Seeking a Particular Answer

August 31, 2015 11:27 AM

I am looking (badly) for a very favorited answer to an AskMe from the last few years about how men shouldn't consider themselves feminists because they ask if they can help but instead should just help.

The author mentioned her roommates and what she wanted to them do proactively.

posted by tafetta, darling! to MetaFilter-Related at 11:27 AM (8 comments total)

Frowner: "Oh god the emotional work when living with "feminist" men."
posted by soelo at 12:06 PM on August 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

Reading soelo's linked thread after the creation of the emotional labor thread is pretty elucidating. There were a lot of salient points stated before, but its impact is a lot greater with the mental framework behind it.
posted by halifix at 12:26 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

That was the the one. Thank you soelo!
posted by tafetta, darling! at 12:49 PM on August 31, 2015

As always, Garry Trudeau was on this way before anyone else, in 1986 ...
posted by Melismata at 12:59 PM on August 31, 2015 [13 favorites]

OK, so this seems like an OK time to mention this: the conversations I've come across on this site regarding emotional labor actually have made a very significant, positive change to my life and that of my partner. Actually, mostly my partner. I hate to admit that I didn't approach things that way from the outset (clearly Gary Trudeau was aware of this many years before I was), but all the stuff about emotional labor made me realize "oh wow, I'm being an asshole." Then I had something of a capacity to a) not just think I was listening and b) rework the domestic side of our lives. Or, more specifically, I started pulling my weight.

I'm not asking for a medal or anything (the coveted "way to get up to a baseline of decency" award), and if we thought of it as repaying a debt to her we'd still have years to go. But anyway, now's as good a time as any to say - well, I don't even want to presume that I should say thanks, because the conversation wasn't about me. But just having this material on one's radar does make a difference. It does get heard. And believe me, I'm glad it was there.
posted by teponaztli at 4:20 PM on August 31, 2015 [22 favorites]

It is perhaps worth noting that Trudeau and his wife, TV journalist and anchor Jane Pauley, were raising twin 3-year-olds and an infant at the time of those cartoon. I am pretty sure he was not so much "aware", in a vacuum, as MADE aware.
posted by gingerest at 6:15 PM on August 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

This seems like a good time to mention the Crone Island Slack, which has been growing slowly and developing a reasonably active community base since the emotional labor thread closed. (It has more or less eaten the activity on the Google Groups listserv that Lyn Never helpfully organized at this point.)

If you're interested in more of the emotional labor thread and increased discussion on that topic/discussions of how EL relates to family/work/queerness/gender performance/weddings/community management/etc, feel free to drop me a MeMail with an email address and I can send you an invite.
posted by sciatrix at 6:20 PM on August 31, 2015 [5 favorites]

The funny thing is that Jeff, the boy in the 1986 Doonesbury cartoons, was later portrayed as a big screwup as an adult.
posted by Melismata at 8:22 PM on August 31, 2015