Last week I read a disturbing headline about a public service announcement in Malaysia encouraging women to refrain from being sarcastic if they asked for help with household chores during these concerning times. Women were also encouraged to dress up and wear make-up, apparently to make their presence more tolerable to spouses. As you could assume the internet went bat-shit over these sexist comments and soon the Malaysian government apologized for the tone deaf messages. But was that enough?

Reading those headlines and the social media backlash to the comments reminded me of a fabulous piece written by Gemma Hartley in 2017. The piece was entitled “Women Aren’t Nags–We’re Just Fed Up” and was about the emotional labor that women are expected to perform. Hartley is brilliant in the piece and if you haven’t read it I truly urge you to use the link and prepare yourself to be impressed with her writing and pissed off by her message. In the article Hartley describes the herculean task of trying to explain to her husband the concept of emotional labor without hurting his feelings or as the title suggests–coming off as a nag. A brief description of emotional labor in case you aren’t familiar with the term is all the shit that is swirling around in your head at any given moment. Doctor’s appointments, birthday parties, gifts that need to be bought. What size shoes do the kids wear. What’s for dinner. All that shit is emotional labor, and it almost always falls on the shoulders of women. Now throw in a pandemic and self-isolating and that emotional labor increases exponentially because now you are worried about not just what’s for dinner, but if you are going to get sick and die from going to the store to pick up milk, if they have any, because no one else thought to pick up milk or even seems to realize that milk is used in the house and runs out and isn’t brought and refilled by fairies.

The most disturbing aspect of the Malaysian incident was the realization that we haven’t progressed as far as we think we have and it is startling. These public service announcements were made with the intention of “maintaining positive relationships among family members,” by reminding women that it’s their job to control other’s emotions? I don’t think so. Why are we asking for help with household chores? Why are we keeping the peace by stroking egos and making ourselves pleasing to look at? Why must we still make ourselves smaller to survive?