英文原文
Women, Weddings, and Emotional Labor - Aisle Less Traveled Blog
There’s been no shortage of articles and blog posts and even academic studies in recent years on the topic of emotional labor. I’m sure you’ve seen them around. Perhaps you’ve even perused the condensed MeFi thread of comments.
But have you, a person who is perhaps planning a wedding right this minute, considered how emotional labor relates to weddings? I have given it a lot of thought, and it’s what I’m talking about today.
What is Emotional Labor?
Before we dive into it, let’s define what emotional labor even is. The most succinct definition I’ve found comes from this Everyday Feminism article on the topic:
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.
For better or for worse (pun intended), the scope of emotional labor has also come to include, at least by popular definition, many life tasks that I would think of as mental labor about labor: noticing when the laundry hamper is full or the toilet paper stash is low; keeping a running list of which chores need to be completed; planning meals and compiling the grocery list; remembering all the family birthdays; being the parent who gets the school emails and the first (and often, only) one who gets called to pick up a sick kid who needs to go home early.
The burden of this meta labor, in almost every place it’s found, falls disproportionately on women. Women are trained from birth to think about the things that need to be done, notice when the house has gotten dusty, and worry about how others will feel (and judge!) if we forget to send a holiday card. And that’s on top of actually doing the chores required to meet these demands. Men may believe they are sharing the load equally when they complete fifty percent of the tasks, but in most cases, they’re doing close to zero percent of the planning, observing, and keeping track required to manage the project of successful adulting.
Weddings Are No Exception to the Gendered Division of Emotional and Meta Labor
It should come as no surprise that emotional labor is part of every wedding. Weddings are centered around living up to social expectations, managing people’s feelings, and making people comfortable. I’m sure you’ve already reached the not-at-all-shocking conclusion that women are doing the majority of the emotional labor for weddings, just as in everyday work and home life.
Women find the wedding planning checklists, assign tasks to their partners, give them deadlines, and think about the overall vision; leaving men to “do” half of it (if we’re lucky!) but exempting them entirely from the work of thinking about it.
And what’s worse: society heaps enormous pressure on women to do it. It doesn’t even need to be said aloud that this job is entirely hers; we all understand it implicitly. It’s blatant in the way we talk about weddings, how we see them in the media, and even in how the wedding industry positions itself.
It’s the best day of her life! (And a trap for him.) It must be perfect! (And it is her job to make it so.) It has to have the right wedding traditions! (Which are all so emotionally loaded.) It’s HER day! (He doesn’t get one, I guess?) She’s been dreaming of it her whole life! (Oh, but what if she hasn’t? And what if he has?)
We raise girls to start planning their weddings from the time they are old enough to act one out with a Barbie doll in a princess gown; we don’t raise boys to think about their weddings at all. We train women to be concerned with proper wedding etiquette and wedding colors and getting a ring on it ASAP from their first starry-eyed teenaged date. We train everyone else – other women, mostly – to interrogate only brides about such details, and to do it at every possible opportunity.
Meanwhile, grooms bear no responsibility to plan or know anything about the details of their own weddings; other men aren’t expected to ask or care about them, either.
The Marriage Proposal: Where Men’s Wedding Work Ends and Women’s Work Begins
Think about your experience as a newly-engaged person. If you’re a man or present as male, you probably got a congratulatory slap on the back for picking a ring (likely with the help of her closest female friend) and pulling off the proposal without a hitch.
Congratulations, male human! Your wedding-related duties are now complete. Please sit back and relax until it’s time to toss a few back with the guys at the golf course on the morning of the wedding while your almost-wife and her posse wake at the crack of dawn to become acceptably beautiful and manage all the party logistics.
But if you’re a woman or femme-presenting person, after some sort of exclamation about the size of your new diamond, you have probably been on the receiving end of a barrage of questions, virtually all of which come from other women, about every possible detail of your wedding.
Do you have a date yet? What are your colors? How many bridesmaids are you having? What’s your theme?
And on and on. It’s as though, once engaged, women cease to have anything meaningful in their lives besides being engaged.
