Emotional Labor and Female- On- Female Emotional Exploitation

Emotional Labor and Female- On- Female Emotional Exploitation

I was thinking about possibly writing a post or two more about the concept of Emotional Labor in the future.

First, here is a primer from another site explaining a little bit about what this issue is about, with a few comments by me farther (way farther) below it:

(Link):  50 Ways People Expect Constant Emotional Labor from Women and Femmes

Excerpt:

Emotional labor is the exertion of energy for the purpose of addressing people’s feelings, making people comfortable, or living up to social expectations. It’s called “emotional labor” because it ends up using – and often draining – our emotional resources.

Now, don’t get me wrong: Asking friends for advice, reaching out to people in your line of work, and other actions I’m about to mention can be part of a healthy relationship. The issue arises when it’s not reciprocal.

Many marginalized people can tell you that people frequently make demands of them that cross the line from participation in a mutual relationship to work – and unpaid work, at that.

Because we’re assumed to be naturally emotionally intelligent and nurturing, people don’t always understand that this is work for us. And because we’re expected to put others before ourselves, a lot of people don’t even care.

Here are just a few of the many ways that women and femmes, in particular, are expected to perform emotional labor without compensation or acknowledgement throughout their lives:

2. Friends offload their problems – sometimes serious problems that we’re not equipped to handle – onto us before we have agreed to talk about them, often expecting an immediate response.

3. Casual acquaintances and sometimes complete strangers do the same, often over the Internet and often sharing triggering details

6. When we have relatives or friends with physical or mental illnesses, they and their loved ones are more likely to reach out to us than men to take care of them.

Women, Stop Listening to Sexist Relationship ‘Experts’ by D. L. D’Oyley

Women, Stop Listening to Sexist Relationship ‘Experts’ by D. L. D’Oyley

If you are not already aware, Steve Harvey, whom this author discusses, is a Christian. He is sometimes a guest speaker on Christian network TBN.

(Link): Women, Stop Listening to Sexist Relationship ‘Experts’ (page 1)
(Link to Page 2) by D. L. D’Oyley

Excerpts:

Feb 2016

She Matters: If they’re men who hold shoddy views about sex and women, it follows that their advice to women will also be shoddy.

…It’s a common theme among men, including many so-called relationship experts. And that’s a huge problem.

It should be obvious why that’s an issue, but in case it isn’t: You have men who hold screwed-up views about sex and women telling women how to be better women to land a man.

If the perspective with which they view women is shoddy, then it follows that their advice to women will also be shoddy.

Our Bodies Were Not Made for Sex by T. Swann

Our Bodies Were Not Made for Sex by T. Swann

Very interesting editorial.

(Link): Our Bodies Were Not Made for Sex by T. Swann

Excerpts:

• The Genesis account of creation reveals that God created only one species of human. He said, “Let us make human,” and not “Let us make humans.” What essentially makes one a human then, is being created in God’s image, in God’s “likeness” (Gen.1:26-27). What defines us then is the ruah (Hebrew word for spirit) of God in our bodies (Gen.2:7).
• God is a spirit. Therefore, when he said, “Let us make man in our own image,” he wasn’t speaking of bodies, but of essence.
• God created the human body out of dust, a decomposable substance, but what is really human—the soul—is indecomposable. This is the God-like property that dwells in humans. The body is really the “house” or “clothing” of the soul.
• So if we are the same underneath the “clothing” of our bodies, in our souls, why are so many arguments for gender hierarchy based on that outer covering?

A Woman’s Fertility is Her Own Business, not Everyone Else’s by L. Bates

A Woman’s Fertility is Her Own Business, not Everyone Else’s by L. Bates

I may have blogged on this before. I apologize if this is a repeat. I’m pretty sure I already read this, or something very similar to it, about a month ago, and I may have blogged on this before.

