I Hate The Term “Emotional Labor”.

Veryactivecolon · 2026-08-16T16:29:09+00:00

What i find the most bizarre about that argument is the sheer disconnect they have. They talk like women are the only ones performing "emotional labour" in a relationship.

Whatever happened to men having to be a rock to lean on? Is that not performing emotional labour? We have to deal with their insecurity, mood swings, crying, stress, supporting them through emotional events. That's what you do as a partner in a relationship. I know they are just arguing in bad faith, but why go out of your way to be so deliberatly toxic? Pfff i just dont have the energy for that.

Specific_Detective41 · 2026-08-16T15:57:59+00:00

Very true, the term is used as a tactic to silence men so that they don't talk about their problems.

Kuato2012 · 2026-08-16T16:09:24+00:00

The term "emotional labor" set a speedrun record for evolvong from "useful in a very specific academic context" to "so generously overapplied that the term has lost all meaning."

Joeboyjoeb · 2026-08-16T16:21:29+00:00

I have no idea what this term means when women use it. I've been accused of not burdening the "emotional labor" in a relationship. Yet I am the one constantly listening, taking complaints, and looking within to see what needs to change about myself.

What I think it means is that I'm not bringing up complaints or being picky about every little thing, and letting things slide. I probably need to be more assertive, but it bothers me that I'm not offered the same level of engaged listening that I offer when she has complaints. Instead it's defensiveness and anger.

volatile-solution · 2026-08-16T16:26:50+00:00

it's just a therapy-speak vocab, when someone uses it without any context, that's your cue to not to take that person seriously - like at all.

either way, we should rather learn to take our own emotions and feelings more seriously, and be as much as passive and less-considerate to emotions and feelings of other side. they don't want to do "emotional labour", they don't get to "trauma dump" on us and use us as their "unpaid therapists". use their therapy-speak against them.

BleedingBlacque · 2026-08-16T17:01:37+00:00

Emotional labor = actually giving a shit about your partner

They always complain about men getting away with doing the bare minimum. When they constantly complain about having to do the BARE MINIMUM. Like sorry youre expected to actually care about somebody other than yourself fir a change, how horrible.

funguy8892 · 2026-08-16T16:52:58+00:00

Every time I heard women talk about "emotional labour" I automatically assume they're trying to justify their own emotional unavailability.

Nobleone11 · 2026-08-16T17:11:02+00:00

This exposes the hypocrisy about the need for men to open up, cry, and never feel like expressing feelings will make them less of a man.

Except they do. By turning around and saying, "You're putting all this emotional labor on me. STOP IT!" it's essentially telling men to "Man up" in a different way. A more "Passive Aggressive Progressive" way.

They want men to open up but disparage their opening up as "Emotional Labor".

That's why I look at people who keep yammering about the need for men to open up more as shallow individuals who don't bother to dig beyond the surface as to why men don't open up. They just stay with "Toxic Masculinity", "Masculine Pride", and all that shit.

LoganCaleSalad · 2026-08-16T18:01:08+00:00

It's also a skill issue for women. Many women that get emotionally overloaded are doing it to themselves cuz of their own inability to let go of things that don't matter. For example, a husband can do a several chores to ease her burden but because it wasn't done exactly how she does it then it wasn't done in her book & she must redo it herself thus that's more "mental load." Quite often they're their own worst enemies, they're responsible for their own emotional load.

Tardigrade_Disco · 2026-08-16T18:13:43+00:00

There seems to be a campaign right now to vilify normal things that men do. Men are shitty people if they talk to their SO about problems in their life, and they're shitty people if they don't support women talking to them about their lives. There's also been a lot of discussion from women about men eating too much where they try to frame it as some sort of abuse. I saw a video the other day of a woman filming her SO returning for another serving of food. She was probably 5'5" and kinda of petite, he was easily 8-10" taller than her and not at all overweight. He noticed there was no more food and she snapped at him saying "IT'S ALL GONE YOU ATE IT ALL!" They're angry at us for being hungry now. It's abusive to not leave left overs. They can't fathom that somone larger than them requires more food. It's insane.

eldred2 · 2026-08-16T15:57:00+00:00

The only "emotional labor" women who talk about emotional labor actually engage in, is the effort they put in to pretending to care about the men they are currently using.

Remi_cuchulainn · 2026-08-16T16:17:25+00:00

The same with mental labor .

