Curious Femme

Women still carry the emotional weight of family life, organising, remembering, and soothing others, even in supposedly equal partnerships. Here is why that matters.

We have come a long way from the days when housework was openly described as a woman’s duty, yet the emotional load, the remembering, the anticipating, and the comforting, has quietly followed us into the twenty-first century.

What Is Emotional Labour?

Sociologists call this emotional labour: the invisible management of feelings that keeps relationships, homes, and workplaces functioning smoothly. It is not listed on any payslip, yet it exists everywhere, from remembering your partner’s mother’s birthday to being the one who notices when a friend withdraws.

The irony is that women are praised for being “naturally caring”, while the mental toll is dismissed as simply being good at multitasking. This labour is not innate; it is learned. Girls are still socialised to prioritise others’ emotions over their own, to smooth tension, to mediate conflict, and to anticipate needs before they are spoken. By adulthood, this conditioning becomes second nature, often at the cost of our own wellbeing.

At work, women perform emotional labour when they soften emails, absorb tension in meetings, or mentor struggling colleagues. Yet studies consistently show that this work goes unrewarded, leading to burnout and resentment.

So how do we begin to rebalance it?

1. Acknowledge it out loud. Recognition is a radical act.
2. Track your unseen tasks. Seeing the invisible written down changes how you value your time.
3. Have the difficult conversation. Equality at home begins with clarity, not quiet martyrdom.

As Eve Rodsky writes in Fair Play https://amzn.to/3JZqBNJ , “When you finally see your work clearly, you can finally decide what you are willing to carry.”

That moment of clarity might be the beginning of real equality, not in theory, but in everyday life.

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CuriousFemme #Feminism #EmotionalLabour #Equality