As Usual, Women Are in Charge of Everyone’s Feelings and Men Get to Just Show Up
At every stage of wedding planning, we see this play out.
It’s women who have to know the answers to all the intrusive questions about their plans – because nobody’s asking men.
It’s women who download the “How to Start Planning a Wedding” checklists and prioritize the tasks and maybe, possibly, assign a small amount of “easy” jobs to their future husbands – because men are taught to think of weddings as just some food and some music that will be a breeze to pull together. The hard wedding decisions we expect of men are usually limited to choosing between the chicken or the fish (after the bride has first narrowed down the caterers, selected one, and scheduled the tasting) or making the final selection of a first dance song (from the choices she has culled based on favorite moments she’s been tracking in their relationship for years, filtered through 17 “Best First Dance” song lists she read on the wedding message boards.)
It’s women who are expected to have an eye for design and keep up with the latest trends on Pinterest and Instagram and figure out how to make something beautiful enough to meet the “perfect day” expectations.
It’s women who are cautiously navigating their parents’ – and the grooms’ parents’ – feelings about what food to serve, who to invite, and whether peonies, place cards, and a church ceremony really are necessary for it to be a “real” wedding.
The Wedding Industry is Part of the Problem
It’s not just the well-meaning moms and aunties and friends or the dads who know they are “just here to write the checks” – the wedding industry upholds this gendered labor gap, too. Just poke around on any major wedding blog or a handful of wedding vendors’ websites. With the exception of the small percentage of us who are pro-marriage-equality feminists, everywhere you look it’s “bride” this and “bridal” that with nary a “groom” in sight.
“It’s the bride’s day,” we say, and she should have a 5′′ binder full of plans that she’s been working on since she was seven years old. Never mind whether the groom has any opinions. She is constantly asked about her vision for her day – and, in many cases, told that her vision is wrong and it must be done a certain other way instead because what will your mother or other people think? It’s her job not just to plan a party on a greater scale than she likely ever has before, but to also ensure that every single guest, wedding party, and family member is comfortable, entertained, and happy the whole damn time.
In other words, every bride is given an impossible assignment and deemed a failure when she inevitably cannot complete it.
Couples who inquire with vendors are met with replies that address only the bride, even if it was the groom who reached out. Hell, I’ve had couples tell me that a big reason they hired me was that I made eye contact with both of them and assumed that they’d both be equally involved in the planning! (Yes, I can treat you two as (gasp!) equals while I plan your wedding – details here!)
Emotional Labor is Why Wedding Planning is so Stressful for Women
All of these expectations add up to the same kind of stress women face in the rest of their lives – how to balance their own emotional needs with those of everyone around them and still put on a happy face. (Because it’s the best day of your life and you better look like you’re enjoying it!)
It’s another second shift, but it’s actually a third shift because there’s still that whole domestic project management thing happening every night. Engaged women spend, on average, 10-15 hours per week for 12 to 18 months planning their weddings. That’s over 500 hours at the low end and more than 1000 hours at the max, and so much of that time is spent managing the mental load and other people’s feelings.
That’s the equivalent of 13 to 26 UNPAID work weeks to plan a single day.No wonder wedding planning is one of the most stressful and exhausting times in a woman’s life.
So How Do We Make Wedding Planning Egalitarian?
Everyone involved in creating this problem has to be part of the solution, and that means women need to step down, men have to step up, the wedding industry has to stop it with the sexist bullshit, and we’ve all got to embrace outsourcing the work as a success, not a failure.
(Quick note for LGBTQ+ folks, because this does affect us, too: Take a minute to figure out which one of you does the majority of the emotional labor in your relationship. Chances are, it’s the person who schedules your social engagements, researches your vacations, remembers all your relationship milestones, sends out the holiday cards – and who read this article first.)
1. Women Have to Step Down
If you’re a woman and/or the person who does most of the emotional labor in other facets of your relationship, share this article with your future spouse and take a fucking break. You deserve it. Don’t do any more wedding planning until you’ve split up the wedding planning checklist fairly. And remember that fairly does not necessarily mean equal number of tasks; it means an equal workload. Sorting out all of the details required to find, book, and manage a caterer is a much more difficult thing to do than hiring a DJ; don’t treat them as two items of equal value to check off your list.
