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Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'
Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward by Gemma Hartley
1 review
kaycie51782's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
This is a great book to read when you're really pissed off that you tripped over your partner's shoes (AGAIN) and put them away. The author is right there with you, with her validation, her own experiences, and a lot of "what the hell is wrong with men?!" There were several lines in the opening chapter that were so close to home and my own experiences that my Fitbit recognized the change in my heart rate and alerted that I seemed stressed.
The author does a great job of explaining what emotional labor is, that it is frequently (very frequently) expected of women, and unimportant to men. I did learn that homosexual and gender non conforming couples are less likely to have similar discrepancies in who manages what within a household and relationship. Since they are already outside the heteronormative culture, they don't fall back on it in their domesticity.
What I really wanted from this book was how to manage it, some strategies, some way to help explain the differences in mental work that would help paint the picture. But the author spent a lot of time detailing the passive aggressive ways she tried to get her husband to notice things needed done instead. She later goes on to explain it was a bad idea and unfair to her husband to act that way near the end of the book.
The final couple of chapters spent a very brief amount of time talking about the ridiculous expectations that women place on themselves, that they are held to an impossible standard, and then pass on that impossibility to their husbands, and then get mad when they fall short (even though we all know it's a losing game to begin with). I wish that section had been longer.
But I also understand that, ridiculous expectations or not, a lot of invisible work is being done by women. This is not news to me, even though I have significantly relaxed my standards in a lot of things, other things that can't afford to be relaxed (like work deadlines, for example) still somehow fall to me or else they don't seem to get done.
If you want to be mad about this, if you want to feel like someone understands, if you need to know that research is on your side, definitely read this book. If you want strategies to change it, this isn't what you're looking for.
I felt very seen reading this book.
The author does a great job of explaining what emotional labor is, that it is frequently (very frequently) expected of women, and unimportant to men. I did learn that homosexual and gender non conforming couples are less likely to have similar discrepancies in who manages what within a household and relationship. Since they are already outside the heteronormative culture, they don't fall back on it in their domesticity.
What I really wanted from this book was how to manage it, some strategies, some way to help explain the differences in mental work that would help paint the picture. But the author spent a lot of time detailing the passive aggressive ways she tried to get her husband to notice things needed done instead. She later goes on to explain it was a bad idea and unfair to her husband to act that way near the end of the book.
The final couple of chapters spent a very brief amount of time talking about the ridiculous expectations that women place on themselves, that they are held to an impossible standard, and then pass on that impossibility to their husbands, and then get mad when they fall short (even though we all know it's a losing game to begin with). I wish that section had been longer.
But I also understand that, ridiculous expectations or not, a lot of invisible work is being done by women. This is not news to me, even though I have significantly relaxed my standards in a lot of things, other things that can't afford to be relaxed (like work deadlines, for example) still somehow fall to me or else they don't seem to get done.
If you want to be mad about this, if you want to feel like someone understands, if you need to know that research is on your side, definitely read this book. If you want strategies to change it, this isn't what you're looking for.
I felt very seen reading this book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Sexism
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