So I have been researching 'emotional labor'. This means things like the expectation to excel at being a diplomatic, supportive, warm, sensitive, sentimental and friendly person. The expectation that you will remember special occasions, will be talented at hosting and gift giving and will remember everything about everyone and will always know the correct thing to say or do. All of this is true. A significant burden is on women to socially 'perform'. As a woman with Aspergers, I feel this in my soul.

I keep reading about how men and the patriarchy are the reasons why women have to do emotional labor and that's where I strongly disagree. In fact the expectation for women to perform socially and act like everyone's cheerleader, mom and mentor comes from women. This is why I have never really been good at female friednships, because I'm crap at emotional labor. Yet my relationships with men have not been effected. Most men couldn't give a crap about most of that stuff. My husband honestly doesn't care that our house is clean (I do, so that's why I keep it clean, my husband would happily live in filth and wouldn't care if I didn't clean) or that I remember his birthday (in fact he's relieved to have a wife who doesn't care a lot about special occasions, he says that in the past he's felt pressured to celebrate his birthday and he doesn't want to).

Then there is the claim that women have to guess men's feelings and make everything alright when something upsets them. I don't have this experience with men at all. Most men want to go and deal with negative emotions on their own and when they are moody and sullen you just give them some personal space. It's actually women who want you to guess their feelings and make everything OK again.

Most of the people who have negatively judged me for not being a warm, sentimental person who always knows what to say or do have been women. Women judge my parenting, my sense of style, who I am as a person, what I cook for dinner, what my home decor is, how I walk and talk and present myself, practically all my choices far more than men do. It's women who shun you when you forget to send them a birthday card or tell them how stunning and brave they are for whatever it is. This performance that I apparently have to stage and this thing called emotional labor is an expectation that women generally have of other women and themselves. I don't fit the mould because I'm socially abnormal and I have paid the price.

Blaming men is all a big projection. Women do emotional labor for themselves and other women.

I'm not going to claim that my relationships with men have been perfect, they have had their separate problems, but researching the concept of 'emotional labor' and what that means has given me an aha moment about my difficulty in relationships with other women.