2. Men Need to Step Up
If you’re a man and/or the person who usually does domestic and relationship maintenance chores because your partner asks you to, stop right now and go find two or three wedding planning checklists, or shell out a few bucks for mine. (It’s a great checklist. It’s not free because I insist on being paid for my labor.) Read through them, start to finish. Pick at least 50% of the items on them and take full responsibility – for figuring out what they mean, what research needs to be done, how much they will cost, what choices will have to be made, etc. Ask your future spouse if the division you’ve come up with feels equitable. And then get that shit done!
3. The Wedding Industry Has to Stop the Sexist Double Standard
My colleagues – it’s on us to change the culture from within. I can’t say this emphatically or often enough: Cut it out with this bride-centric bullshit. There is no such thing as a wedding where only one bride is involved. Every wedding takes two people. Speak to them both. Involve them both. Assume both of them will be taking equal responsibility for the plans and that both are equally emotionally invested in the outcome. And look at both people when you are speaking to them about their wedding, for fuck’s sake.
4. Let’s Embrace Outsourcing
As with mothering, housekeeping, and all sorts of other “maternal” and “womanly” tasks: women are under a lot of pressure not just to have it all – but to do it all themselves. Y’all – we don’t need this. Hire a housekeeper, order takeout, drop your laundry off for wash-and-fold service. We have modern solutions for the labor burden and we’ve got to stop looking down on women who choose to pay other people to do work they don’t want ot don’t have the time or energy to do themselves.
