I mean, that was. My notes on the Harper's Bazaar article was just sort of like fundamentally like bad marriage. Exclamation point, exclamation point. I'm just like, I don't like, fundamentally mentally.
- [45:10]
Ash Compton
Yeah. Nope, just a note.
- [45:12]
Rachel Monroe
That's. That's gonna be our, our other spin off podcast. We're gonna do. What's it like? Bad neighbor and then bad marriage. Y. But I was just like, you don't like your husband?
- [45:21]
Ash Compton
Exactly.
- [45:22]
Rachel Monroe
Like, get out of this.
- [45:24]
Ash Compton
You know, it's not to diminish gendered expectations and the damage that's done or the economy of gratitude and how that plays, like, back and forth within relationships, friendships, too unequal distribution. But yeah, often it's like, okay, if someone's coming in week after week after week after week to couples therapy. Not necessarily my consulting room, but in general. And all they're talking about is division of labor and can you believe he did this? Again, it's like, maybe we're talking about compatibility and not being there.
- [45:51]
Sarah Marshall
Right. And like, the fact that you grew up being sold this idea that, like, you have to just pick the least objectionable man you can find as soon as you can and just marry him and then.
- [46:03]
Rachel Monroe
And you deal and you just, like, deal with him being annoying by, like, venting about it. You have some sort of, you know, like, emotional authority by being, like, put upon by.
- [46:14]
Sarah Marshall
Yes. And then your. Your reward is being a martyr, which I actually said to my mom the other day. I was like, you know, you're not going to get a prize for doing stuff you don't want to do. I don't know if. If maybe you've been thinking that, but there's no prize coming, so you should probably not.
- [46:30]
Ash Compton
I think our mothers were sold that. Unfortunately. I think it was a bad bill of rights that they were sold.
- [46:38]
Rachel Monroe
Definitely. And we're existing kind of. Yeah. In the working out and working through of that. Like, we, everybody, we just have these ideas in our head of, like, no, you have to do this. This is what it has to look like. And it's like, well, not. Not actually so much. But even though there are social, economic, actual repercussions for, you know, trying to bust out of that system, but the repercussions for staying in it too.
- [47:02]
Ash Compton
Yeah. I feel like some of the job of a therapist is not just to, like, listen to venting that, you know, I'm a psychodynamic therapist, so I always want to go beyond that. And like, what's not in the room is more interesting to me than what is often. But it's like removing this feigned or fake or externalized or internalized, often responsibility that is actually just outmoded or was gifted, cursed by your parents or culture, etc. Etc.
- [47:28]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. Like, people are carrying around these amulets and you're like, you could put some of those down. And they're like, I literally never thought I could put any of these down. Yeah. God bless therapy. That also makes me think of, you know, Gone Girl was such a big movie in what? 2014. And I think was part of this whole stew as well, because that was like. I don't know if. I don't know if Gone Girl scared men the same way that Fatal Attraction did. I think it did, though. They still. They still reference it. It still freaks them out, and women still reference it in a different way. Because I've had just recently an experience of watching it with a female friend and just wordlessly looking at each other and being like, yes, to me, it has flaws, and it has certainly been used to prop up really misogynistic agendas. But at bottom, I think that it scans as a story, which is that the only way to escape from the bind of the role that you have to perform to be a lovable woman in society is to spoilers, spoilers for Gone Girl, metaphorically murder yourself, and then you get to go sit on a pool flight and eat Cheetos. That was all she wanted to do.
- [48:36]
Rachel Monroe
But I think it's also, like, there is something. It doesn't necessarily need to be, like, seceding from the world or seceding from relationships.
- [48:47]
Ash Compton
That's just the media version.
- [48:49]
Sarah Marshall
No, I think that that's just the only thing that we can allow ourselves to imagine in a dystopian. In that kind of dystopian worldview is like, well, there's no escape for me. Kind of what you're saying, Rachel, about we get more kind of deeply dug into these gender roles of, like, I can only be a martyr, and so the only way to live freely is to fake my own death and fundamentally not exist and, like, live in a lacuna until Lola Kirk takes all my money.
- [49:17]
Ash Compton
Right. Well, communication is baked into all of these forms of labor, Right? And it's like, can you. This sounds really simple, but again, this is such a huge pain point. It makes me think a lot of people are not contending with it. Can you, in your romantic or other relationships, talk about what you feel like you're doing and what you wish someone else would do? And again, and I think, like, there's usually a deeper desire hidden underneath that, like, request we're getting.
- [49:45]
Sarah Marshall
Also, the thing of, like, okay, so, Rachel, if you and I are having, like, a very bitter relationship, right? And it is my expectation that when I come home from a long day of work in the pawn shop, that you will have done all of the dishes, but you feel that because you are making dinner, you really shouldn't have to do all the dishes right now, seeing as they're your dishes anyway. And you can just. Just do them in a different way. And what difference does it really make? And it's like, clearly the problem is not the dishes or like even. Right. It's like the problem is that neither of us is saying what we want from each other.
