“Where’s My Cut?”: On Unpaid Emotional Labor -The Toast
Jess Zimmerman’s previous work for The Toast can be found here .
Jess Zimmerman 之前为 The Toast 创作的作品可以在这里找到。
I am not a big fan of psychic charlatanry, which often preys on people who are in genuine grief.
我不太喜欢通灵骗术，这种骗术常常会欺骗那些真正处于悲伤之中的人。
So when I read about psychic fraud Priscilla Kelly Delmaro, arrested in May for second-degree grand larceny, I should have felt smug about her downfall.
因此，当我读到 Priscilla Kelly Delmaro 因二级盗窃罪于 5 月被捕的报道时，我应该对她的垮台感到沾沾自喜。
Delmaro had induced a male client to give her over $700,000 worth of payment and gifts, including a diamond ring and a Rolex – all in exchange for her mystic advice on how to woo a woman, Michelle, who’d made her lack of interest very clear.
德尔马罗诱使一位男性客户向她支付了价值超过 70 万美元的款项和礼物，包括一枚钻戒和一块劳力士手表，所有这些都是为了换取她关于如何吸引一位名叫米歇尔 (Michelle) 的女人的神秘建议，而米歇尔则明确表示她对此缺乏兴趣。
Technically the diamond was to “protect his energy,” the Rolex was to “go back and cleanse his past,” and some of the money was to build an 80-mile solid gold bridge into the spirit world, but that was the general formula: woman has no interest, man needs to feel hope, Delmaro is willing to provide that hope for a price.
从技术上讲，钻石是为了“保护他的能量”，劳力士是为了“回去并净化他的过去”，部分资金是为了建造一座80英里长的通往精神世界的纯金桥梁，但这就是一般公式：女人没有兴趣，男人需要感受到希望，德尔马罗愿意以一定的价格提供这种希望。
Psychics in New York are supposed to clarify that their services are “for entertainment purposes only,” but Delmaro was clearly advertising concrete results, even if some of them (like the bridge) were also intangible.
纽约的通灵者应该澄清他们的服务“仅用于娱乐目的”，但德尔马罗显然在宣传具体的结果，即使其中一些（如桥梁）也是无形的。
It was obviously a con, and thus probably a more justified arrest than two-thirds of the ones NYPD made that day.
这显然是一个骗局，因此可能比纽约警察局当天逮捕的三分之二的人更合理。
But that wasn’t my first thought when I read this story.
但这并不是我读到这个故事时的第一个想法。
My first thought was “how do I get in on this game?”
我的第一个想法是“我如何参与这个游戏？”
Here’s the part that made me thoughtfully stroke my imaginary beard:
这是让我若有所思地抚摸我想象中的胡子的部分：
Ms. Delmaro told him the trouble had come from a spirit that was stalking him.
德尔马罗女士告诉他，麻烦来自于跟踪他的鬼魂。
She needed $28,000, then $28,000 more.
她需要 28,000 美元，然后又需要 28,000 美元。
Michelle had grown cold so suddenly, he thought, that the spirit explanation sounded right, and so he paid.
米歇尔突然变冷了，他想，精神的解释听起来是对的，所以他付了钱。
Recall that this was a woman who’d made it explicitly clear that she had no romantic feelings for this fellow.
回想一下，这个女人曾明确表示她对这个家伙没有浪漫的感觉。
A reasonable person might note Michelle’s complete lack of interest and come up with a few more plausible explanations for her coldness than “evil spirits.” But for this guy to follow that thread, he’d have to give up on an article of deeply-held faith: that any woman he wants is rightfully his and just needs to be collected.
一个理智的人可能会注意到米歇尔完全缺乏兴趣，并对她的冷漠提出一些比“邪灵”更合理的解释。但要让这个家伙遵循这条线索，他就必须放弃一条根深蒂固的信念：任何他想要的女人都是他的，只是需要被收集。
Much easier to believe in poltergeists, and pay to have them removed.
更容易相信恶作剧者，并花钱将他们除掉。
Believe it or not, I’m not unsympathetic to the man, who must be very lonely.
不管你信不信，我并不是不同情这个男人，他一定很孤独。
But when I see how desperate he was to have his delusion of entitlement confirmed, when I read that he found “Michelle is influenced by evil spirits” easier to swallow than “Michelle is a human being with preferences and agency,” I find it harder to feel too sorry that someone took him for what he was willing to pay.