(Link): A Woman’s Fertility is Her Own Business, not Everyone Else’s by L. Bates

Excerpts (I have a few comments to make below this long series of excerpts):

We obsess over fertility as if women are slot machines who simply need to be primed and pumped at the optimal socially acceptable moment for a baby to shoot out like a prize

When Michigan-based writer Emily Bingham took to her Facebook page to vent her frustration at intrusive baby questions, she probably expected a few of her friends to share or “like” her post. Accompanied by an ultrasound photo she had found online, (Link): her post implored:

Before you ask the young married couple that has been together for seemingly forever when they are finally gonna start a family … before you ask the parents of an only-child toddler when a Little Brother or Little Sister will be in the works … before you ask a single thirtysomething if/when s/he plans on having children because, you know, clock’s ticking … just stop.

Please stop.

You don’t know who is struggling with infertility or grieving a miscarriage or dealing with health issues.

You don’t know who is having relationship problems or is under a lot of stress or the timing just isn’t right. You don’t know who is on the fence about having kids or having more kids.

You don’t know who has decided it’s not for them right now, or not for them ever. You don’t know how your seemingly innocent question might cause someone grief, pain, stress or frustration.

But instead of reaching a few dozen of her friends, Bingham’s post went viral, shared by more than 77,000 people and liked by more than 42,000. It’s not surprising that Bingham’s message struck such a chord.

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages 

Before we get to the post by J D Hall:

Background:

• The Village Church (TVC) of Texas has placed Karen, who was once a member of theirs, under church discipline because she did not, according to them, abide by the church covenant she signed.
• Instead of conferring with the church on what to do, Karen, on her own, sought an annulment from the state of Texas, once she discovered her then-spouse, Jordan, was a pedophile.
• Karen said she spent about 50 days conferring with other Christians (not from the TVC), and in prayer, mulling over what to do, before seeking the annulment.
• This action of hers has ticked off TVC leadership, because Karen did not get their permission to get the annulment.
• Matt Chandler is the lead preacher of TVC.

You can read additional reporting of this situation here (additional material is at the bottom of this post):

• (Link, off site): She Wanted an Annulment from a Pedophile. What Happened Next Ignited a Controversy

Here is the page I am responding to:

(Link, off site): A Rational Response to the Criticism of Village Church  by  J D Hall, Pulpit and Pen blog

The covenant that Hall is so rigorously defending – TVC’s membership covenant – here does not even mention annulments.

As Karen explains (off site Link, Source):

• …it is worth noting here that although The Village Church claims [in their e-mail] that “We see an annulment as a subcategory of what Scripture defines as a divorce in Mark 10:9” …, this cannot be found anywhere in their Membership Covenant or Bylaws.
• In signing their Membership Covenant shortly after my 24^th birthday, I had agreed to nothing in regards to the possibility of annulment should I come to realize that my marriage had been a complete sham from the beginning.
• There is a vast difference between a divorce and a marriage that is voided on the grounds of fraud, and I had no way of knowing that the leadership of The Village Church would respond to it in this fashion.

Rebuttal To Anne Marie Miller’s Post About Modesty

Rebuttal To Anne Marie’s Post About Modesty

This post is sort of a continuation of my previous post (link to my previous post)

As to my previous post:

I tried the FlowerDust.net link (under the Singles category) which brought me here:

http://www.annemariemiller.com/

I have skimmed over some of her posts, and I’ve stopped to read the modesty one a bit more closely at this point.

DOUBLE STANDARD: CHRISTIANS TEACHING MODESTY IS PRIMARILY FOR WOMEN BUT NOT FOR MEN

At least, I take it that she is primarily concerned about female modesty, which itself is problematic, because if one is going to scold and lecture women not to be “immodest stumbling blocks,” one needs to give the same lectures to men, because there are visually oriented hetero women such as myself who get turned on by hot and sexy, near nude men, or men in swim trunks, or in-shape men in well cut suits, or men in T-shirts and tight jeans.

But Anne Miller doesn’t care about me and my temptation struggles – she only cares about men.

Here’s a link to her post:

(Link) Why All The “Modesty Conversations” Miss The Point

Begging your pardon, but 99% of Anne’s post misses the point about modesty discussions.