The same goes for weddings! Nobody questions the decision to hire photographers, florists, caterers, and DJs, but for some reason, we’ve decided that a woman is not living up to her full bridal potential if she doesn’t do every single bit of logistics and aesthetic planning herself, lovingly hand-crafting table décor for hours every weekend, laboring over “blush” versus “bashful” linens, and color-coding plans for showers and welcome receptions and post-wedding brunches and actual wedding days.
My friends, there are people whose entire job is to think about these things so that you don’t have to! And we have the experience to get it done efficiently, prevent the problems you don’t know to watch out for, and make the whole damn thing a lot less stressful and time-consuming for you.
You do not have to become an expert in wedding planning in order to get married. You do not have to give up all of your free time for the next year and a half on a quest for a perfect day. You do not have to do it all yourself.
You can outsource this. (Here’s where to hire me.)
And then you can sit on your couch in a clean house, enjoying your lo mein with your partner because you have reclaimed your time to do so.
中文翻译
女性、婚礼与情绪劳动——少走弯路的博客
近年来，关于情绪劳动的文章、博客甚至学术研究层出不穷。我相信你一定见过它们。也许你甚至浏览过浓缩的MeFi评论串。
但是，你——一个可能正在计划婚礼的人——有没有考虑过情绪劳动与婚礼的关系？我对此思考了很多，这就是我今天要谈论的内容。
什么是情绪劳动？
在我们深入探讨之前，先定义一下什么是情绪劳动。我找到的最简洁的定义来自《日常女权主义》的一篇文章：
情绪劳动是为了处理人们的感受、让人们感到舒适或满足社会期望而消耗的能量。它被称为“情绪劳动”，因为它最终会消耗——并且常常耗尽——我们的情感资源。
无论好坏（双关语），情绪劳动的范围也扩展到，至少根据流行定义，许多我认为是关于劳动的脑力劳动的生活任务：注意到洗衣篮满了或厕纸储备不足；持续记录需要完成的家务；计划餐食和编制购物清单；记住所有家庭成员的生日；成为收到学校邮件的家长，以及第一个（通常是唯一一个）被叫去接生病孩子早退的家长。
这种元劳动的负担，几乎在每一个地方，都不成比例地落在女性身上。女性从出生起就被训练去思考需要做的事情，注意到房子何时积尘，并担心如果我们忘记寄节日贺卡，别人会怎么想（和评判！）。这还是在完成满足这些需求的实际家务之上。男性可能认为当他们完成50%的任务时，他们就在平等分担负担，但在大多数情况下，他们几乎不做任何规划、观察和跟踪成功成年项目所需的工作。
婚礼也不例外于情绪和元劳动的性别分工
情绪劳动是每场婚礼的一部分，这应该不足为奇。婚礼围绕着满足社会期望、管理人们的感受和让人们感到舒适展开。我相信你已经得出了一个毫不令人惊讶的结论：女性承担了婚礼的大部分情绪劳动，就像在日常工作和家庭生活中一样。
女性找到婚礼规划清单，给伴侣分配任务，设定截止日期，并思考整体愿景；让男性“做”一半（如果我们幸运的话！），但完全免除他们思考的工作。
更糟糕的是：社会给女性施加了巨大的压力来做这件事。甚至不需要大声说出来这份工作完全是她的；我们都心照不宣地理解这一点。这在我们谈论婚礼的方式、在媒体中看到它们的方式，甚至婚礼行业定位自己的方式中都很明显。
这是她一生中最美好的一天！（对他来说是个陷阱。）它必须是完美的！（这是她的工作来做到这一点。）它必须有正确的婚礼传统！（这些都充满了情感。）这是她的一天！（我猜他没有？）她一生都在梦想这一天！（哦，但如果她没有呢？如果他有呢？）