但当我看到他多么渴望让自己的权利错觉得到证实，当我读到他发现“米歇尔受到邪灵影响”比“米歇尔是一个有偏好和代理的人”更容易被接受时，我发现很难为有人因为他愿意付出的代价而接受他而感到太遗憾。
“Men gonna men,” as the New Yorker’s Caitlin Kelly tweeted ; they often ignore women’s explicit stated opinions, and it’s always annoying, so why not get a Rolex out of the deal?
《纽约客》的凯特琳·凯利 (Caitlin Kelly) 在推特上写道：“男人就是男人”；他们经常忽视女性明确表达的意见，这总是很烦人，所以为什么不从交易中买一块劳力士呢？
The real travesty is that Michelle didn’t get a cut.
真正讽刺的是米歇尔没有得到晋级。
The other travesty is that I didn’t think of it first.
另一个讽刺是我首先没有想到这一点。
Of course, I don’t really want to make a living giving men false hope.
当然，我并不是真的想靠给人们带来虚假的希望来谋生。
But what if I wanted to make a living yelling at them about why their false hope is dumb?
但如果我想靠向他们大喊大叫为什么他们的虚假希望是愚蠢的来谋生怎么办？
This is a thing I do frequently now for free.
这是我现在经常免费做的事情。
Somehow, despite increasingly noisy misandry, I have amassed a small cadre of men who think I’m a good person to confide in.
不知何故，尽管怨声载道，我还是聚集了一小群认为我是值得信赖的好人。
These are friends and partners, so it goes without saying that they are generally not confiding fucked-up attitudes about women, but they’re also straight men with feelings; consequently, I’ve seen my share of “how do I make her fall back in love with me,” “how do I make her regret rejecting me,” “how do I change her mind.”
他们是朋友和伴侣，不用说，他们一般不会吐露对女性的糟糕态度，但他们也是有感情的直男；因此，我看到了我的分享“我如何让她重新爱上我”，“我如何让她后悔拒绝我”，“我如何改变她的想法”。
The answers are “you can’t,” “you can’t,” and “you can’t,” respectively, but I’ve come up with enough different ways of saying this that occasionally one gets through.
答案分别是“你不能”、“你不能”和“你不能”，但我已经想出了足够多不同的方式来表达这个问题，偶尔有人能通过。
It’s something I’m happy to do for the people I care about, but it is not effortless.
我很乐意为我关心的人做这件事，但这并不轻松。
I’ve fielded hundreds of late-night texts, balanced reassurance with tough love, hammered away at stubborn beliefs, sometimes even taken (shudder) phone calls.
我在深夜收到了数百条短信，用严厉的爱来平衡安慰，反复敲击顽固的信念，有时甚至接听（颤抖的）电话。
I’ve actually been on agony aunt duty for male friends since high school, so if it’s true that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something, counseling bereft dudes may in fact be my only expert skill.
事实上，我从高中起就一直在为男性朋友担任痛苦阿姨，所以如果真的需要一万个小时的练习才能成为某件事的专家，那么为失去亲人的人提供咨询实际上可能是我唯一的专业技能。
And yet, it is basically impossible to monetize, short of demanding funds to build a gold bridge.
然而，由于缺乏建造金桥所需的资金，基本上不可能货币化。
Not that I’d charge my friends – but I don’t charge to edit stuff for them either, nor do usually they charge me when they knit me something or draw me a picture or feed my dog.
并不是说我会向我的朋友收费——但我也不会为他们编辑东西收费，当他们给我编织东西、给我画一幅画或喂我的狗时，他们通常也不会向我收费。
Yet that work is still considered to have value.
然而这项工作仍然被认为具有价值。
I’ve offered to pay for dogsitting, they’ve offered to pay for editing; often we arrange some kind of barter in lieu of payment.
我愿意支付看护费用，他们愿意支付编辑费用；我们经常安排某种易货贸易来代替付款。
If we wanted to charge someone else money for these services, it would not be considered absurd.
如果我们想向别人收取这些服务的费用，这也不会被认为是荒谬的。
But emotional labor?
但情感劳动呢？
Offering advice, listening to woes, dispensing care and attention?
提供建议、倾听困境、给予关心和关注？
That’s not supposed to be transactional.
