‘What’s love got to do with it?’ Emotional Bodies Week 7 Embodiment & Feminist Theory

Recap Considered how embodiment is an organising structure which ‘values’ some bodies more than others Look at how bodies are always constructed through class, ‘race’ and gender, disability and ageing Considered the construction of ‘deviant bodies’ and ‘bodies at risk’

Outline Consider the social context of emotions Look at the role of emotional labour in employment Consider emotion work within heterosexual relationships

What are emotions? Think about your experiences of emotions Pride Shame Nostalgia Embarrassment Anger Fear Joy Sadness Discuss with your neighbour an experience of one of these emotions

What are emotions? Emotions are often related to the social context. Emotions are physical sensations But our understanding of them arises through our social knowledge

Public emotions Acknowledgement of emotions also based in the social context and varies in time and space In the UK, shift in attitudes Public mourning of the dead Rise of confessional TV Acknowledgement is varied Sadness of victim’s families but not perpetrators

‘Feeling Rules’ Most social groups have ‘feeling rules’ Happy at birthdays or weddings Sad at funerals Those who don’t comply may be publicly admonished

Emotions as inherent Lupton argues there are 2 main perspectives on emotion Emotions as inherent Born with set basic emotions Expression differs from society to society Individualised understanding Cognitive theory

Emotions as Sociocultural constructions Emotions are always experienced, understood and named via social and cultural processes Learnt rather than inherited behaviour Shaped by social institutions, social systems and power relationships Examples in social theory Marx – alienation Durkheim – anomie

Discuss to what extent you think emotions are socially constructed

Gendered emotions Lupton argues that the ideas of ‘emotional women’ and ‘unemotional man’ have a powerful hold in western society Emotion is coded as female ‘Get in touch with your feminine side’ Women associated with ‘good emotions’ but also irrational, and loss of control

Unemotional man? Masculinity may encourage the ‘denial’ of emotions Boys don’t cry Rationality and reason Independence rather than dependency But some emotions ‘reserved’ for men Anger and rage

Emotional Labour Hochschild drew attention to the ways in which feelings are increasingly commercialised and commoditized Entry to emotions into the marketplace Drew a distinctions between Emotional work Reconstituting emotions in line with feeling rules Emotional labour Similar work, but to induce change in others

Service industries Hochschild drew attention to the ways in which employees are required to ‘feel’ the right emotions ‘Emotional labour requires one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others’ Hochschild A (1983) The managed heart. London University of California press p7

Service industries Hochschild draws a distinction between: Deep Acting Requirement to actually feel the right emotions Surface Acting Requirement to display the right emotion

What impact do you think emotional labour has on workers?

Private emotion work Jackson argues that social scripts are an importance resource for understanding romantic love Boy meets Girl stories Valentines Day Chocolates, flowers and rings These scripts identify ‘love’ relationships and the expected social norms

Changing Intimacy? Giddens suggested that intimacy is changing ‘pure relationships’ based on equality between partners Jamieson argues that this ignores gendered power relationships Women’s responsibility for emotional labour within relationships

Family Emotional labour Women are ‘responsible’ for emotional labour (emotional women) Part of caring Monitoring and regulating the emotional states of others Performing intimacy within heterosexual couples Often acts were unreciprocated

Summary Considered the idea that emotions are socially constructed Looked at feeling rules and emotional labour Considered how these might be gendered

Next week Look at the presentation of self Examine feminist critiques of the fashion and beauty industry Look at the debates over cosmetic surgery