我们培养女孩从她们足够大时就开始用穿着公主裙的芭比娃娃扮演婚礼来规划婚礼；我们根本不培养男孩思考他们的婚礼。我们训练女性关心适当的婚礼礼仪、婚礼颜色，以及从她们第一次星光闪闪的青少年约会开始就尽快戴上戒指。我们训练其他人——主要是其他女性——只询问新娘这些细节，并在每一个可能的机会这样做。
与此同时，新郎没有责任规划或了解他们自己婚礼的细节；其他男性也不被期望询问或关心这些。
婚姻求婚：男性婚礼工作的结束和女性工作的开始
想想你作为新订婚的人的经历。如果你是男性或表现为男性，你可能因为挑选戒指（可能在她最亲密的女性朋友的帮助下）并顺利求婚而得到祝贺的拍背。
恭喜你，男性人类！你与婚礼相关的职责现在已经完成。请坐下来放松，直到婚礼当天早上和朋友们在高尔夫球场喝几杯，而你的准新娘和她的团队在黎明时分醒来，变得足够美丽并管理所有派对后勤。
但如果你是女性或表现为女性的人，在对你的新钻石大小发出某种惊叹之后，你可能已经收到了一连串的问题，几乎都来自其他女性，关于你婚礼的每一个可能的细节。
你有日期了吗？你的颜色是什么？你有多少伴娘？你的主题是什么？
等等等等。就好像一旦订婚，女性除了订婚之外，生活中就没有任何有意义的事情了。
一如既往，女性负责每个人的感受，男性只需出现
在婚礼规划的每一个阶段，我们都看到这种情况上演。
是女性必须知道关于她们计划的所有侵入性问题的答案——因为没有人问男性。
是女性下载“如何开始规划婚礼”清单，优先处理任务，也许可能分配少量“简单”工作给她们未来的丈夫——因为男性被教导认为婚礼只是一些食物和一些音乐，很容易搞定。我们期望男性做的艰难婚礼决定通常仅限于选择鸡肉还是鱼（在新娘首先缩小餐饮服务商范围、选择一个并安排品尝之后），或者最终选择第一支舞曲（从她根据多年来跟踪他们关系中最喜欢的时刻筛选出的选择中，通过她在婚礼留言板上读到的17个“最佳第一支舞”歌曲列表过滤）。
是女性被期望有设计眼光，跟上Pinterest和Instagram的最新趋势，并想出如何做出足够美丽的东西来满足“完美一天”的期望。
是女性小心翼翼地处理她们父母——以及新郎父母——关于提供什么食物、邀请谁，以及牡丹、座位卡和教堂仪式是否真的是“真正”婚礼所必需的感觉。
婚礼行业是问题的一部分
不仅仅是好心的妈妈、阿姨和朋友，或者知道他们“只是来写支票”的爸爸——婚礼行业也维持着这种性别劳动差距。只需浏览任何主要婚礼博客或一些婚礼供应商的网站。除了我们中一小部分支持婚姻平等的女权主义者外，你到处看到的都是“新娘”这个和“新娘”那个，几乎看不到“新郎”。
“这是新娘的一天，”我们说，她应该有一个5英寸厚的计划活页夹，里面装满了她从七岁起就开始制定的计划。别管新郎有没有意见。她不断被问及她对这一天的愿景——在许多情况下，被告知她的愿景是错误的，必须以某种其他方式完成，因为你的母亲或其他人会怎么想？她的工作不仅是规划一个比她以前可能做过的更大规模的派对，还要确保每一位客人、婚礼派对和家庭成员在整个该死的时间里都感到舒适、娱乐和快乐。
换句话说，每个新娘都被赋予了一个不可能完成的任务，并在她不可避免地无法完成时被视为失败者。
向供应商咨询的夫妇得到的回复只针对新娘，即使联系的是新郎。天哪，我有夫妇告诉我，他们雇佣我的一个重要原因是我与两人都有眼神交流，并假设他们会平等参与规划！（是的，我可以在规划你们的婚礼时把你们俩当作（天哪！）平等对待——详情在这里！）
情绪劳动是为什么婚礼规划对女性如此有压力
所有这些期望加起来，形成了女性在生活的其他方面面临的同样压力——如何平衡自己的情感需求与周围每个人的需求，并仍然保持快乐的面孔。（因为这是你一生中最美好的一天，你最好看起来像是在享受它！）
这是另一个第二班，但实际上是一个第三班，因为每天晚上还有整个家庭项目管理的事情发生。订婚女性平均每周花费10-15小时，持续12到18个月来规划她们的婚礼。这至少是500小时，最多超过1000小时，其中大部分时间用于管理脑力劳动和他人的感受。
这相当于13到26个无薪工作周来规划一天。难怪婚礼规划是女性生活中最紧张和疲惫的时期之一。
那么，我们如何使婚礼规划平等？
每一个参与制造这个问题的人都必须成为解决方案的一部分，这意味着女性需要退一步，男性必须站出来，婚礼行业必须停止性别歧视的废话，我们都必须接受外包工作是一种成功，而不是失败。
（给LGBTQ+人士的快速说明，因为这确实也影响我们：花点时间弄清楚你们中谁在你们的关系中承担大部分情绪劳动。很可能，是那个安排你们社交活动、研究你们假期、记住所有关系里程碑、寄出节日贺卡——并且先读这篇文章的人。）
1. 女性必须退一步
如果你是女性，和/或在你关系的其他方面承担大部分情绪劳动的人，把这篇文章分享给你未来的配偶，并他妈的好好休息一下。你值得。在你公平地分配婚礼规划清单之前，不要再做任何婚礼规划。记住，公平不一定意味着任务数量相等；它意味着工作量相等。找出所有需要找到、预订和管理餐饮服务商的细节，比雇佣DJ要困难得多；不要把它们当作两个同等价值的项目来勾选你的清单。