这不应该是交易性的。
People are disturbed by the very notion that someone would charge, or pay, for friendly support.
人们对有人会为了友好的支持而收费或付费的想法感到不安。
It’s supposed to come free.
它应该是免费的。
In May, Lauren Chief Elk (@ChiefElk) started the Twitter hashtag #GiveYourMoneyToWomen, based on a conversation with @cheuya and Bardot Elle Smith (@BardotSmith).
5 月，Lauren Chief Elk (@ChiefElk) 根据与 @cheuya 和 Bardot Elle Smith (@BardotSmith) 的对话，创建了 Twitter 标签#GiveYourMoneyToWomen。
The basic idea behind the hashtag is that a woman’s time and regard has value – it cannot be had for nothing.
该标签背后的基本理念是，女性的时间和关注是有价值的——它不能毫无价值。
Men like to act as if commanding women’s attention is their birthright, their natural due, and they are rarely contradicted.
男人喜欢表现得好像吸引女人的注意力是他们与生俱来的权利，是他们理所应当的，而且很少有人反对。
It’s a radical act to refuse them that attention.
拒绝他们的关注是一种激进的行为。
It’s even more radical to propose that if they want it so fucking much, they can buy it.
更激进的是，如果他们非常想要，就可以买。
The originators and adherents of #GiveYourMoneyToWomen didn’t just suggest that women should get paid for existing, although yeah that too if you’re buying.
#GiveYourMoneyToWomen 的发起者和追随者不仅仅建议女性应该为现有的东西获得报酬，当然，如果你正在购买，也是如此。
Rather, women should get paid for all the work they typically do for free – all the affirmation, forbearance, consultation, pacifying, guidance, tutorial, and weathering abuse that we spend energy on every single day.
相反，女性应该为她们通常免费做的所有工作获得报酬——所有我们每天花费精力的肯定、忍耐、咨询、安抚、指导、辅导和经受虐待。
Imagine a menu of emotional labor: Acknowledge your thirsty posturing, $50.
想象一下情感劳动的菜单：承认你饥渴的姿态，50 美元。
Pretend to find you fascinating, $100.
假装觉得你很迷人，100 美元。
Soothe your ego so you don’t get angry, $150.
安抚你的自尊心，这样你就不会生气，150 美元。
Smile hollowly while you make a worse version of their joke, $200.
当你把他们的笑话讲得更糟糕的时候，你微笑着，“200 美元”。
Explain 101-level feminism to you like you’re five years old, $300.
像你五岁一样给你解释101级女权主义，300美元。
Listen to your rant about “bitches,” $infinity.
听听你对“婊子”、“无限”的咆哮。
It was beautiful to watch #GiveYourMoneyToWomen unfold.
观看#GiveYourMoneyToWomen 的展开真是太美好了。
Men got angry, and then women explained to them that to have their anger acknowledged, they would have to pay.
男人生气了，然后女人向他们解释说，要让他们的愤怒得到承认，他们就必须付出代价。
This made them angrier, of course, but without a donation, who was listening?
这当然让他们更加愤怒，但如果没有捐款，谁在听呢？
Even now, when you Google the hashtag, nearly the whole first results page consists of furious MRAs.
即使现在，当你用谷歌搜索主题标签时，几乎整个第一个结果页面都是由愤怒的 MRA 组成的。
(I didn’t click through, though.
（不过我没有点击进去。
Who exactly was going to make it worth my while?)
究竟是谁会让我值得这么做？）
But women – purportedly feminist women – also expressed confusion and affront.
但女性——据称是女权主义女性——也表达了困惑和侮辱。
Huffington Post UK blogger Katy Horwood, who has boasted in print about getting out of a £50 traffic ticket by flirting, suddenly came over all high-and-mighty when it was suggested that female attention might have direct monetary value.
英国《赫芬顿邮报》博客作者凯蒂·霍伍德（Katy Horwood）曾在报纸上夸口说，通过调情可以摆脱 50 英镑的交通罚单，当有人提出女性的关注可能具有直接的金钱价值时，她突然变得高高在上。
“You want money?
“你想要钱吗？
Cut out the bitching and moaning and go the f**k out and earn it,” she wrote .
停止抱怨和抱怨，去他妈的去挣钱吧，”她写道。
Because affirmation, forbearance, consultation, pacifying, guidance, tutorial, weathering abuse: these earn nothing.
