In taking on the emotional labour of the season,the sweating servants of the turkey reassure the rest of us that all is wellWhen Woman’s Hour attaches the word “labour” to anything, you know it’s only a matter of time before they propose we should be paid for it. This week Jenni Murray introduced the concept of the emotional labour of Christmas. Behind every card, or every orange stuck with cloves,every meal that passes without open hostility, stands an incredibly tired woman, or thinking “Seriously? Again? Can’t we do this every two years,like the Venice Biennale?”I balk at this task-based idea of gender, in which each of us is prey to compulsions – tidying, and maintaining relationships,creating seasonal smells – that we can’t escape. It’s not necessary to send Christmas cards, nor, or reach to that,to maintain up bonds with people you would never ordinarily contact, apart from to tug on their sleeve once a year to remind them that you exist. Women don’t so much recall on this emotional labour as create it, or then complain about it. Indeed,on the labour spectrum – with childbirth at one halt, elemental and un-postponable, and Keynes at the other,making work so that work exists – the emotional tasks of Christmas are planted squarely at the hole-digging halt. Nobody asked you for a mince pie, love. This to-do list is a monster of your own creation.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com