Here are some excerpts from her page:

• You do have freedom. And I think the greatest freedom is to choose to say no to your freedom for the sake of another person.
• …That, my friend, is not freedom.
• Let’s call it for what it is: entitlement. Many of us feel entitled to do what we want, to wear what we want, and to behave how we want to behave. Loving another is not about how we feel or even embracing our freedom.
• True freedom is laying down your life for another.

PROBLEM IS MALE ENTITLEMENT

The real problem is Christian male entitlement, not an entitlement attitude by women. A woman simply choosing her wardrobe for the day is her going about her business, she is living life, she is not engaging in “entitlement.” I address the concept of male entitlement a little bit farther below, so I won’t get into that more here and now.

CHRISTIAN DOUBLE SPEAK AND REDEFINING WORDS

Christians constantly redefine the meanings of words so that they end up being the opposite of what they are.

Christians are forever shaming and guilt tripping one entire gender – usually females – and telling them that freedom is not really freedom.

Or, some Christians, such as Miller, define the word “freedom” to mean something akin to, “allow your life to be limited by what men want, feel, and need.” Telling me to give up my rights and preferences for another group of people, due to their potential weaknesses or for whatever other reason, is not freedom of any kind, no matter how you couch it.

These sorts of Christians – like Anne Marie Miller in this example – say that inhibiting yourself and your rights is actual freedom.

No, it’s not, I beg to differ, once more: you are  being a codependent doormat, allowing your choices in life to be dictated by other people’s wants and preferences and their potential to sin.

Why Women Aren’t Having Children – from The Atlantic

Why Women Aren’t Having Children – from The Atlantic

(Link): Why Women Aren’t Having Children – from The Atlantic

Excerpts:

• As detailed in essays by 16 different writers, both male and female: because they don’t want to, and because not wanting to is perfectly reasonable
• by Sophie Gilbert
• Pope Francis is widely believed to be a cool Pope—a huggable, Upworthyish, meme-ready, self-deprecating leader for a new generation of worshippers. “He has described himself as a sinner,” writes Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Pope Francis’ entry on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world,  “and his nonjudgmental views on … issues such as sexual orientation and divorce have brought hope to millions of Roman Catholics around the world.”
• But there’s one issue that can make even Cool Pope Francis himself sound a little, well, judgy. “A society with a greedy generation, that doesn’t want to surround itself with children, that considers them above all worrisome, a weight, a risk, is a depressed society,” the pontiff told an audience in St. Peter’s Square earlier this year. “The choice not to have children is selfish. Life rejuvenates and acquires energy when it multiplies: It is enriched, not impoverished.”
• Ignore the irony of a man who’s celibate by choice delivering a lecture on the sacred duty of procreating, and focus instead on his use of the word “selfish.” This particular descriptor is both the word most commonly associated with people who decide not to have children, and part of the title of a new collection of essays, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed, by 16 different writers (both female and male) who fall into exactly that category.
• While the association appears to be so deeply embedded in the collective psyche that it’d take dynamite to shift it, if the book reveals anything, it’s that there’s an awful lot more to not wanting children than the impulse to put oneself first.

This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough by E. Tatum / Double Standards By The Anti-Celibacy Crowd About Friendships and Sexualization of Everything

This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough by E. Tatum / Double Standards By The Anti-Celibacy Crowd About Friendships and Sexualization of Everything

You’ll have to use the link below to read the entire page entitled, “This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough”, because I don’t want to copy their entire post here on my blog.

One thing I want to point out is a bit of a double standard going on here.

First of all, I first became aware of this “Nice Guys” article by way of Facebook group SCCL (Stuff Christian Culture Likes). Sometimes I agree with some of this group’s views on some issues, sometimes I do not.

SCCL is a group that regularly mocks or criticizes the traditional Christian position of upholding or defending the notions of celibacy, or of being a virgin until marriage – sometimes these concepts are all lumped together by them, and by others elsewhere on the internet, under the term “purity culture”.

