Re:A catalog of wealth-creation mechanisms (2009)
by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Thursday October 07, 2021 @05:06PM
(#28792079)
Eh, I've mostly heard it used correctly in feminist articles. E.g. "The rise of the gig economy is forcing a lot of men to perform emotional labor for the first time."
The most interesting part of emotional labor to me is its connection to tipping culture in America. It's the reason why you usually tip a waiter but not a bus boy, and why you tip the room service person but not the delivery guy. The rule of thumb is: if someone's doing a job where they're expected to put on a smile even if their dog died that morning, they're eligible to get compensated via tips for that additional emotional labor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor
It doesn't really make sense in this context unless you only think of the emotional management homemakers do as labor and not all the other stuff they do. You already provided a perfectly suitable phrase in your post: "uncompensated domestic labour"