- [50:22]
Ash Compton
And that could be like, I wish I had a different job, or like, I hate this house, or I've not been attracted to you for seven years.
- [50:30]
Rachel Monroe
Which are all like way more threatening conversations to have. You can understand why people avoid them.
- [50:35]
Ash Compton
Yeah, I think unconsciously avoid them.
- [50:38]
Rachel Monroe
You know, it's sort of a shame that this has happened to emotional labor as a concept and that it's like gotten so bloated and it's like we're an umbrella that we're trying to fit so many things underneath that, like nothing is staying dry and everything's getting wet anyway.
- [50:54]
Sarah Marshall
It also feels like, I mean, this is kind of what part of why I was motivated to have this conversation or to ask about, you know, the path that this phrase has taken. Because it does seem like now we've reached a point where emotional labor, light gaslighting, like a lot of other terms, has become so sort of diluted and popularized that it now becomes something that like, people who have not really been paying attention but have picked up enough therapy speak sounding stuff to say that they can effectively denounce any responsibility for what's going on, can therefore like accuse their partners of wanting them to do. Which I find really funny because it's like, you should be doing some work for me. I am in a relationship with you.
- [51:34]
Ash Compton
And there are just things that have to be done within a house or if you have pets or, you know, children or there's a ton of jobs and tasks that are not necessarily fun.
- [51:44]
Sarah Marshall
Or even just, you know, like maybe actually when you get right down to it, it's like the. When the term has sort of lost all meaning, which I don't think is true across the board, but maybe is true for some people. People can use the term emotional labor to actually refer to the act of communicating or to trying to talk about emotions or care.
- [52:05]
Rachel Monroe
Just like actual kind of like care that happens in relationships. I mean, I. It starts to be like at its. At its worst. It's like all of this therapy speak stuff can be this one sided when it becomes like an attack, like something that you do to me, rather than the acknowledgment of like, like a dynamic. And that, that makes sense in like a labor context, right? Where you have like a boss who is employing you, but like in a friendship or a romantic relationship, like, that's you're in it together, but you don't.
- [52:37]
Sarah Marshall
Want to be in a relationship with someone who acts like they're the AFL CIO and you're, you know, gm.
- [52:44]
Ash Compton
Right. If it feels that transactional, maybe it just shouldn't be happening.
- [52:47]
Rachel Monroe
Right. And so it can. Yeah. I think like weaponized therapies speak is just a way of saying, like, I don't like what you're doing, but I want to like, have an aura of like, self righteousness about it and rather.
- [53:00]
Sarah Marshall
Than giving validity to my own emotions, because that's difficult and, you know, we all or most of us have to learn how to do that. I'm going to use this citation to say that it's not that I don't even have to think my feelings are important because all I'm saying is that you're bad.
- [53:15]
Ash Compton
I think it's interesting too, as like actual, like, you know, healthcare as an industry gets bigger and bigger and bigger. You know, like, it part of this was happening, emotional labor was happening when it started eclipsing manufacturing jobs, but now it's just growing, you know, every year after year, and it will because of an aging boomer population. Then how care is talked about within relationships seems to change or get more diluted alongside of that. I don't, you know, I don't have any studies to prove that there's an actual correlation, but it just seems interesting that like, like all we're doing and so much money is around care, quote unquote, and all the emotional labor in that. And then what is happening to relationships alongside of that?
- [53:57]
Rachel Monroe
This feels very 2017. I think it's like, not happening as much anymore. But this idea that, like, pay me for my time, you know, like, my friend calls me and is like, venting about his relationship, like, pay me 50 bucks. And it's like, well, why, like, ideally this is, you know, I like to think that our, like, relationships can exist not sort of like outside of the economy, but like, it doesn't seem like we kind of solve these problems of unbalance or inequality by like, making it more monetized.
- [54:32]
Sarah Marshall
And it feels like for a lot of us, understandably, it is less thinkable to develop strong boundaries than it is to do something you don't want to do and then ask to be paid for it.
- [54:40]
Rachel Monroe
Right, right, exactly. I've been thinking a lot about, like, what is the role of emotional labor? Not so much this, like, therapy speak version of it, but the actual, like, how it exists in a work context. In this realm of, like, gig work, remote work, and chat GPT. I mean, I feel like they've programmed chatGPT to try to do emotional labor in a way that, like, almost undermines the whole concept of emotional labor in a way that I find very funny. Like I asked, right?
- [55:08]
Sarah Marshall
It turns out the person who's best at it is not a person and has no emotions.
- [55:12]
Rachel Monroe
It just is always, like when. Whenever you ask it a question, it always, like, gives you a little Trader Joe's compliment, I guess. You know, like, we were having a party the other day. We were like, what? What snacks should we provide for the party? And Chachi BB was like, sounds like such a fun party.
