1.2 Emotional labour as subjective effort and ability
In James “emotional labourers” (James, 1989:19) correspond literally to emotional products as defined above. In the discussions which took place during the above mentioned meeting, the equivalent expression “I do an emotional JOB” was common currency (and understood by all). An expression which, here too, is not put in writing: indeed one woman said that the expression for “outsiders” was “relational labour”. There exists a variety of terms, often used as synonyms, to indicate the capacities required in order to carry out this work, including above all: “acute and objective perception”, “awareness of the situation”, “sensitivity” and “intuitive knowledge” (considered by many as a supreme form of intelligence). Someone who possesses this quality does not slog away, following slow mental processes, but “knows” or “sees” clearly. One person’s emotions stir up another’s emotions: sometimes the enthusiasm of a boy is enough to inflame souls, wrote Fourier (1980:30) referring to Joan of Arc! By saying “emotional labour” we are saying (is it tautological?) that there exist JOBS based on the power, or rather the potential of the heart. And they are termed “emotional” because emotion is the sensible (sometimes visible) expression of perception.
The well-known sociologist Jessie Bernard (1981:215) says that “the professions now open to women ... in the main in the service sector”, call for “warm hearts”. Other expressions used are: “labour of love”, “sentimental labour”, “labour with a smile”, “comforting labour”...; Luce Irigaray (1985:142) speaks of the “fecundity of the caress”; in a recent essay Lynch considers “solidary labour” (such as the work involved in creating and maintaining caring relationships per se, e.g. friendship) as part of “emotional labour” (Lynch, 1989:7).
And then there is the capacity for self-involvement. The explanation given gravely by a woman as to why her job was emotional was: “because there is involvement!” The worker opens up to the situation and partecipates from inside, so that she feels the same things as the other person. This is exceptional perception, the validity (value) of which is demonstrated in the field.
There exist infinite levels of empathy and infinite forms of application in relation to job requirements. We may note the differences between jobs where there is observation/perception and intuition, but a relative detachment/distance (also physical): between the hospital chaplain, analyst or doctor, the trader, the fearful father, the courageous, impressionable mother. It has been said how in many cases a person performing a therapeutic function has to himself experience “the repressed feelings, fantasies or so on” of the patient so that the latter in turn, identifying himself with the therapist, becomes able to “integrate analogous experiences into the functioning of his own Ego” (Searles, 1992:118). Many of the duties performed by the nursing profession involve physically touching patients. Through this contact, touch - the sensible perception - becomes tangible and is really put to the test. “I no longer feel genuinely available to be overwhelmed by dribbling and slobbering children” (so said a woman who has worked with handicapped children for many years).
Are there other capacities “of the heart” used at work? It would be important to investigate along these lines. There are some recognized capacities of this kind. For example, courage (“inner sthenght”) and patience. “The attribute of courage is a necessary condition for the efficiency of certain social institutions such as the army, police force, etc.” (Dalla Volta, 1974: headword Coraggio). But is this the only form in which courage is manifested? Regarding care work, in addition to the courage to become involved, I am thinking, for example, of the capacity for self discipline in order to face dirty tasks (the “bedpan” immediately comes to mind) and foul smells or contact with the dead: aspects which give rise to disgust and/or fear in most people. Or the psycho-physical risks involved in contact with the injured, the elderly, the dying...
We can assess the value of certain job tasks by considering how much it costs to master ourselves to do them! A nurse on her first day at work fled screaming when she saw a woman’s cancerous vagina (“I saw an orchid”, she explained later). A psychologist told of the attacks of vomiting, the trembling and sweating she and her mother had experienced when washing pus, with its unbearable stench, off her grandmother’s back. “I couldn’t eat for a week”. The psychologist overcame this ordeal (“I believe I was helped perhaps by my love for the sick person - I adored her - but, above all, by pity for the suffering body”), but not her mother. (3).
There is a division of hospital work that today protects doctors and surgeons from the hardest aspects of the job, and not just from dirty tasks. As Mary Daly (1978:277) points out, a surgeon operates and cuts the patient under anaesthesia, a doctor prescribes “drugs which often have harmful effects, issuing orders from on high”... but it is nurses who are present at the patient’s sufferings on awakening and who even have to cause pain by changing of dressing after surgery, by dressing the wound, disinfecting it, etc., or physiotherapists (“most of whom ... female”) who “force women to do excruciating exercise after surgery, for example, after mastectomies”.
I have heard of (male) nurses in Torino who refuse to wash patients: displaying insensitivity, that is professional incompetence.
(Is it because of the courage required that men only wash away dirt in the army, reaching the most profound level of humility?).
On the contrary, doctors in ancient Greece would not allow anyone else to perform tasks that are today left to nurses, so as not to surrender the “credit for a cure”, the “glory when the patient recovers!” (King, 1991:15, 22).
It’s significant to note that what is called courage (ac-credited) in a man, is called love (dis-credited) in a woman.
It has been stated many times that patience is an important quality for care work (but also for “manual”, “repetitive” jobs or for “patient research work” or “intellectual jobs”).
Being available or waiting (e.g. waiting 4-5 hours for the placenta to be delivered naturally), silently holding hands, letting a sick person hold onto you... Waiting is not passive: it has to be endured; “in the highest sense, patience is contained strength” (I Ching, esagramma 64); it is a capacity of the heart that not only until now has not been recognized in “feminine” jobs, but has been undervalued with respect to excitability and inability.
It as to be added that female “attitudes” for repetitive work often conceal harmful heavy tasks endured by women only for lack of alternatives.
May honesty (I mention it here because it is connected to “the heart”, the seat of conscience) be considered as a job quality? It is generally required for all (honest) jobs and in particular, for example, in police work. Recently, Carla Artusio has shown how in the context of private industry, the “criteria that bosses bear in mind when assigning particular jobs, including very delicate tasks, such as handling cash or PAYING out wages” are morality, honesty, loyalty and conscientiousness (Artusio, 1991-92:257). “Bosses” believe that “women have a more firmly rooted moral code than men” and that they are above temptation. Perhaps some man “had gone off with the loot”, in all events bookkeepers and wage clerks are almost exclusively women (ib.:259-60).