The inaugural session of the Feminist Reading Club explored emotional labour — the unequal distribution of emotional support, nurturing, and communication work in relationships. Drawing on two scientific papers, we examined how gender socialisation shapes who provides emotional labour and who receives it, and what research says about its effects on relationship quality and wellbeing. We also asked whether perceived differences in empathy between men and women reflect biology or learned gender roles.
Materials
Main
- Paper 1: A Labour of Love — on the division of emotional labour in relationships and its effects on relationship quality, feelings of being loved, and conflict (paper · attached)
- Paper 2: Empathy and gender roles — how emotional communication is learned, and why gender-role orientation (rather than biological sex) may predict empathic capacity (paper · attached)
Supplementary
- Optional paper on emotional concepts and how they shape emotional communication — goes into more depth on how we develop our vocabulary for emotions (paper · attached)
Session structure
- What is emotional labour?
- Personal definitions before the academic one
- Is emotional labour inherently negative, or can providing it also benefit the giver?
- Transactional framing of relationships — useful or harmful?
- Paper 1: A Labour of Love
- Who does more? Division of emotional labour in couples
- Women who provide more than they receive report lower relationship satisfaction and more depressive symptoms
- How do we recognise if someone cannot engage in emotional work?
- Paper 2: Empathy and gender
- It may not be biological sex but female gender-role orientation that determines empathic capacity
- Men in secure environments show more empathy — what does this say about fragile masculinity?
- How do we reward or penalise emotional availability in men?
- Gender stereotypes and emotional labour
- How do we reinforce gender stereotypes through our own behaviour?
- Where does society reward conforming to these stereotypes?
- How can we apply this in our own lives?
- How does emotional labour foster or strain relationships?
- Staying close to yourself while still providing support
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