The male gender role of being the stoic rock in a romantic relationship is the most pronounced example of emotional labour that exists in life, and those who believe women do more emotional labour on average are either lying or ignorant.

As the title states, I believe that the male gender role of being the stoic rock in relationships is a form of emotional labour that pretty much dwarfs any other forms of emotional labour in most situations in terms of how difficult it actually is, the amount of emotional labour it actually requires and the long term toll it takes on someone's health.

We are probably all aware of the idea that women do more emotional labour than men. I'm gonna state here that this simply untrue and that not a single kind of manipulation tactic will make it suddenly become true.

Men, as the result of their gender role, are expected to behave as stoic rocks for their female partners. Basically being a rock that grounds their anxieties, that listen to them venting about the frustrations they experienced, delaying your grief so that she (and your kids) can grief without having to worry about anything else, having to stay calm and collected in the face of conflict and argument, being the one to apologize first, being the one to apologize even though you aren't wrong, being the one who has to be okay with their arguments being dismissed regardless of their merit because your partner started crying and to be told that "caring about what is right" is immature as relationships aren't about being right. Men are expected to neglect their own boundaries whenever it inconveniences their partner, and even when their partner is abusive, they are blamed instead and expected to just keep on giving more and more with seemingly no limit. Men don't get as much empathy, men are raised with the idea that their value lies in independence and not being a burden to others. Men are expected to sacrifice their passions and body for their families, men are expected to not take their own insecurities seriously, men are expected to be main the financial responsibility in their family. The list is endless and just keeps going on and on.

All of this combined means that men have to do a large amount of silent emotional labour that they never directly talk about and that is required from them just to function in society at all. This labour is more significant than the labour that comes from things like remembering birthdays, sending out christmas cards, or even the mental load that comes from having to organise and plan household chores. Men just don't usually talk about any of their labour because it is a basic requirement to be seen as an actual man in the eyes of others at all.

When people claim that women do more emotional labour, it is just an expression of how much men behaving as what is expected of men is taken for granted and not acknowledged for the kind of labour it requires. Ironically, those people who claim this are often not ingaging in certain kinds of emotional labour themselves that they should to be better human beings. They are not ingaging in the emotional labour of imagining what it would be like to live with the male gender role, they are not imagining how a man being stoic actually works psychologically. Instead they assume it is as simple as lazily avoiding your own emotions, basically being an act of not doing labour rather than doing labour.