The Managed Heart

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1983

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1, Chapter 2

Part 1, Chapters 3-5

Part 2, Chapters 6-7

Part 2, Chapter 8-Afterword

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapter 8-AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Public Life”

Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “Gender, Status, and Feeling”

This chapter explores emotional labor and gender, highlighting how societal structures place different emotional demands on men and women. Middle-class American women are often perceived as more emotional and adept at managing feelings than men. This perception is partly rooted in cultural definitions and the fact that women tend to do more emotion management, both consciously and subconsciously, in their personal and professional lives.

The author suggests that women’s greater involvement in emotional labor links to their lower access to material resources like money, power, and status. The nature of emotional labor likewise varies between genders. Women are often socialized to be more adaptive, cooperative, and deferential, roles that require them to manage anger and aggression to appear nice. Men, on the other hand, are tasked with enforcing rules and managing fear and vulnerability. This difference in emotional roles stems from childhood socialization, which encourages girls to embody nurturing and pleasing behaviors but teaches boys to be tough and assertive.

In addition, the text discusses the concept of a “status shield,” noting that women’s lower social status makes them more vulnerable to displaced aggression and emotional abuse, as evident in how female flight attendants face more verbal abuse from passengers compared to their male counterparts. The author emphasizes that women’s emotional labor is often misinterpreted as natural or inherent, rather than a skill developed through social conditioning. Women are also more likely to engage in emotion work that enhances the status and well-being of others, a form of what Ivan Illich calls “shadow labor.”

The text notes that societal expectations further exacerbate these gender differences. Studies show that women are expected to be warmer and more supportive, leading to higher demands for emotional labor from them. Moreover, intimate relationships reflect the economic inequality between men and women: Women often rely on men for financial support. This dependency can obscure the true nature of the relationship because the emotional labor that women provide compensates for the material resources they lack.

Additionally, the author points out that emotional labor constitutes more than half of the jobs women hold but only a quarter of the jobs men hold. Service jobs, often occupied by women, rank lower in social status compared to other types of work, and this ranking is influenced by the perceived dependency and subservience these roles entail. Consequently, women in these jobs face “hidden injuries” of gender since their emotional efforts are less recognized and valued. The book introduces the “doctrine of feelings,” a concept highlighting how the importance of a person’s feelings correlates with their social status.

The author addresses the implications of this emotional inequality, citing studies showing that medical professionals take women’s physical complaints less seriously than men’s, often attributing women’s symptoms to psychological factors. In response to these challenges, some women may attempt to express their emotions more forcefully to gain recognition and validation. However, this often backfires, reinforcing the stereotype of women as overly emotional.

The text discusses the implications of the gendered division of emotional labor, highlighting the identity challenges that female flight attendants face in distinguishing between their work role and personal identity. This division between the “real” self and the “on-stage” self is a defense mechanism, helping them manage stress by compartmentalizing their identities. However, this strategy leads to a fragmented sense of self, creating a persistent tension between their genuine identity and the persona they must adopt for their job.

Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “The Search for Authenticity”

This chapter delves into the commodification of emotions in the workplace, highlighting how competition and corporate interests have transformed personal feelings into a form of capital. The author references Rousseau’s observation on personality as capital and extends it to modern times, illustrating how institutions now harness and standardize emotional labor to enhance corporate profit. This transformation has led to a system in which emotional exchanges are no longer private and idiosyncratic but are standardized and regulated by companies, which imposes new psychological costs on workers.

The text identifies three stances that workers may adopt toward their emotional labor. The first involves identifying too closely with the job, which may result in burnout as workers become emotionally exhausted and numb. The second stance is maintaining a clear distinction between self and role, which can prevent burnout but may lead to feelings of insincerity and self-denigration. The third stance involves a healthy detachment, recognizing the job as requiring acting skills, but this can lead to cynicism and estrangement from the act of emotional labor itself.

Each of these stances presents different challenges and potential harms, but the first is the most harmful due to the risk of emotional deadness. The author suggests that these issues could be mitigated if workers had more control over the conditions of their work, and she emphasizes the importance of practical politics in achieving this. She cites an example in which a union successfully opposed a company decision, highlighting the value of worker input in maintaining job satisfaction and performance.

Additionally, the author examines how the commercialization of human emotions has deeply embedded itself into society, shaping how we perceive and manage feelings. She highlights that in our culture, we have become skilled at distinguishing between genuine and commercialized emotions, often valuing the former more highly. This growing appreciation for authentic, spontaneous feelings is a response to the widespread manipulation of emotions in various industries. The author points out that this cultural shift has roots in historical changes, such as those discussed by Lionel Trilling, in which the value of sincerity and authenticity evolved as society became more mobile and guile became more common.

In the past, people valued sincerity as a counterbalance to the deceit needed for social mobility. Today, as corporations increasingly manage emotions for profit, authenticity has gained prominence as a precious, endangered quality. This desire for genuine emotions is evident in the popularity of psychological therapies that emphasize “getting in touch” (192) with one’s true feelings, reflecting a cultural longing for unprocessed, natural emotional experiences. The text contrasts the modern celebration of spontaneous feelings with the historical figure of Rousseau’s Noble Savage, who felt emotions purely and without calculation.

The text discusses the concept of the “false self,” wherein individuals perform emotions to meet external expectations, often at the expense of their true feelings. This notion is prevalent in both psychoanalytic theory and the acting profession, where the danger lies in losing one’s authentic self to the role one plays. In contemporary society, the false self manifests differently in men and women: Women are more prone to developing an altruistic false self due to societal expectations of caregiving and emotional labor.