2. 男性必须站出来
如果你是男性，和/或通常因为你伴侣的要求而做家务和关系维护杂事的人，现在就停下来，去找两三个婚礼规划清单，或者花几块钱买我的。（这是一个很棒的清单。它不是免费的，因为我坚持为我的劳动付费。）从头到尾阅读它们。选择至少50%的项目，并承担全部责任——弄清楚它们是什么意思，需要做什么研究，它们会花费多少，必须做出什么选择等等。问问你未来的配偶，你提出的分工是否感觉公平。然后把他妈的搞定！
3. 婚礼行业必须停止性别歧视的双重标准
我的同事们——改变文化要从内部做起。我不能更强调或更频繁地说：停止这种以新娘为中心的废话。没有一场婚礼是只有一个新娘参与的。每场婚礼都需要两个人。和他们俩说话。让他们俩都参与。假设他们俩都会平等负责计划，并且两人都对结果有同等的情感投入。看在上帝的份上，当你和他们谈论他们的婚礼时，看着他们俩。
4. 让我们接受外包
就像母亲、家务和所有其他“母性”和“女性”任务一样：女性不仅承受着拥有一切的压力，还要自己完成所有事情。大家——我们不需要这样。雇佣一个管家，点外卖，把衣服送去洗叠服务。我们有现代解决方案来应对劳动负担，我们必须停止看不起那些选择付钱让别人做她们不想做或没有时间或精力自己做的工作的女性。
婚礼也是如此！没有人质疑雇佣摄影师、花艺师、餐饮服务商和DJ的决定，但出于某种原因，我们决定，如果一个女性不自己做每一分后勤和美学规划，每个周末花几个小时亲手制作餐桌装饰，纠结“腮红”与“害羞”的桌布，并为迎婴派对、欢迎招待会、婚礼后早午餐和实际婚礼日进行颜色编码计划，她就没有发挥出她全部的新娘潜力。
我的朋友们，有些人的整个工作就是思考这些事情，这样你就不必思考了！我们有经验来高效完成它，防止你不知道要防范的问题，并使整个该死的事情对你来说压力小得多，耗时少得多。
你不必成为婚礼规划专家才能结婚。你不必在接下来的一年半里放弃所有空闲时间来追求完美的一天。你不必自己做所有事情。
你可以外包这个。（这是雇佣我的地方。）
然后你可以坐在干净的房子的沙发上，和你的伴侣一起享受你的捞面，因为你已经收回了你的时间来做这件事。
文章概要
本文探讨了婚礼规划中的情绪劳动及其性别不平等问题。文章定义了情绪劳动为处理他人感受、满足社会期望所消耗的情感资源，并指出女性在婚礼规划中承担了大部分情绪劳动，如规划、设计和情感管理，而男性往往只参与执行任务。这导致女性面临巨大压力，每周花费大量时间规划婚礼，相当于无薪工作周。文章提出解决方案：女性退一步，男性站出来，婚礼行业停止性别歧视，并接受外包服务，以实现更平等的婚礼规划。
高德明老师的评价
用12岁初中生可以听懂的语音来重复翻译的内容：这篇文章说，在准备婚礼时，女生常常要做很多“情绪劳动”，比如担心别人的感受、让大家都开心，还要记住所有细节，就像做作业一样累。男生可能只帮忙做点小事，比如选音乐，但女生要负责大部分思考和计划。这会让女生很累，就像每天多上几个班一样。文章建议女生可以休息一下，男生多帮忙，或者请专业人士来帮忙，这样大家都能更轻松地享受婚礼。
TA沟通分析心理学理论评价：从TA沟通分析心理学角度看，本文揭示了婚礼规划中成人自我状态（Adult ego state）的失衡。女性往往过度使用成人自我状态来处理逻辑、规划和情感管理任务，如制定清单和协调各方感受，这可能导致情感资源耗尽。而男性可能更多处于儿童自我状态（Child ego state），依赖女性引导或只参与简单执行，缺乏成人自我状态的主动参与。这种模式反映了社会脚本（Social script）中性别角色的固化，女性被赋予照顾者（Nurturing Parent）和批判性父母（Critical Parent）的角色，而男性则被允许保持自由儿童（Free Child）状态。文章提出的解决方案鼓励双方激活成人自我状态，通过平等分工和外包来平衡自我状态，促进健康沟通和关系动态。
在实践上可以应用的领域和可以解决人们的十个问题：在实践上，本文内容可应用于婚姻咨询、婚前辅导、性别平等教育和婚礼策划行业。基于TA沟通分析心理学，它可以解决以下十个问题：1. 减轻女性在婚礼规划中的情绪劳动压力；2. 促进伴侣间的平等沟通和分工；3. 帮助男性发展成人自我状态，参与更多规划任务；4. 减少婚礼规划中的性别角色刻板印象；5. 提升婚礼行业的包容性，避免新娘中心主义；6. 支持LGBTQ+伴侣识别和平衡情绪劳动；7. 鼓励外包服务，释放个人时间和精力；8. 改善家庭关系，减少因婚礼规划引发的冲突；9. 增强个人自我意识，识别和调整自我状态；10. 培养健康的关系模式，为婚姻生活奠定基础。