Rewind: Emotional Labor

Dear Sugars

WBUR

Boston, Wbur, Sugar, Cheryl Strayed, Society & Culture, Dear, Relationships, Advice, Steve Almond

4.6 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode was originally published on May 5th, 2018.

Remembering the grocery list, coordinating with the babysitter, making food for the potluck, scheduling a get-together with the in-laws: These are some of the invisible tasks that (most) women exclusively do in their romantic relationships — and the list goes on and on.

Like a modern-day Greek chorus, women from across the country wrote in to the Dear Sugars inbox echoing identical inequalities in their relationships with their husbands and boyfriends. The Sugars commiserate with this aggrieved chorus along with Gemma Hartley, the writer who set off a national conversation about emotional labor with her viral article in Harper’s Bazaar, “Women Aren’t Nags — We’re Just Fed Up.”

Broaching the subject of emotional labor with a romantic partner can be tricky, especially if he feels as if he’s being blamed for the imbalance of labor. The imbalance in Ms. Hartley’s marriage began righting itself when she and her husband shifted their perspective: “This is not a problem with you and it’s not a problem with me. It’s a cultural problem. We have to unlearn a lot of things together in order to move forward."

The Sugars Recommend

“I Stand Here Ironing,” by Tillie Olsen “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Transcript

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0:30.6	On your mask. Yes, sir. Bye. We're back in the nation's favorite tent. Let's do this. And it's
0:37.3	packed with a fresh batch of famous faces.
0:39.9	As long as it's edible, I'd be happy.
0:42.9	Don't chalk, trying my key.
0:45.2	How can it be?
0:46.1	The great celebrity baker for Stand Up to Cancer on Channel 4.
0:49.5	Stream now.
0:52.3	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:55.0	The universe has good news for the lost, lonely, and heart sick.
1:09.7	The sugars are here, speaking straight into your ears.
1:13.3	I'm Steve Alman.
1:14.5	I'm Cheryl Strayed.
1:15.6	This is Dear Sugars.
1:19.3	Oh, dear song, won't you please?
1:26.7	Share some little sweet days with me
1:30.3	I check my bellbys every day Oh, in the sugar, you see in my way.
1:49.0	Dear sugars, I don't have a huge burning question, but I'd like to figure out how to get my husband to understand emotional labor without sounding like I'm just complaining.
	...

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