A Gendered Division Of Emotional Labor

In “Exploring the Managed Heart” by Arlie Russel Hochschild and “All the Happy Workers” by William Davies, the authors agree that the emotions of employees are influenced by corporations in order to increase profit, but while Davies suggests workers can resist this phenomenon, Hochschild argues that employees will be affected, even in their private lives. Hochschild uses the term “transmutation,” which is the blending of a worker’s private and public life, to show how corporation’s requirements for “emotional labor” affect the employee’s personal lives (15). To support how corporations are effecting workers personal lives, Hochschild states “transmutation of an emotional system to convey that what we do privately often, unconsciously, to feelings...

The workers at the deli chain Pret A Manger is used as a prime example of this by Timothy Noah in his article “Labor of Love.” Noah’s article builds primarily off the work of Arlie Hochschild, who defined “emotional labor,” which is is when employees must "induce or suppress” emotions in order to make the customer "experience a positive feeling" (1-2). According to Noah, Pret’s employees are extreme examples of “emotional laborers,” as they must follow set “Pret Behaviors” at all times. These rules of behavior make positivity and smiling mandatory, and subsequently all Pret workers must not only serve customers food, but also cater to their emotions (2-3). If employees fail to uphold their happy facade they face repercussions, often in the form of withheld bonuses (3). Noah states the stress to perform to these standards at all times makes the employees into “enthusiasm cops,” watching and enforcing these emotional behaviors onto one another, and as Noah puts it, “further constricting any space for a reserved and private self” (3). It is in this way that Pret manipulates its own workers into doing extra work (emotional labor and the enforcement of it) without extra

Where as the same study showed that men who use anger were given the chance to justify their emotion by the situation they are put in and not judged unfairly (Kreamer). The stereotype that women are sensitive and nurturing has enabled them to be seen as competitors in the business world and because of this study they now feel the need to refrain from displaying their emotions completely to be seen as a competitive candidate for a job. “Emotionality at the workplace is not a female issue, men and women are equally driven by it, even if the emotions are sometimes expressed differently” (Kreamer).

This section will primarily focus on analyzing Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour amongst the three main characteristics it entails. It will first define emotional labour which will be followed by an explanation of the three characteristics involved. The topics covered are quite relevant because it is crucial to first understand the theory of emotional labour in

This is the internalization of the negative emotional feelings within an individual. These feelings include inadequacy, unworthiness, etc. Similarly, another common thread within her interviews that can be associated with psycho-emotional disablism, was the use of emotional work. According to Liddiard (2014), the term “emotional work” or “emotional labor” originated from Archie Hochschild, who said that emotional work exemplified “ the labor [which] one is required to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind to others” (117). Thus, emotional work can be compared to the actors and actresses you see in movies and plays, who are merely putting on a

Emotional labor can easily be described as being required to display specific feelings or emotions toward customers, co-workers, clients and other people at work, when those feelings aren't genuine. It's always great to have happy employees, but when emotions are faked insomnia may be on the rise.

I had began to start this paper by talking about a dad with supermom qualities until I realized that according to Microsoft Word’s spellchecker the word “superdad” is not in its dictionary; though, of course, supermom was. This mere fact signifies the role that men play or rather doesn’t play within the household. As Arlie Hochschild mentions in The Second Shift, the supermom is the mother that can balance work, home, and childcare; the superdad doesn’t exist. The assumption that the cultural climate in the United States is less hospitable to parents who put children first and has created a job culture that has expanded at the expense of family culture is valid because these families must “violate” historical attitudes and practices of

During my time at the soup kitchen, I had to utilize emotion management when dealing with people and situations in which it would have been inappropriate for me to react in the way that I would otherwise have wanted to. Emotion management is the act of obeying “feeling rules” and responding appropriately to situations (Brym and Lie 2012:77). For example, when a homeless man came into the soup kitchen and started to dance and shout instead of calmly sitting down and eating his meal, I courteously asked him to sit down and to try not to disturb the other guests of the establishment. Regardless of any initial emotions of fear, annoyance, or confusion, I had to respond appropriately to the situation by controlling my emotions and engaging in acceptable behavior. I especially had to utilize emotion labor, which is distinguished

Gender roles have really changed throughout time, whether it’s women or men. For women, their roles have drastically changed, and in this play one can see the progress that women have made on affirming their roles either as housewives or just a woman in general. The man’s role may be the main role in this play. The man, in this case, runs the family and is the provider for his family. The woman is the caretaker, does the cooking, and the cleaning. Each one of these roles have an impact in this play. Both of these roles have developed throughout the play, and also throughout time.

770). It was a term first coined by Hoschild to demonstrate how there is an assumption that emotional labor is seen as a natural ability for women in particular, and is viewed as invisible labor. There are three factors which form the criteria for labor to be distinguished as emotional labor. Firstly, employees have face-to-face or voice contact with the public, meaning they have to have to interact with the public is some way. Another factor is for the employees to be expected to create an emotional state in another person in a positive way. Lastly, the performance of the employees is dictated by management. Thus, jobs which obey the criteria listed previously would be assigned as having employees perform emotional labor. There are various jobs in which employees have to perform emotional labor and Hoschild estimated that 1/3 of workers in the United States perform emotional labor (Hoschild,

Hochschild, being the pioneer of this idea, has analysed just the adverse effect of emotional labour at the work environment however there exists evidence that observes the positive components of it too. Emotional labour requires showing a tremendous scope of feelings, from thinking to sensitivity, criticalness to friendliness, dissatisfaction to sympathy to anger and some more. It's also important to remember here that these feeling are shown independent of how the employee is being dealt with by the clients. Showing such a wide variety of feelings almost every day has psychological effects on service workers, more negative than

Societies have different expectations on individuals based on their sex. People, often, adapt to these expectations. As a result, they feel like these stereotypical beliefs are how a person should present his/her self. Two theories that can explain this is gender socialization and emotion work. Both of these theories can explain how men and women are expected to act in consideration to presentation of

Throughout the years there have been many people across our nation that have asked and even questioned why there are barely any male teachers in our elementary school systems. Some believe it is because males have a tendency to be less patient with children and students at a younger age. (James, 2013, p. 1) Some believe the reason is because of the past; previously the elementary school teacher professional was mainly open to women when they were able to join the workforce, “Although teaching was once a career for men, by the time women began entering the work force in large numbers in the 1960s, teaching, along with nursing, was one of very few careers open to them. But despite inroads that women have made entering previously male-dominated fields, there has not been a corresponding flow of men into teaching and nursing.” (Rich, 2014, p.1) This shows there is still a dominance of women in the teaching workforce. For instance, there are exactly

While labor can and is often seen as work that is done physically, it is also seen as an act which necessitates using mind and soul. Depending on the area in which an individual works, it can lean towards using all three – body, mind, and soul – to be successful. It is at this point that Emotional Labor (Hochschild, 1983) begins to take its place in the work environment. Emotional Labor is using self to perform work where an employee creates a pleasant atmosphere by giving good customer service. The ability to use self as a means to perform better on the job may have larger implications than we know of. This paper will look at different ideas which contribute to Emotional Labor as a workplace construct and the effects it has on the

Emotional labour could qualify as an additional work effort for employees since it entails them to perform under a specific mood or appearance in addition to the regular work they render. Meanwhile, fast-paced service industries are generally composed of job roles that require working at a rapidly changing and demanding environment such as restaurants and other hospitality services. While emotional labour is a major requirement for this industry, it also becomes an issue since both concepts does not necessarily align well. More importantly, since emotional labour appears as an extra effort for employees, it causes a strain in performance.