20 Jan 2017, 6:18 am
01 Feb 2017, 6:18 pm
There seem to be many women of our generation doing the same, learning that they can live alone successfully and don't have to buy into that life that is really a trap, a cage. I've even heard of older single or divorced women living communally to save money (like groups of 4-5 friends buying a house together) and sharing the domestic chores and caring for one another.
They say it is increasing our life expectancy, this learning to live alone (or in small groups of other women) and without the shackles of traditional domesticity, and I think it's wonderful. The value of freedom cannot be quantified.
I was thinking about it - living with maybe one or two women when I'm much older. We could look after each other, have a glass of wine in the garden together on warm July evenings, have some pets... After the whole turmoil of productive adult life, maybe having children, just running constantly... we could have peace, quiet and friendship in our private space. Sounds good to me
28 Feb 2017, 7:16 pm
I also just recently left a relationship where I did a lot of emotional labor and household labour and didn't get much in return. The irony is my ex probably has the same issues I do although I wasn't diagnosed at the time and he still isn't (ADHD/Aspergers) but yet I was STILL expected to do all the chores, organising, making sure we got places on time. It didn't matter that stuff was hard for me too. Even though I was exhausted and unhappy most of the time everyone acted like I was unhappy about nothing and said things like "well he's a man, what can you expect?" To which I'm like "well he's an ADULT like me!"
I feel like he's a lot worse off than me in the long run because although I was forced to learn this stuff at least it means I'm competent in ways that he isn't because everyone's expectations were much lower for him and will remain low because he's a man.
In terms of emotional labour I have always had a strong desire to help sad or struggling people but didn't know how. Sometimes I don't understand how a friend was probably feeling until I have time to think about it for a day or two and then it's too late. Or I don't know how to express what I'm feeling except to say "I feel bad for you" which can sound dismissive to them. I feel empathy and feel strong emotions about their situation but can't find a way to express it to them. So I guess I'm saying I wish I could do more emotional labour for my friends and family 
!
01 Mar 2017, 10:35 pm
From the document:
1. The overhead of caring
I often talk about emotional labor as being the work of caring. And it’s not just being caring, it’s that thing where someone says “I’ll clean if you just tell me what to clean!” because they don’t want to do the mental work of figuring it out. Caring about all the moving parts required to feed the occupants at dinnertime, caring about social management. Caring about noticing that something has changed - like, it’s not there anymore, or it’s on fire, or it’s broken.
It’s a substantial amount of overhead, having to care about everything. It ought to be a shared burden, but half the planet is socialized to trick other people into doing more of the work.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:33 PM on July 15 [199 favorites]
2. The full weight of a double-standard
a. “My brother once said, proudly, that he doesn’t take any notice of anything unless it splats in his face, because that way he knows he is only dealing with the important stuff. ”
vs.
The expectation that women will be naturally, effortlessly skilled at 1) keeping track of what’s important to family members, friends of the family, work colleagues; 2) having antennae out for others’ invisible and subtle expectations/missives/tone/frequency of contact/mood/needs; 3) noticing entropy and taking note of potential problems; 4) acting as a fixer-facilitator-logistics coordinator; 5) making things comfortable/easy/non-threatening for others; while 6) doing this on an unpaid basis; 7) doing this on an unnoticed basis;
being mocked and/or gaslighted for mentioning the existence of all of this as work, and as exhausting; 9) being called nags and told to lower our standards, because we notice so much; and 10) feeling like we are failing at “being in charge of everyone’s happiness.”...I included that quote (and added a bit of formatting to make it easier to read) to help explain the definition of emotional labour.
I ended up posting this condensed MetaFilter thread in another thread and it got me thinking about how the subject relates to AS specifically, and how gender and AS may factor into the impact of emotional labour (and struggling with understanding and performing emotional labour, which I think many of us on the spectrum do) in one's life.
I put this in the Women's Discussion forum because the first time I read through this document I felt like I had a sort of revelation in understanding how my autism and my gender have both played a part in my struggle to make relationships work in my life--because of the extent I have struggled with the emotional labour component of human relationships, and how, because I am female, that has coloured people's expectations of me socially, and why I seem to let so many people down in regards to those expectations. I am curious to see the reaction of other women on the spectrum to the document and what it says about emotional labour. It's a really long thread (it took me a couple days, broken up into several sessions, to read the whole thing), but it was incredibly enlightening and worth the read. I hope you guys will look it over and let me know your impressions and how your autism and gender have intersected in your own life in regards to emotional labour.
I was fairly lacking in this area growing up. I'm sure there have been a number of occasions when people have become angry with me for not doing something they thought I should do, or doing something they thought I shouldn't do, as if I'm supposed to be able to read minds, and I can recall a number of times growing up people telling me to smile, or asking me why I wasn't smiling as if I should be smiling all the time. I also find that people tend to become down right irate when I don't meet their expectations of what a woman should be. It's almost as if people feel they are entitled to hostess like treatment from a woman, and I think that places and undue burden on girls and women on the spectrum.
12 Mar 2017, 7:52 am
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