Page 287 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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kind one finds in care, exposes givers to the when it goes wrong. The product itself is
danger of ‘patronage and exploitation’, of invisible. The value of the labour is only rec-
personal dependency on the recipient. ‘As ognized in negative forms, in disorder, rather
structures of action, one is concerned with than in its positive form of “adjustment”’
maintaining the value of a timeless human (James, 1989: 28). Looking after others’
commitment; the other, that of a more bodies and emotions has traditionally been
ephemeral autonomy’ (Graeber, 2001: 225). regarded as ‘women’s work’ and, as such, as
In the health care professions, curative ‘natural’. In fact, this is so much the case that
activities (e.g., surgery) were traditionally it has often not been seen as work at all and
identified as male while caring activities certainly not as something on which one
were regarded as female. Curative acts are would put a price (Hochschild, 1983: 163,
punctual and often singular events. They lend 165; James, 1989).
themselves to closed relationships of gift or Different aspects of care have been
commodity exchange, and indeed to compet- abstracted from each other and made to
itive displays of power, skill or wealth. (I appear quite independent of the other aspects.
recall my endodontist some years ago calling Professionals perform work which involves
his colleague into the room to boast of the specialized knowledge and technical skills.
difficult root-canal operation he had just Other tasks are left to poorly paid, unregulated
conducted on my tooth and to bask in the workers, disproportionately women of colour,
ensuing praise and admiration.) Caring acts, often immigrants. Some professionals, who
by contrast, are fluid and plural, in constant have been engaged in a decades-long struggle
need of repetition (James, 1989; Neysmith, for increasing status, recognition and auton-
1998; Twigg, 2000), entail open-ended omy, seek to dissociate themselves from such
giving, and are prone to lead to patterns of subaltern tasks. In fact, the emotional labour
dependency. that is thought to be an unskilled and sponta-
Not only are the vast majority of those neous extension of women’s nature is subtle
who occupy caring (as opposed to curing) and demanding, requiring not only reserves of
profession’s women, but the perception and patience, empathy and tact, but powers of psy-
response to caregiving varies as a function of chological analysis. Emotional labour is not
the gendered construction of each profes- easily quantified, is difficult to account for, is
sional category (care by physicians and often regarded as an unskilled activity accom-
nurses is not perceived in the same light) plished by people of a lower social status, and
(Twigg, 2000) and as a function of whether it can expose its practitioners to the risk of
is occupied by a man or a woman (patients dependency; body work is associated with
and other professionals may not relate the dirt, waste and decay (Twigg, 2000). The
same way to a male or female physician or social division of care work, and thus the dif-
surgeon, for example) (Molinier, 2003). ferent constructions of the nature of care, are
More broadly, men’s and women’s respective key issues in the competition between profes-
relations to caring, in its physical, emotional sions for status, salaries and power.
and intellectual aspects, are differently con- In a context of ‘lean production’, non-
structed, as are (correlatively) their respec- standardizable tasks, such as emotion work,
tive relations to giving. Where men’s giving still need to be done – only they often have to
and caring may be the object of praise as the be done on the side, because they are no
manifestation of virtue, women’s caring and longer considered ‘value-added’ and are
giving is more likely to be reified as an therefore no longer remunerated, or because
expression of women’s nature, and as such is increasingly rationed time makes them more
more likely to be socially invisible. and more difficult to accomplish. Workers
‘Emotional labor is recognized not when the continue to perform them as ‘extras’, as gifts
outcome is right, but on those occasions – transforming ‘labour’ into ‘work’ – and are