The unseen emotional burden women carry

For many women in India, the workday doesn’t end at the office. It continues at home—in the kitchen, in caring for children and elders, and crucially, in tending to the emotional needs of those around them. This ‘triple burden’ of paid work, unpaid domestic work and emotional labour is silently shaping women’s lives, limiting their autonomy and stealing time from their own growth.

While domestic and care-giving responsibilities are now widely discussed, a third kind of labour—interpretive or hermeneutic labour—remains largely invisible. Coined by philosopher Ellie Anderson, the term refers to the work of decoding and managing others’ emotions, anticipating needs, smoothing over conflict, and being the emotional anchor in personal relationships. It’s the unseen effort behind every “Is he upset or just tired?” or “How do I bring this up without making him angry?” or simply “What is he thinking?”

This unequal emotional burden isn’t just unfortunate, it’s a form of modern-day misogyny. It silently enforces the idea that women exist to serve, soothe and support, while men are entitled to care without ever learning to reciprocate, introspect, or communicate.

Women have long performed what sociologist Arlie Hochschild called the “second shift” — unpaid domestic work after paid employment. Hermeneutic labour adds a third: maintaining emotional equilibrium at home and often at work too. This work is rarely recognised, let alone shared. In heterosexual relationships especially, women often become default emotional managers, while men who are socialised into emotional reticence withdraw.

This imbalance begins early. Boys are told to toughen up; girls are taught to care. Over time, men grow up with what psychologists call “normative male alexithymia”—difficulty identifying or expressing emotions—and women are expected to fill in the gaps. They must sense when something is wrong, offer comfort, avoid triggering sensitive topics, and maintain harmony, even if they are overwhelmed.

The result is what Anderson calls a “lose-lose” pattern. When women raise concerns, they’re often met with denial or dismissal — “You’re overthinking.” If they stay silent, they carry the burden alone. Either way, it’s exhausting.

Economist Shrayana Bhattacharya’s work offers a particularly powerful lens on this issue. In her interviews with working women across class lines, she found that even women earning money outside the home must still “earn love” inside it. As she puts it, “Men must earn money and women must earn love”.

This double or rather triple burden keeps women in a state of time poverty, leaving little room for leisure, rest, or self-development. The emotional load becomes a hidden tax on women’s time and mental bandwidth. Even financially independent women are expected to serve as family psychologists, peacekeepers and relationship therapists—all without acknowledgement, let alone fair compensation for their unpaid labour.

Bhattacharya points out that Indian women make up nearly half the population but contribute less than 20% of GDP—a gap fuelled in part by the unpaid work they do. This includes not only cooking and cleaning but also the emotional energy required to sustain households. Time-use data suggests Indian women spend over five hours a day on unpaid labour, compared to just 30 minutes by men. That difference translates into lost career opportunities, missed promotions, and diminished autonomy.

Popular culture reinforces these dynamics. In countless Bollywood films—from Hum Aapke Hain Kaun to Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham—women are cast as the emotional centre of the family. They mediate conflicts, understand silent male protagonists and absorb emotional shocks without complaint. Men, in contrast, often play the ‘strong and silent’ types— emotionally absent, yet never held accountable for it. The message is clear: real men don’t emote, and real women must make up for it.

This model extends into workplaces too, where women are more likely to be asked to do the ‘office housework’—planning parties, mentoring junior staff, managing team harmony. These tasks are vital but often overlooked when promotions or raises are handed out. Worse, women who reject this role risk being labelled cold or uncooperative.

This isn’t just a cultural issue; it’s an economic one. Globally, if women’s unpaid care work were counted, it would add over $11 trillion to the world economy annually. In India, economists estimate that redistributing care responsibilities more equitably could boost GDP by up to 30%.

But beyond GDP, the costs are personal. Emotional burnout is real. Women who constantly manage others’ feelings often suppress their own, leading to higher rates of stress, anxiety, and relationship dissatisfaction. They may ask themselves: “Am I overreacting?”, “Why do I feel unseen?” The answer often lies in how invisible their labour—especially their emotional labour —has become.

Feminist philosopher Kate Manne captures this dynamic in her concept of “human givers”. In patriarchal societies, women are expected to give care, love, attention and emotional energy, often without expecting anything in return.

The ideal woman is always giving; the ideal man is always receiving. Challenging this ideal, even by asking for reciprocity, can provoke backlash. Emotional labour, then, isn’t just a burden—it’s a tool of gendered control.

The first step toward change is recognition. Emotional and interpretive labour are not personality traits; they are learned, practised, and exhausting forms of work. We must stop treating them as “just how women are”.

Second, we need redistribution. Emotional labour should not be gendered. Men must learn to read emotional cues, articulate their feelings and take responsibility for relationship maintenance at home and work. Workplaces should rotate support tasks fairly. And governments must invest in care infrastructure to ease the unpaid workload at home.

Finally, we must shift how we talk about emotional work, not as ‘soft skills’ or ‘women’s instincts’ but as critical contributions to family stability and organisational health. This means valuing, supporting and sharing that work, not hiding it in the margins of women’s lives.

In a society that tells women to “have it all”, we rarely stop to ask: at what cost? When women spend their days earning a paycheck and their nights earning love, something is deeply broken. Emotional labour isn’t just a private burden; it’s a public issue. It’s time we treated it as such.

(The writer is a lawyer based in New Delhi and a research fellow at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy)