I’m sat here in my Hackney flat at gone midnight, vape in one hand, oat-milk flat white gone stone cold in the other, and I’m proper fuming. Not the usual “Tories are scum” kind of fuming. This one’s quieter. Deeper. The kind that creeps up on you after yet another day of carrying the whole bloody emotional world on your shoulders while the bloke next to you just… exists.
You know what I mean?
Course you do. You’re reading this.
Let me tell you what happened yesterday. I get a voice note from my mate Leah, proper stressed, voice cracking, because her fella “forgot” their anniversary. Again. Not the big one. Just the ordinary one-year mark. She spent the whole day planning a nice dinner, picking up his favourite beer, even sorting the kids’ bedtime so they could have five minutes of peace. He? Came home, plonked himself on the sofa, and asked what’s for tea.
I listened to that voice note three times. Then I sat on my bed, cross-legged, bare feet with the blue nail polish chipped, and I thought: *this* is the tax. This invisible, unpaid, never-ending tax that women pay every single day. And men? They don’t even clock it exists.
So yeah. Strap in. This one’s a long one. Four thousand words of me ranting about the emotional labour tax. Because if I don’t say it, who the fuck will?
What even *is* emotional labour, though?
Look, I’m not about to sit here and pretend I invented the wheel. Arlie Hochschild dropped the term back in the 80s in her book *The Managed Heart* and basically nailed it: it’s the work of managing feelings. Your own. Other people’s. Making sure everyone’s okay, the vibe’s right, the conflict doesn’t explode.
But here’s the 2026 update, innit?
It’s not just “being nice.” It’s the endless, invisible admin of human connection. Remembering birthdays. Noticing when someone’s off. Sending the “you okay hun?” texts. Planning the bloody family WhatsApp group. Keeping the peace at Christmas dinner when your uncle starts on about immigration. Tracking everyone’s moods like a fucking air traffic controller.
And the worst part? It’s never written down. There’s no calendar invite for “make sure Dave doesn’t feel emasculated when I earn more than him.” No bullet point that says “absorb his bad day so he doesn’t take it out on the kids.”
It just… happens.
Mostly to women.
I remember the first time I properly noticed it in my own life. I was twenty-four, still living in Basildon, fresh out of a six-month thing with this lad called Ryan. Proper nice on paper. Would hold doors. Pay for the first round. But every single time I had a rough day at work, some prick editor mansplaining my own article back to me, I’d come home and it was *my* job to make *him* feel better about the fact that I was upset.
“How was your day, babe?” he’d ask.
I’d start telling him and within two sentences he’d go, “That sounds stressful. Anyway, you’ll never guess what happened at the garage…”
And I’d just… switch. Smile. Ask about his day. Manage his feelings. Swallow mine.
I didn’t even realise I was doing it until months later when I was single again and suddenly had all this emotional bandwidth back. It felt like I’d been carrying a rucksack full of bricks and someone finally took it off me.
That’s the tax, mate. And it’s compounding daily.
The relationship tax, the one that hits hardest
Right. Let’s get specific.
You’re in a relationship. Or you live with someone. Or you’re just seeing someone regularly. Doesn’t matter. The second there’s any kind of domestic entanglement, the emotional labour starts stacking up like unread DMs.
Who remembers to book the dentist? Who notices the toilet roll is running low? Who keeps track of whose mum’s birthday it is? Who smooths things over when his mates say something borderline racist at the pub? Who remembers he’s got that work thing on Thursday and makes sure his shirt is ironed?
Her. Always her.
I’ve interviewed dozens of women for various pieces over the years, working-class mums in Essex, middle-class professionals in Hackney, Black women juggling two jobs and three kids. The story is identical. The mental load is *exhausting*.
One woman, let’s call her Sophie, single mum from Basildon, same estate as my nan, told me she keeps a colour-coded spreadsheet for her two kids’ school stuff, hobbies, medical appointments, and her ex’s access weekends. Her ex? Thinks “being involved” means turning up and playing Fortnite with them for two hours.
She laughed when I asked if he ever notices the spreadsheet. “He doesn’t even know it exists, Emma. He just rocks up and expects everything to be sorted.”
That’s the tax.
And it’s not just practical stuff. It’s the *emotional* bit. The checking-in. The “how are you feeling about that?” conversations. The absorbing of bad moods so the house doesn’t feel like a pressure cooker. The reassuring him that no, you’re not “overreacting” when some prick catcalls you on the street.
I had this one ex, proper lefty, called himself a feminist and everything, who would come home from his barista job and unload about how hard it was being “the only guy who actually does the emotional work at work.” Meanwhile I was running my Substack, writing three threads a week, DMing sources, and still making sure the fridge had oat milk in it because god forbid he had to drink normal milk.
I actually said to him once, “Babe, do you ever notice that I’m the one who always asks how *you* are?”
He blinked. Honest to god blinked like I’d asked him to explain quantum physics. “What do you mean? I ask you how you are.”
Yeah. Once. When I was already crying.
Men don’t notice because they’ve never had to. The patriarchy trained them that women are the default emotional processors. Like some kind of free emotional support human.
And we pay the price. Burnout. Resentment that builds until one day you’re screaming in the car park at Tesco because he forgot the fucking washing-up liquid *again*.
At work it’s even worse (yes, even in “progressive” spaces)
Don’t think this is just a home thing.
I work in media, babes. I live in the belly of the progressive beast. And let me tell you, the emotional labour in these spaces is off the charts.
Who organises the team drinks? Who notices when the intern looks like she’s about to cry in the group Zoom? Who smooths over the passive-aggressive Slack messages? Who remembers that Sarah’s kid is off sick and checks in?
The women. Every time.
I’ve sat in editorial meetings where some male colleague will drone on about his latest hot take for twenty minutes while the rest of us nod and smile and gently steer the conversation back to the actual brief. And afterwards? We’re the ones who have to message the junior staff and say “don’t worry, he’s just like that.”
One time, and I swear this actually happened, I was in a meeting with a bunch of lefty journos discussing a piece on burnout. The only other woman in the room looked at me, deadpan, and said “Emma, you’re literally doing the emotional labour of this meeting right now by keeping everyone’s feelings in check.”
We both started laughing so hard we had to mute ourselves.
The blokes? Didn’t even notice.
And don’t get me started on the “I’m just direct” brigade. The ones who say brutal shit in meetings and then expect you to clean up the mess because “you’re better at that stuff.”
Better at what? Managing your inability to read a room?
It’s the same in every industry. Teachers. Nurses. Office admins. The women end up carrying the emotional temperature of the entire workplace. And the men? They get promoted for “strong leadership.”
The family and friends version, the one nobody talks about
This one hits different when you’re from a council estate.
My mum still does the Sunday roasts every other weekend. And guess who organises the whole thing? Who remembers what everyone likes? Who makes sure Nan’s got her special gravy? Who texts the cousins to check they’re actually coming?
Me and my sister. Not my brother. He just turns up, eats, and fucks off back to his PlayStation.
It’s not that he’s a bad bloke. He’s sound. But he literally does not see the work. The invisible threads holding the family together.
Same with friendships. I’ve got The Coven, my group chat of lefty journos and activists. We share leaks, gossip, support each other through breakups and bad pitches. But who organises the actual meet-ups? Who remembers whose birthday it is? Who checks in when someone’s gone quiet for three days?
The women. Always.
Men have mates they see once every six months for a pint and that’s it. No emotional admin required. We’re out here running full-scale relationship management systems with spreadsheets and group chats and voice notes at 2 a.m.
Why the fuck don’t they notice?
This is the bit that makes me properly angry.
It’s not that men are stupid. It’s that they’ve been socialised from birth to expect this work from women and to never, ever have to do it themselves.
Toxic masculinity doesn’t just hurt women, it stunts men. It tells them that noticing feelings is “women’s work.” That asking “how are you really?” makes you soft. That the emotional side of life is someone else’s problem.
So they float through life on this invisible cushion of female labour and genuinely believe they’re pulling their weight because they took the bins out once.
I had a bloke on a date last year, proper nice, worked in tech, called himself an ally, who spent forty-five minutes telling me how much he “loves strong women.” Then when I mentioned I was knackered because I’d spent the day sorting my mum’s benefits paperwork (long story), he said “Ah mate, that sounds stressful. Anyway, have you seen the new season of that show on Netflix?”
Swear to god.
The switch happens so fast it gives you whiplash.
They notice when it affects *them*. When the house is messy. When dinner isn’t ready. When you’re too tired for sex because you’ve spent all day managing everyone else’s emotions. Then suddenly it’s “you seem distant lately.”
Distant? Babes, I’m on the verge of a breakdown and you’re asking me why I’m not smiling enough.
The real cost, and it’s not just “being tired”
This isn’t just annoying. It’s damaging.
Studies, and yeah, I’ve read the lot, show women do between two and ten times more emotional labour than men in heterosexual relationships. The mental load alone is linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and burnout.
We’re paying with our health. Our careers. Our sleep. Our fucking sanity.
I’ve had weeks where I’m so deep in the mental load that I forget to eat. Not because I’m busy with work, I love the chaos of deadlines. But because I’m carrying everyone else’s emotional shit on top of my own.
And the worst part? When we finally crack and say something, we get hit with “you’re too sensitive” or “why are you making such a big deal out of this?”
Because noticing the labour would mean they have to do some of it. And that would mean the system they benefit from might actually have to change.
So what the fuck do we do about it?
I’m not here to tell you to “communicate better” or “set boundaries” like some Instagram wellness girlie. That’s individual bullshit that lets the system off the hook.
This is structural.
We need men to actually step up. Not just “help.” Not just “do the dishes when asked.” But to notice. To anticipate. To carry some of the fucking mental load without being handed a spreadsheet and a step-by-step guide.
We need workplaces to recognise emotional labour as real work. Paid work. Promotable work.
We need to stop praising men for the bare minimum. “He changed a nappy once!” is not a personality trait.
And yeah, we need to talk about this shit out loud. In the group chats. In the threads. In the bloody Substack comments. Until it becomes impossible to ignore.
Because here’s the thing, hun.
The emotional labour tax isn’t just unfair. It’s keeping the whole rotten system running. Late-stage capitalism needs us exhausted and compliant. Patriarchy needs us carrying the feelings so men can keep pretending emotions don’t exist.
I’m done paying it quietly.
So next time your fella asks “what’s for dinner?” while you’ve spent the last three hours managing the entire household’s emotional temperature, I want you to look him dead in the eye and say:
“Mate. That’s emotional labour. And I’m on strike.”
Then hand him the shopping list.
The revolution starts in the group chat. And it starts with us refusing to carry it alone anymore.
Drop your own stories in the comments, babes. I read every single one.
And if you’re a bloke reading this and feeling defensive, good. Sit with that. Then do something about it.
The tax is due.
Time to pay up.
Emma x
