Emotional Labour and the Autistic Spectrum

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Emotional Labour: The MetaFilter Thread Condensed

From the document:

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.

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I know it will take a while for people to read the document and post about it if they're going to, but I want to keep this thread on the front page for a while to give people a chance to see it, so I'll keep bumping it occasionally.

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I read it. Burned through most of it in one sitting last night. Finished it and reread a large amount of it today. I think I understand some things my mother has been trying unsuccessfully and painfully for both of us to get into my head my entire life. I see so much of what she has said to me, with me sometimes reacting to it in some of the ways the males in the lives of those posters reacted to it. So I now have some understanding of emotional labour and may be able to perform it myself on some rudimentary level. In the past I might have understood it is nice when someone performs it on me, and why it is nice, but with roughly the same level of comprehension of the mechanics of it as watching a magician perform magic. You know why what they did pleased you and what they did, but you don't understand it. You couldn't then do it yourself despite having seen it done.

Thanks for reading it and taking the time to comment.

When I first read it I felt like my eyes had been opened to a whole new world, many things made sense to me that hadn't made sense before. I received a lot of the intensive emotional labour training that most girls in my culture and generation got when I was little, but much of it never made sense to me and the things that were presented as supposing to come naturally to me didn't feel natural at all (like being nurturing and comfortable around babies--I have never felt comfortable around babies and don't feel an instinctive nurturing feeling with them like I'm told I'm "supposed to" as a woman. I feel nurturing with baby animals--kittens=squee!--but not people. Baby people freak me out and always have.) I never wanted to play with dolls or babysit because I didn't see the point of "practicising" being a mommy when I had no interest in ever being a mommy. It's like the training didn't take with me, but because I didn't know growing up that I was autistic, only that I was different in some way, I had no idea how to deal with people's social/gender expectations of me and not being able to live up to them. I had no idea how much this would impact my relationships in my teen and adult years, no idea how I was deficient or why, only that I was deficient and disappointing in some way.

Finally having emotional labour explained to me, it WAS like having a magic trick explained: before, I could tell something was happening that I couldn't follow but had no idea what it was I was missing, and now that it's been illuminated I can't unsee it.

It's given me this new lens to look through back at previous events in my life to make clearer what before was blurry and indistinct.

Yes, I feel similar. I can relate to a lot of what you're saying. It will be interesting to see where this takes me.

Something that doesn't come up in the thread is that we refer to emotional labour as "the little things". So it's hardly surprising people would assign it an importance befitting of that description.

I would venture to guess that those who provide the bulk of the emotional labour in their relationships would be less likely to see it as "the little things" and more like a great effort that goes unrecognised and unappreciated. It's those of us who don't do our share who view it as "the little things"--which is part of the problem.

An example from our own boards (and the thread in which I first posted the above link, that got me thinking about the subject of emotional labour):

viewtopic.php?t=334450

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It is definitely a challenge. I am often oblivious to the socioemotional cues expected of women as well, and it's created lots of awkward interpersonal situations in my life as an adult. When I was younger, I was just viewed as this nerdy tomboy, but by the time I started trying to take on increasingly complicated social cues and the lot as I got older, it became clear that I had a major deficit in this sort of processing -- even the nerdiest of tomboy neurotypical girls eventually figure out more than I ever did. I do not make close female friends well at all because of this sort of thing.

I've also had trouble maintaining what few female friendships I managed to make (in school, mostly.) As we aged they all got married and had kids, and we just grew apart because we had nothing in common anymore and I couldn't relate to them. I just don't seem to be compatible with most people over the long term, something comes up that makes me realise that our values are very different. But with women especially, if you are not interested in talking about children and child-rearing when women are in that phase of their life, they're not going to want to talk to you because children and child-rearing is practically all they talk about or are interested in. Even small talk with most women revolves around their kids, and small talk is already difficult for me to do.

It's different with women who think you probably want kids but just "haven't met the right guy yet" so they pity you and treat you like you are an unfinished person and try not to bring kids up too much because they're afraid of upsetting you by talking about something you want but don't have; when they realise you don't actually want kids and aren't interested in kids they don't know how to respond to you at all. Some respond as if there must be something wrong with you, like the only reasons a woman might not want kids must be pathological in nature. They can't understand not being exactly like themselves (always wanting children from a young age, going ga-ga over babies) and so when they encounter someone different their lack of empathy makes them project all kinds of weird stuff onto you. It's awkward.

Yes, child-rearing is certainly a big bonding topic for most women. To an extent, that is perfectly okay, because motherhood is obviously very important in life -- but it's not the only thing women do in life, and it seems most women (and men) are prone to forgetting that.

I'm conservative Christian, and I've noticed there are some sub-groups of Christians in particular (Quiverfull, Patriarchy, etc.) where motherhood is practically taken to idolatry. These sets of people, who are always so vocal about the need to be Biblical, forget that the Apostle Paul actually esteemed singleness ahead of married life for women (1 Corinthians 7:34), which would also negate motherhood because fornication is forbidden in both testaments. Again, not that motherhood is bad, but even in the most strict Christian circles, the woman's focus should be God first. Paul realized that most women probably don't want to be single, so marriage and child-rearing are still fine, but they aren't the idols or necessities that Quiv/Pat try to make them out to be.

I was raised in a secular household and in a relatively secular community so I can only imagine how patriarchal Christianity would make that mismatch between me and society worse. It does seem like a lot of modern Christians misinterpret the basic tenets of their own faith and spend a lot of time judging other people even though Jesus specifically taught that it isn't our place to judge each other.

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I hope this thread doesn't die, I'm really interested to hear others' takes on the MetaFilter thread and emotional labour and autism and how they intersect with gender expectations.

i am a slow reader, so i just read a little. it reminds me of the movie "the color purple". the character celie performed emotional labor (as i understand the meaning of emotional labor) and was very unappreciated.

I wonder if that's part of the reason why so many women who have raised families can relate to that character? I would agree Celie's story is a good example of the price of emotional labour that goes unrecognised and unappreciated (or as in her case is abused.)