因为肯定、忍耐、咨询、安抚、指导、辅导、风化虐待：这些都是一无所获的。
These have no worth.
这些没有任何价值。
It’s not just emotional work that’s supposed to come free of charge.
不只是情感工作应该是免费的。
Feminist scholar Silvia Federici wrote in 1975:
女权主义学者西尔维娅·费德里奇 (Silvia Federici) 在 1975 年写道：
[N]ot only has housework been imposed on women, but it has been transformed into a natural attribute of our female physique and personality, an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depth of our female character.
家务劳动不仅被强加给女性，而且已经转化为我们女性体质和性格的自然属性，一种内在的需要，一种愿望，据说来自我们女性性格的深处。
Housework had to be transformed into a natural attribute rather than be recognised as a social contract because from the beginning of capital’s scheme for women this work was destined to be unwaged.
家务劳动必须转变为一种自然属性，而不是被视为一种社会契约，因为从资本对妇女的计划开始，这项工作就注定是无报酬的。
Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make us accept our unwaged work.
资本必须让我们相信，让我们接受无报酬的工作是一种自然的、不可避免的甚至是令人满意的活动。
In its turn, the unwaged condition of housework has been the most powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that housework is not work , thus preventing women from struggling against it, except in the privatized kitchen-bedroom quarrel that all society agrees to ridicule, thereby further reducing the protagonist of a struggle.
反过来，家务劳动的无报酬状况又成为强化“家务劳动不是工作”的普遍观念的最有力武器，从而阻碍了妇女与之抗争，除非全社会都同意嘲笑的私有化厨房卧室争吵，从而进一步减少了斗争的主角。
We are seen as nagging bitches, not workers in struggle.
我们被视为喋喋不休的婊子，而不是奋斗中的工人。
Emotional labor has followed the same path.
情绪劳动也遵循同样的道路。
We are told frequently that women are more intuitive, more empathetic, more innately willing and able to offer succor and advice.
我们经常被告知，女性更直觉、更有同理心、更愿意并且能够提供帮助和建议。
How convenient that this cultural construct gives men an excuse to be emotionally lazy.
这种文化结构给男人在情感上懒惰提供了借口，这是多么方便啊。
How convenient that it casts feelings-based work as “an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depths of our female character.”
它将基于情感的工作视为“一种内在的需要、一种愿望，据说来自我们女性性格的深处”是多么方便。
It’s also hard not to draw a connection between #GiveYourMoneyToWomen and sex work.
我们也很难不把#GiveYourMoneyToWomen 和性工作联系起来。
Sex workers are selling something that’s legal to have, that belongs to them, and that people are willing to pay for – and yet the sale is subject to both moral and legal censure, unlike almost any other transaction of that kind.
性工作者出售的是合法拥有的、属于他们的、人们愿意付费的东西——然而，与几乎任何其他此类交易不同，这种出售受到道德和法律的谴责。
For all the rhetoric about protecting workers, a lot of opposition to sex work comes down to “this should not be sold, for reasons.” That moralizing, paternalistic viewpoint – “please ignore the fact that there’s a market for this, because we think it shouldn’t have monetary value” – has roots in common with Horwood’s call to “get a job.” It has roots in common with people who look down on domestic workers, or judge their employers for apparent failure to keep up their own homes.
尽管有很多关于保护工人的言论，但许多对性工作的反对归结为“出于某种原因，这不应该被出售”。这种说教、家长式的观点——“请忽略这个有市场的事实，因为我们认为它不应该具有货币价值”——与霍伍德“找份工作”的呼吁有着共同的根源。它与那些瞧不起家政工人或因雇主明显未能维护好自己的家园而评判雇主的人有共同之处。
Housework is not work.
家务劳动不是工作。
Sex work is not work.
性工作不是工作。
Emotional work is not work.
情感工作不是工作。
Why?
为什么？
Because they don’t take effort?
因为他们不努力？
No, because women are supposed to provide them uncompensated, out of the goodness of our hearts.
不，因为出于我们内心的善良，女性应该无偿地提供她们。
All that said, I’m not sure how I would monetize the emotional labor I do, how I would turn my hard-earned expertise into something that puts capitalism to work for me.
话虽如此，我不确定如何将我所做的情感劳动货币化，如何将我来之不易的专业知识转化为让资本主义为我服务的东西。
Maybe I have to become a therapist – once your feelings work is ratified by a Sainted Old White Man like Jung or Erickson or a college dean, it does seem to magically turn into a job skill.
