Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. Have you ever heard the term emotional labor? You're about to hear it a lot as we talk with our guest,

journalist Gemma Hartley, whose new book is called Fed Up, Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward.

Jama, thank you so much for joining us today. We are so excited to have this conversation with you.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Talk to us about that first

viral article that started at all. It was called Women Aren't Nags, were just fed up.

Yes. So, I had pitched that article and had no idea that it would have that kind of a reach. And it was the first, like,

even remotely negative thing I'd ever written about my relationship and my husband. So I'm like,

oh, you know, welcome to my world. A million people have, you know, seen your Mother's Day mess up.

Right. Right, right.

Yeah.

And I was just blown away at the response because I had just really started thinking about emotional

labor and everything that goes into that invisible work that women do to keep everyone around them on track and comfortable.

And I didn't think it would have that broad of a reach.

And so when it did, I was so excited to get the opportunity to write a whole book on it.

Well, tell us more about what that term emotional labor

really means. So every woman I know does emotional labor, whether she knows the term or not.

It's all of the invisible work that we do to keep everyone on track and also keep them comfortable in the process.

Planning the holidays, scheduling playdates, doing all of the emotion work with your kids so they

don't, you know, melt down and throw tantrums, making sure that we're using the right tone

when we're asking for something, sending reminders

to our partners to do their half of the chores.

So it's all of this mental and emotional work that we're doing day in and day out that

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