The book concludes that the commercialization of emotions creates widespread concern about emotional authenticity. As people become more aware of the incentives to use feelings for profit, they increasingly question what they feel. This introspection reflects a deeper cultural concern about the impact of emotional labor on personal identity and authenticity in a society that commodifies feelings.

Afterword Summary: “Afterword to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition”

The author reflects on the impact and reception of her work on emotional labor over the past two decades. She discusses how flight attendants, nurses, and other professionals who perform emotional labor have reached out to her, sharing their personal stories. The author notes the widespread acknowledgment and further research her work has inspired: Scholars explore emotional labor across various professions, including social workers, retail clerks, and telemarketers.

Highlighting the hidden nature of emotional labor and the lack of recognition it often receives, the author recounts an Australian nurse’s frustration over the undervaluation of compassionate care nurses provide compared to the visible achievements of surgeons. This theme of invisibility and undervaluation recurs throughout the author’s discussions with emotional laborers and researchers.

In addition, she addresses the societal implications of emotional labor, particularly the psychological costs of its commercialization. She explores how the increasing automation of service roles has reduced face-to-face interactions, pushing emotional labor into new areas, such as the care sector. This shift has led to the emergence of a “marketized private life” (203), which outsources emotional labor to professionals like nannies, personal assistants, and various service providers who blend professional and familial roles.

The author concludes by highlighting a growing social contradiction: the increasing commercialization of intimate emotional labor, as illustrated by an advertisement for a personal assistant who would perform tasks traditionally associated with a wife, minus the emotional labor of a genuine relationship. This ad epitomizes the tension between the commodification of emotional labor and the inherent human need for authentic emotional connection. The author suggests that as emotional labor becomes more commercialized, society must address the resulting implications for personal identity and genuine human interaction.

Part 2, Chapter 8-Afterword Analysis

This section uses theoretical analysis, empirical evidence, and cultural references to thematically analyze The Gendered Nature of Emotional Labor. The author uses classification to differentiate between the types of emotion work expected of men and women. She categorizes women’s emotional labor as more aligned with nurturing and relational tasks, while men’s emotional labor is framed around aggression and rule enforcement. Chapter 8 refers to a statistic that only 6% of women but 50% of men earned more than $15,000 a year in 1980, illustrating the economic disparity underpinning these roles.

Similarly, the book references studies and surveys, such as William Kephart’s study on marital preferences and the UCLA study on deliberate emotional displays, to provide concrete evidence of the differences in how men and women manage emotions. Chapter 8 cites a study in which 45% of women but only 20% of men reported deliberately showing emotion to get their way, which highlights women’s greater tendency to use emotional labor strategically. Additionally, the text references Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb’s work to illustrate how service jobs are perceived as lower in status than other jobs, a perception that disproportionately affects women because of their prevalence in such roles. The author incorporates expert testimony, such as insights from sex therapist Melanie Matthews, to provide a psychological perspective on the impact of emotional labor on flight attendants’ sex lives.

References to cultural norms, childhood socialization, and societal expectations are crucial in the author’s analysis. She delves into the different ways that boys and girls are socialized, using cultural idioms like “sugar and spice and everything nice” (163) to illustrate how societal expectations shape emotional labor for women from a young age. She contrasts the emotional labor of women with that of men, exploring how societal and workplace norms reinforce these roles. She notes how female professors are expected to be warmer and more supportive, leading to perceptions of coldness when these expectations are not met. Additionally, the author’s discussion of “shadow labor” in Chapter 8 highlight the often-invisible nature of women’s emotional work.

Direct quotes and personal anecdotes from both male and female flight attendants help thematically explore Emotional Labor’s Impact on Mental Health and Personal Identity. For instance, the author quotes a female flight attendant who described how she was frequently asked about her marital plans, in contrast to her male counterparts, who were questioned about career advancement, which illustrates the everyday realities and gendered expectations that women face, even in the workplace. The reference to the emotional strategies that workers adopt, such as developing a “healthy” estrangement or experiencing periods of emotional deadness, supports the text’s theoretical claims about the risks and costs of emotional labor. For instance, Chapter 9 notes, “Some flight attendants who describe themselves as poor at depersonalizing reported periods of emotional deadness” (187), underscoring the detrimental effects of inadequate emotional management.

The use of specific examples is a prominent feature in the book. In the Afterword, the author mentions diverse occupations, from Disneyland ride operators to nursing home caregivers, to illustrate the widespread nature of emotional labor. This breadth of examples underscores the universality of the concept and its relevance across various sectors. For instance, she discusses how “smile training” varies between American and Japanese companies, using cultural comparisons to highlight different national approaches to emotional labor.

Humor and irony reappear in this section. The joke about the flight attendant holding her cigarette in a masculine manner, with the punchline, “If I had balls, I’d be driving this plane” (184), critiques the gender dynamics and the trivialization of women’s dignity in their professional roles.

The author critically examines the social and corporate structures that enforce these roles. For example, she discusses how airlines profit from the “motherly” and “sexy” qualities of female flight attendants, thematically highlighting The Commodification of Emotions in the Workplace. Supporting this critique are references to historical advertising practices and the ongoing corporate management of these feminine roles. The text references stewardess training schools and bill collecting practices to show how emotion management has become institutionalized. Similarly, in the Afterword, the reference to an advertisement for a personal assistant, who fulfills roles traditionally linked with a wife but stripped of authentic relational bonds, highlights how the market’s intrusion into private life segments relational tasks by placing price tags on them, which can erode the essence of true emotional engagement. This commodification challenges the authenticity of human interactions, prompting society to confront the implications of increasingly transactional relationships.