Litteraly the only people i saw use the term irl drown in a glass.

I'm sure you are exhausted from worrying but do you realize you worry about your 9yo stopping breathing for no reason

bookishwayfarer · 2026-08-16T16:26:33+00:00

No one should be taking anyone whose throwing these terms around in a blanket manner seriously. People forget that this was term was co-opted from service workers, and at the time of its conception, not gendered. I think one way is for men to talk about the emotional labor that they incur on behalf of their partners and others, so that it's not so asymmetrical. No one gets to own this term.

ESchwenke · 2026-08-16T16:09:09+00:00

What I hate is how the use of this term has changed. It was first coined to refer to the emotional control and composure required of public-facing occupations. Now it’s just any cognitive task women do in a relationship.

MelissaMiranti · 2026-08-16T15:57:36+00:00

Yeah but have you considered that asking people to care is just so much male entitlement? Of course it's male entitlement and not equality, because the people claiming it have perfect knowledge of every man, since men are a monolith.

Impossible_Serve7405 · 2026-08-16T16:20:06+00:00

As someone who's done the vast majority of this so called "emotional labor" in his relationships, I am tired of seeing this buzzword used to promote misandrist slop. That term and how it's used honestly feels like female dating strategy esque nonsense. It's also embarrassing how almost all the articles talking about it seem to be agenda posting pushing even more men bad hogwash.

dreamyangel · 2026-08-16T16:36:52+00:00

When women discover the weight of men's life, only to reject it openly. They could at least show some empathy even if they don't take the time to be there. But no.

KrvnkKev · 2026-08-16T17:42:58+00:00

I saved this comment about "emotional labor" seven years ago and every time i go back to it to read it and what has survived of the ensuing discussion these years on it just makes me kinda disappointed/sad how pretty much absolutely nothing has changed in this regard.

Outrageous-Floor-424 · 2026-08-16T15:59:36+00:00

When my ex was mad because I spent to much time talking to her friend, and so I had to sleep on the couch, can I log that as eight hours of emotional knowledge?

omegaphallic · 2026-08-16T17:11:19+00:00

The great irony of the term Emotional Labour is the folks who use it all the time and the ones who do it the least.

akaKinkade · 2026-08-16T17:41:24+00:00

There is so much to hate about it. I also love how "making social plans" is this "burden". Making social commitments that you basically force your partner to attend is such an inconvenience for the one who makes the plans?

Cookiedoughjunkie · 2026-08-16T21:58:11+00:00

While emotional labor did actually used to mean something, a lot of women watching tiktok and such started learning 'therapist speech' to weaponize doing less than the bare minimum and pretending it was more.

like my exroommate used to claim that all the time. She did 0. She spent her whole day being a stay at home... person. No work, just video games, tv shows and ordering door dash using her (now Ex') money.

when it came to house chores? Cooking/cleaning/taking care of her daughter? That was all me. And having to hear her talk about emotional labor was just... well, living with her in general started making me feel far less sympathetic for her and the things she'd claim to others. Then again, she also was diagnosed sometime after as bipolar and with depression but the way she coped was lying about how much she actually did and trying to belittle everyone else actually DOING the things she claimed she was doing.

I've seen other people do it too and they never mean it in the way it's meant.

"My (insert a male in their life) asks me how I want something done, so I had to use the emotional labor to tell him how I want something done. It's so much work. But when he did it without asking me he did it wrong and then I had to tell him to do it anyways, which is also more work"

"I asked for something to be done, they did it an hour later, instead of dropping what they're doing and doing it immediately. That was a huge amount of emotional labor on my part each minute waiting for him to actually do it. What are you talking about? I'll get around to doing it when -I- can. I'm busy... with what? Emotional labor." (so hypocrisy be thy name)

MonkeyUseBrain · 2026-08-16T21:57:56+00:00

I’m convinced women are accountability-adjacent, and this falls under that. Basically, not taking any responsibility for regulating their emotions and putting all that responsibility on men, then playing the victim.

Garbage behavior.

AbysmalDescent · 2026-08-17T02:17:46+00:00

It's clear that calling basic empathy for men "emotional labor" is completely rooted in misandry but that's even crazier is how much "emotional labor" women actually expect and rely on from men as well. Having to handle most/all of the rejection and take all of the initiatives(effectively being viewed as worthless) is emotional labor. Having to be stoic in order to "lead", and not give women the "ick" is emotional labor. Having to put women's feelings above your own all the time is emotional labor. Having to walk on egg shells around women is emotional labor. Having to tolerate constant misandry is emotional labor.