I have argued on my blog the last few years that it is possible to be celibate, to refrain from having sex, and for men and women to be platonic friends.

I have also argued that it is society, both secular culture, as well as conservative and progressive Christian culture, and most secular feminism, which perpetuates the sexualization all male-female relationships (or even male-male, or female-female relationships).

For doing all this, for defending my choice, or the choice of others to be celibate, and for pointing out that not everything in life has to be sexual or is about sex, I sometimes get insulted or mocked by other people on the internet.

Everyone from secular feminists, to ex-Christians, to conservative Christians, to atheists (yes, ’tis so, click here to read), to political liberals, to political conservatives insult me or ridicule me for all this.

All these groups, who normally loathe each other – the atheists cannot stand conservative Christians, the liberals don’t like the conservatives and so on- all never- the- less totally agree that there is something bad, wrong, or weird about adults who choose to stay celibate, whatever their reason.

All these disparate groups fight like cats on dogs on many other topics, but they all come into agreement on this: they despise and ridicule celibacy (and sometimes, asexuality).

Do these people in these groups ever stop to consider, “Hey, other groups I normally disagree with on fundamental life choices happen to share with me a suspicion, dislike, or fear of celibacy, does this mean something, like maybe I’ve been wrong in my views about celibacy?”

I think it does. That your arch enemy chooses to fight with you on all other issues yet mocks celibacy right along with you might indicate that both of you are either misinformed about celibacy or terribly biased against celibates. Yeah, you might want to ponder that one for awhile.

There are more comments by me below this long excerpt:

(Link): This Is Why Being a Nice Guy Just Isn’t Enough by E. Tatum

Excerpts:

• There are a lot of really wonderful, well-intentioned men who have a difficult time understanding the difference between being nice to women and being an ally to women and women’s causes.
• Then there are other men who pretend to be nice in order to validate their manipulation of women for sex and romance. These are the people who I like to refer to as Nice Guys™.
• While this article is dedicated to helping nice men become better feminist allies, I want to take a second to clarify the difference between an authentically nice guy and a Nice Guy™.
• (Link): Nice Guys™, as many of you know, have become the object of  (Link): much loathing in feminist circles and among women and girls in general.Online, this is the guy who posts hashtags like #NotAllMen and (Link): #ReverseSexism, whenever we publish articles about (Link): street harassment,  (Link): rape culture, and (Link): male privilege.
• He is the exaggeratedly faux timid (read: passive aggressive) dude who still complains about the girls that didn’t date him in high school on message boards and in every other status update.
• Though the most stereotypical incarnation of the Nice Guy™ is a fedora-clad dudebro who spends too much time on Reddit and would probably push a six-year-old girl out of the way to get his hands on My Little Pony merchandise, the more garden-variety Nice Guy™ can be more difficult to spot. 
• Basically, he’s anyone who regards sex as the ultimate goal of interacting with women, and in turn views the idea of a nonsexual friendship with a woman as an abysmal failure.
• Trademarks of a Nice Guy™ include trying to guilt trip women into having sex, claiming that sex should be the inevitable reward for basic acts of friendship, and only being interested in building a friendship until the woman in question rejects them romantically.
• When he gets rejected, he cites every single time they did something nice for her, repeatedly asks her out (as in stalks her), and calls her a coldhearted bitch if she refuses to magically reciprocate his feelings within an almost instantaneous period of time.
• A Nice Guy™ truly cements his status as soon as he begins to complain that (Link): “women only date assholes.”

Beauty, Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry – from New Life Blog

Beauty, Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry

I have done many blog posts about topics mentioned in this other blog post from New Life Blog, which I have linked to farther below.

A lot of conservative Christians sound no different than the secular culture they criticize in terms of the subjects of sex, a woman’s physical appearance, marriage, and so on.

