ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the Rose Hack-man's proposal to extend the concept of paid emotional labour into the private sphere of family, marriage, parenting and sexual relations constitutes an extension of neoliberal economic rationality in ways that effectively collapse the distinction between market and private sphere. Both Hackman and Jess Zimmerman assume that emotional labour is something that females do better than males without recognizing that individuals – female and male – can position themselves along the male–female sex divide in a variety of ways that are not directly tied to biological sex. Zimmerman framed emotional labor as something especially occurring in private, while academics first focused on it as a formal workplace issue. In accordance with neoliberal economic rationality, emotional labour and the suggestion that it be paid becomes a way of extending market values to all aspects of human action, including the intimate and private spheres of the family and the home.