- [55:30]
Sarah Marshall
We were like, no, it doesn't. I haven't said anything about it. Yeah, exactly. Like.
- [55:34]
Rachel Monroe
Like, come on. I wonder if there will be a turn against that form of emotional labor as we all get frustrated with bots adding steps of fake emotional validation. Because it's fake and it's some version of fake and performance and real and simulated when you're dealing with a customer service representative in the real world. But when it's not even a person, it's like, okay, come on, let's just drop the facade here. None of us has time to do this.
- [56:06]
Ash Compton
Well, and it's misguided emotional labor because I'm asking for help because I need help, not because I want to feel like I'm in my living room in an airplane.
- [56:14]
Sarah Marshall
Yeah. Something compelling to me about the fact that we have had a couple of years now, I guess, of all trying to figure out what our relationships with artificial intelligence will be. And I think that, like, no matter how right we are about predicting how it's going to go or what they're capable of, we're revealing a lot about ourselves the whole time. And I appreciate that we're to do that totally. Well, what is the future of poor old emotional labor? Will it. Is it still useful? Is it. What. What is. What will happen as it straggles forward.
- [56:44]
Ash Compton
Into the future right alongside the gig economy, neoliberal automation? And I mean, I.
- [56:50]
Rachel Monroe
To me, the thing that I keep going back to is, like, the idea that it's not necessarily a terrible thing to be asked for as long as you're compensated for it and you get breaks and you have other people to, like, be real with. And I think it's like, that's just a lesson in all work, but also maybe like, all interpersonal relationships, too, is like, is. Is there, like, some sense that I'm being recognized for what I do. And that there, even if I have to be fake sometimes, there are other times, other places where I get to be real.
- [57:26]
Ash Compton
It is, I think, again, part of, like, living in civilized society. But, yeah, how is it being compensated? And is it fair? Is it, you know, is actual labor?
- [57:36]
Sarah Marshall
That's fair, right? And I would say doing the show is emotional labor. Like, no matter what's going on in my life, like, I have to. And also get to, like, sit down at a scheduled time and be like, hello, I am the side of myself that is the host of this show. You know, I am gracious, I am thinking on my feet. I am making you feel, you know, like, you're ready to learn and to get excited about the thing we're talking about. And, like, you know, if you're doing something that you enjoy, I think, like, almost inevitably there's some element of emotional performance or of inhabiting a certain side of who you are. But also, like, that's nice. Like, I. If I didn't have to sort of, you know, rally emotionally for certain roles in certain parts of my day, than, like, I would maybe spend too much time in a part of my brain that I don't like being in as much, you know?
- [58:34]
Ash Compton
Totally. Yeah. And we are all in relational. I mean, all three of us have emotional labor as part of our jobs. But to your point, Sarah, like, I think being alongside humans means that you do have to, like, even if you're on the upside down bug part of your period, like, have a Persona that is more, like, grounded. How did you know that's what I call mine?
- [58:57]
Sarah Marshall
I started crying while listening to MC Hammer this morning. It's really something. Yeah. Not because of it. During. That's great. I'm not, like, sad for him, to be clear. So I guess maybe my takeaway is that language is as useful as we let it be. And that, you know, probably any useful language can be weaponized, but that doesn't mean that we have to do it. And also, if you resent your husband that much, then, like, you don't have to be married. It's fine.
- [59:32]
Ash Compton
It's fun to be divorced.
- [59:33]
Sarah Marshall
And happy Valentine's Day. And I don't know who needs to hear this, but dump him. Tell us about your podcast. Tell us about where we can find you both and more of your work. And yeah, happy, happy Valentine's Day to us all.
- [59:50]
Ash Compton
Bad Therapist can be found wherever you get your podcasts. And we are @badtherapist pod on Instagram. We have a hotline.
- [59:59]
Sarah Marshall
Oh, my gosh. All right. They have a hotline. Check it out. And Rachel, you have written many wonderful things. Is there anything that. Not even necessarily most recent, but like, what of yours do you want people to experience? What have you liked lately that you've done?
- [60:16]
Rachel Monroe
I want them all to do the emotional labor of making me feel better by buying my book. Great Savage Appetites. I like to call it Meta True Crime. It's sort of about why true crime has such a fascination, particularly for women. What. What is happening there?
- [60:36]
Sarah Marshall
And Ash, anything to promote.
- [60:38]
Ash Compton
I mean, that's tough because I have a private practice. You can find it at Mood Psychotherapy. But this is not necessarily where I'm going to get clients. But I have a website, ashnorthcompton.org.
- [61:00]
Sarah Marshall
And that was our episode. We have learned so much. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for being our Valentine. We couldn't do any of this without you. Thank you to Rachel Monroe and Ash Compton of Bad Therapist for being our guests today. And please check out more of their work. It's fantastic stuff. Thank you, as always, most of all to Carolyn Kendrick for editing and producing. And we will see you in two weeks.