For example, conservative Christians will tell single women who desire marriage that they shouldn’t be too wrapped up in their looks, that any man worth his salt will value you based on your character and brains, remember that Jesus loves you for who you are, not what you look like, so don’t burn yourself out on dieting…

Yet, these same Christians will turn around a moment later and tell Christian single women something like, “But remember, God created men to be visually oriented, so you MUST stay thin, pretty, and attractive, and wear make-up all the time, if you hope to attract and keep a man, and here are some dieting tips for you.”

Yes, Christians often speak out of both sides of their mouths on this topic.

Another annoying tendency I have seen from male Christian speakers, authors, and pastors is to refer to a biblical woman character’s physical appearance, even if it’s a tangent to the text at hand.

Male Christians will sometimes pause in the middle of a sermon or discussion on Adam and Eve, for example, to go on and on about how surely, since Eve was the only woman created directly by God, she must have been a sexy, babe-a-licious fox, yum yum.

Seriously, one Christian guy – a famous author who has his own weekly TV show – I’ve seen who brings this topic up about every time he discusses Adam and Eve practically starts to salivate when thinking about how hot and sexy Eve must have been.

I suspect this guy must have a porn addiction problem, or something of that nature; his extreme fixation on Eve’s appearance makes him seem creepy, perverted, and sexist.

I notice these male idiots never mention that Adam must have been a smoking hot, sexy, hunk of man. And believe you me, most women, even Christian ones, are also “visually oriented” and prefer a hot, good looking, buff man, to an ugly, scrawny, obese, or bald one.

At any rate, I present to you a link  to another blog page which discusses some of these topics and other ones:

(Link): Beauty, Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry from New Life Blog

This blog starts out by describing how women are frequently depicted in the Old Testament: often, women’s physical beauty or virginity is mentioned, and women are usually identified in relation to a man, such as their father, brother, or husband.

Here are excerpts:

• Women in the New Testament
• So, how many New Testament (NT) women are described as being beautiful? None. Not one.
•   Moreover, Paul and Peter dissuaded women from concentrating on their appearance; instead they encouraged women to focus on their character and good works. Admittedly these instructions were given mainly to wealthy married women, and not to potential brides.
• [cut pertinent Bible verses the blog author cites]
• Women in the New Testament are mentioned primarily in reference to their Christian faith and ministry, and not in terms of their beauty or marriageability.  We simply do not know whether any NT woman was particularly good looking, or not.
• Also, many NT women are not mentioned in connection with a male relative. This is unlike OT women who were (Link):  typically identified as either a wife, daughter, mother or sister of a certain man.
• We don’t even know the marital status of several NT women.

Why Can’t We Accept That Some Women Don’t Want Kids? / We suffer from ‘Mom-opia’

Why Can’t We Accept That Some Women Don’t Want Kids? / We suffer from ‘Mom-opia’

I think at least one of these was written by Melanie Notkin – I first saw these articles mentioned on her Twitter feed. There are two different articles below.

(Link): Why Can’t We Accept That Some Women Don’t Want Kids?

(Link): We suffer from ‘Mom-opia’

Excerpts below each link.

(Link): Why Can’t We Accept That Some Women Don’t Want Kids?

• There Is No ‘Normal’ American Family Anymore. But Heads Still Shake When It Comes to Women’s Reproductive Choices.
• It used to be that the Cleavers—dad working an office job, mom raising two boys full-time—were the model American family. But the past several decades have seen dramatic changes—recent studies find that only about half of American adults are married today, compared to around 70 percent in 1960.
• A Pew Research Center study from 2010 found that 20 percent of American women now end their childbearing years without having borne a child, compared to 10 percent in the 1970s. During that time, the public has become more accepting of these women, but 38 percent of Americans surveyed for that study felt this trend was bad for society.
• …In advance of the Zócalo event “Why Have Kids?”, we asked a panel of experts: If Americans have come to accept a range of non-traditional family structures, why does a woman’s choice not to have children still elicit skepticism and judgment?

