Edit: Okay, wow. if the statement from a woman of “we owe you nothing” immediately sets you off emotionally, I would really encourage you to think through why that might be.
A more systemic phrasing could have been “we owe the patriarchy nothing”. I changed it to that for a second before realizing, again, that it was fine. A guy that has worked through internalized patriarchy around this will understand it’s not about them.
Patriarchy on the whole conditions men towards having a sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies, time, attention, labor, etc. It also conditions women that they should feel obligated to provide this without setting boundaries or expecting reciprocal solidarity.
Remember, we literally all have degrees of internalized bigotry, misogyny, racism, transphobia, etc because these are systemic issues. Our responsibility to ourselves and our comrades is to work through that. You are not a bad person for finding those brainworms in yourself, only if you refuse to do the work to address them.
Yes making women do emotional labour is bad. Women owe nothing to men by default. Women do not have to do something that men do not by virtue of them being a woman. They can choose to give men their time and emotional labour, but no man has a right to it. Do you disagree with that?
This post does not say “women are never going to do any emotional labour”. It says "men are not entitled to women’s emotional labour
Emotional labor by definition isn’t really a thing outside of the workplace btw. Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. Stuff like not getting angry at the customer who is freaking out at you for no reason. If you consider people confiding their problems in you as “emotional labor” and a problem then you are just a horrible person.
Yes I consider the person who made this poster to be intentionally misusing the term to try and rationalize being a horrible person.
Sure, I can adapt phrasing if that really matters to you. I’d encourage you to read through the comments of other women in this thread about this if you want to understand.
If someone confides a bunch of problems with me without checking in about how I’m at capacity or mental health wise, that’s not cool and they can’t be surprised if I’m not able to offer much beyond “hey, that sucks”. Men can easily reply with that, women often get shamed if they do for “not being nuturing” or we’re called slurs like “heartless bitch”.
say I have a girlfriend and after reading that I say wow, I really want to make sure I’m not making my girlfriend do any emotional labor. what do I do/stop doing?
This is an awesome question! You can start by asking her if she feels like you ever put too much on her without asking first. Checking in with people about how they’re feeling before you vent is important. You should also ask her how much she feels you are reciprocating with emotional support.
A ton of straight couples straight up do not talk about this and it leads to women breaking up with men. I have a lot of straight friends who have ended relationships because the guy just couldn’t even communicate. At the point you’re breaking up with someone for that, you also probably aren’t going to talk to them about it because they’ve already shown they’re unwilling to do that.
Men have an incredible capacity for emotional depth, the same as anyone else. Patriarchy victimizes men by pressuring them to suppress and close off that part of themselves.
Looking for support from a romantic partner, or even a close friend or a family member, is not making them. They choose to do it because they’re in a close relationship with you.
The problem is exactly what you said in the second paragraph, and that’s what this poster is saying. The problem we’re having here is that a lot of men are seeing a woman saying we don’t owe you anything by virtue of being a woman, and getting up in arms about it. Men are seeing this poster and instead of engaging with the core point of it - that women are expected to be kind, and always able to deal with men’s problems - are getting angry and going off on tangents about men’s mental health and accusing people of saying things they never said