Big_Psychology_3 · 2026-08-16T18:13:15+00:00

Yes “emotional labor” is a gaslighting phrase used to overstate the complexity of a task.

hikereyes2 · 2026-08-16T19:46:20+00:00

Let's talk about the mental load next!!

_not_particularly_ · 2026-08-16T16:48:20+00:00

I dunno, I personally think the term could be really useful in highlighting a lot of the unbalanced expectations that are placed on men by some women in personal relationships 🤷‍♂️ I think feminism has done so much to take away language from men that’s needed to talk about men’s issues, I’d argue it’s their main weapon, so in my view it’s probably worth trying to “reclaim” a lot of the terminology so that it can start being used to pursue truth instead of feminism. Same thing with “rape culture”, it was coined by the men’s movement in the first place, I think if the truth starts becoming more and more unprofitable to ignore, this will give us leverage to reclaim the tools of communication of which we were originally stripped.

TheWatcheronMoon616 · 2026-08-17T04:13:09+00:00

If my partner doesn’t want to emotionally support or even listen and be empathetic when I am going through something, then they won’t be my partner. These woman that believe this are only hurting themselves. They will eventually be alone because people want to be supported by their person no matter the gender.

PooningDalton · 2026-08-17T06:11:24+00:00

Another odd term is "love bombing". Apparently if a guy openly expresses his feelings towards a girl, he's being "emotionally manipulative" or something.

AlphaArceus1 · 2026-08-17T06:58:23+00:00

This is another one of those terms whose gravity has completely altered with the ever-shifting entitlement dynamic social media is pushing upon women. Women start feeling entitled to constant emotional labor from men because it's somehow the "bare minimum". All this entitlement stems from the idea that men are somehow monolithic creatures who only care about sex, so they have to provide anything and everything to their partners at all times in exchange for that. Many women (to varying degrees) seem to choose to believe what social media pushes on to them, instead of actually making their own decisions and taking initiatives, which actually provides for an ironic argument against the idea that they are way more intelligent than men (again, another novel misandrist notion with no logical base).

EventfulAnimal · 2026-08-17T01:50:16+00:00

Do women have any idea how fucking exhausting they are to live with? It is backbreaking emotional labour.

aslfingerspell · 2026-08-17T18:30:59+00:00

My dad and the rest of our family does a huge help for mom's mental health.

"Go easy on mom. She's had a hard day." or some variation was not an uncommon text to get coming home.

cuddlebuns287 · 2026-08-17T23:42:15+00:00

"Emotional labor" was made to describe the labor of not completely losing it in a job that requires you to deal with other people, such as remaining professional when interacting with verbally abusive customers. Anyone using "emotional labor" to discuss basic human compassion is honestly a red flag; they see empathy and compassion as a chore.

ElysTTTrucks · 2026-08-18T07:24:58+00:00

"Emotional labor" used in the context that feminists use it (weaponized against male partners or even against men in general) reveals their absolute "everything for me nothing for thee" selfishness.

SuperMario69Kraft · 2026-08-16T15:59:29+00:00

I think it could be a valid term if it's either applied both ways or just towards men as good-faith constructive criticism.

I can vaguely see how there's some truth to the idea, but most of the time when feminists complain about "emotional labor", they're using that to conclude that too many men are undatable, instead of teaching men what they can do better for women in relationships.

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Tactical-69 · 2026-08-17T02:26:39+00:00

Most of the “women” that say this aren’t women. They are just girls calling themselves women. A real women is someone like my mom who thought their children good ideals and maintained the family as a single unit.

ElegantAd2607 · 2026-08-17T05:01:42+00:00

It's also them ignoring the fact that men today have less friends and acting as if it's women's problem.

Men don't have as many friends as women, many have no friends. Women suffer most because they have to do all the emotional labour for their husbands.

Title	I Hate The Term “Emotional Labor”.
Author	Man_Against_TheWorld
Upvotes	334
Comments	79
Date	August 16, 2026 3:05 PM UTC (3 days ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1vpzehe/i_hate_the_term_emotional_labor/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/i-hate-the-term-emotional-labor.1633158 https://theredarchive.com/post/1633158

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