(Link): We suffer from ‘Mom-opia’ (I believe the author for this is Melanie Notkin)

Excerpts:

• We have “Mom-opia” in America—the myopic view of motherhood as womanhood. And yet, the latest U.S. Census Report on Fertility shows that 46 percent of women of childbearing years are childless.
• This all-women-as-mother view generates “black and white” assumptions for why women make their choices, ignoring nuances and shades of gray. I worked closely with DeVries Global PR on a 2014 national demographic study entitled “Shades of Otherhood,” inspired by my book, Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness, to better understand this cohort of modern women.
• Of the 19 million childless American women ages 20 to 44, over one-third (36 percent) are childless by choice. Some never felt motherhood was for them. Some don’t feel financially secure enough for parenthood. Some enjoy the freedom to live life to what they envision as its potential. And 18 percent of all childless women are on the fence, having not yet made a choice on motherhood either way.
• And then nearly half (46 percent) are involuntarily childless, some by biology, and more often, among the cohort I explore more widely in Otherhood, by circumstance.
• The women of the Otherhood are often single, often not by choice, and they choose to wait for love before motherhood.

More U.S. Women Are Going Childless (2015 Report)

More U.S. Women Are Going Childless (2015 Report)

(Link): More U.S. Women Are Going Childless (2015 Report)

• The percentage of U.S. women in their 30s and 40s who are childless is rising, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau show.
• Some 15.3% of U.S. women aged 40 to 44 were childless in June 2014, up from 15.1% in 2012.
• (Link): Changes in Census’s data processing likely affected its estimates for 2010 to 2012. But even before that, the trend was up: 9.6% of women in this age group were childless in 2010, up from 9.2% in 2008.
• For women in their late 30s, the rise in childlessness is sharper. Around 18.5% of women 35 to 39 were childless last June, up from 17.2% in 2012.
• All told, 47.6% of U.S. women aged 15 to 44 were without children last year, up from 46.5% in 2012.

Sounds like Christian Patriarchy or Extreme Christian Gender Complementarians – Iran aims to ban contraception and stop childless women from getting jobs

Sounds like Christian Patriarchy or Extreme Christian Gender Complementarians – Iran aims to ban contraception and stop childless women from getting jobs 

(Link): Iran aims to ban contraception and stop childless women from getting jobs 

This is quite similar to some Christians, who push early marriage and baby-making for everyone in America. I have more posts about it (please see the “related posts” section at the bottom of this post for those links).

I bet Southern Baptists, Reconstructionsists, and other types of Christians wish they could enforce this on American women.

I used to be a Southern Baptist, and I still have pretty traditional values, but, some Southern Baptists and other right wingers are way more strident than I am on some topics, and some of them are more severe.

This article mentions that this ban – which is obnoxious and sexist to start with – would also penalize women who are UNABLE (due to physical issues) to have babies.

See, this comes up among conservatives and Christians in the United States constantly – they tend to automatically assume that if a woman is still single past age 30 or 35, and is childless, that she deliberately chose to not marry and chose not to have children.

Please realize I have nothing against women who choose to forgo marriage and/or children. I do not have a problem with those choices.

However, I am someone who had wanted to marry but never met Mr. Right, so I am still single in my 40s. I never cared one way or another if I ever had a child or not, but I wasn’t intentionally avoiding having one. If I had a kid, it would have to be while I was married – if I don’t have a spouse, I cannot have a kid.

I find it very insulting when I read articles and editorials by Christians (especially Southern Baptists) who immediately assume that every last unmarried (or childless) woman is single (or childless) due to deliberate choice, or from being too picky when younger –

Christians – and Republicans and social conservatives – often assume that women get hundreds of marriage proposals by the time they are 30 years old but turned them all down, because they were too demanding and refused to marry a man unless he had the income of Bill Gates and the looks of actor Brad Pitt.

I got one marriage proposal in my entire life, it was after I hit the age of 30, and I had to break up with that guy, and no other proposals have been forthcoming. It just makes me infuriated when so many other Republicans, social conservatives, and Christians assume I CHOSE to be single this long, when such has not been the case.