Tears at Work: Gender, Interaction, and Emotional Labour

Resource type
Author/contributor
Title
Tears at Work: Gender, Interaction, and Emotional Labour
Abstract
For a long time, it has been believed that it is possible to leave our emotions at the threshold of the workplace. This excessively simplifies the complexity and heterogeneity of work, leading to an underestimation of the effects of work on health. Our objective is to understand one particular form of the expression of workers’ emotions: crying at work, which may be linked to an excess of emotional labour or to the impossibility of its achievement. Thus, differences between male and female crying, at least at work, may be explained not only by a gendered socialisation of individuals, but also by the sexual division of emotional labour. This imposes an emotional overload on women, since a more intensive management of emotions is demanded of them at work.
Publication
Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society
Volume
2
Pages
36-44
Date
Spring 2003
Citation
Soares, A. (2003). Tears at Work: Gender, Interaction, and Emotional Labour. Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, 2, 36–44. http://www.justlabour.yorku.ca/volume2/pdfs/soares.pdf