也许我必须成为一名治疗师——一旦你的情感工作得到荣格或埃里克森这样的圣老白人或大学院长的认可，它似乎就会神奇地变成一种工作技能。
Maybe I should advertise “friend services” on Etsy, an agreed-upon number of carefully customized supportive texts just when you need them, like Joaquin Phoenix’s job in “Her” but less twee.
也许我应该在 Etsy 上宣传“朋友服务”，这是在你需要时提供商定数量的精心定制的支持性文本，就像华金·菲尼克斯在《她》中的工作，但不那么矫情。
Maybe I really should hang out a psychic shingle, and tell men I can give them insight into the minds of the women who spurned them.
也许我真的应该挂出一块通灵牌，告诉男人我可以让他们洞察那些拒绝他们的女人的想法。
Sure, all the tarot cards come up as the Queen of Brass Knuckles, representing a woman who already goddamn told you she wasn’t interested , but each time I read it directly from her mind!
当然，所有的塔罗牌都是指节铜套女王，代表一个已经该死的告诉你她不感兴趣的女人，但每次我都直接从她的脑海中读到它！
Also, if you believe that, I’ve got an 80-mile gold bridge to sell you.
另外，如果你相信这一点，我有一座 80 英里的金桥可以卖给你。
The “how” isn’t really important, which is lucky because these are all probably bad ideas.
“如何”并不重要，这很幸运，因为这些可能都是坏主意。
What I’m trying to do, for now, is just recognize that this work has value.
目前我想做的只是认识到这项工作的价值。
It’s very easy for me, and maybe for you, to wind up in a friendship or relationship or passing acquaintanceship, especially one with a man, where our labor is never rewarded, never returned, never even acknowledged.
对我来说，也许对你来说，很容易建立起一段友谊、关系或短暂的熟人，尤其是与一个男人，我们的劳动永远不会得到回报，永远不会得到回报，甚至永远不会被承认。
We let this happen because patriarchy is so good at training women as its proxies; we’ve internalized the idea that our effort is men’s birthright.
我们之所以让这种情况发生，是因为父权制非常擅长训练女性作为其代理人。我们已经内化了这样的观念：我们的努力是男人与生俱来的权利。
Enough of that.
够了。
We don’t necessarily need to insist that men just give us their money – though you should, if that works for you, and write down what they say because I bet it’ll be funny.
我们不一定需要坚持让男人把钱给我们——尽管你应该这样做，如果这对你有用的话，并写下他们说的话，因为我打赌这会很有趣。
But we absolutely get to recognize that the constant labor of placating men and navigating patriarchal expectations is exhausting because it’s work.
但我们绝对要认识到，安抚男性和满足父权期望的持续劳动是令人筋疲力尽的，因为这是工作。
(Incidentally, women of color should probably be getting recompense from men and white women; emotionally pampering white people while living within white supremacist culture is just as much of an effort if not more, and they’re doing both.) It’s counterintuitive, but it’s worth trying to think of emotional labor as a service – one that’s provided in response to constant demand.
（顺便说一句，有色人种女性可能应该从男性和白人女性那里得到回报；生活在白人至上主义文化中的同时在情感上呵护白人也是一种努力，甚至更多，而且她们两者都在做。）这是违反直觉的，但值得尝试将情感劳动视为一种服务——一种为响应持续需求而提供的服务。
Whatever your opinion of capitalism, we’re soaking in it, and by its own rules we should get some kind of remuneration for work that’s highly sought.
无论你对资本主义有什么看法，我们都沉浸在它之中，根据它自己的规则，我们应该为人们渴望的工作获得某种报酬。
I don’t expect to get $700,000, now that I’m trying to remember that emotional labor has value.
我不指望能得到 70 万美元，因为我正在努力记住情感劳动是有价值的。
I don’t expect to get anything, really.
我不期望得到任何东西，真的。
But at least now I know that when I get nothing, I’m being cheated.
但至少现在我知道，当我一无所获时，我就被欺骗了。
That’s a start.
这是一个开始。
Jess Zimmerman makes sentences on the internet and enjoys misandry and subtweets .
杰西·齐默尔曼 (Jess Zimmerman) 在互联网上造句，喜欢表达不满和转推。