Analyzing women's emotional labor in the private domain of the "home" from a feminist perspective: A case study of Turkey

The purpose of this research is to examine women's emotion work which they show in the household in the context of gender inequalities. With this purpose, feminist methodology was used in the study; in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 working, married women with children, and data were produced using qualitative method. The findings obtained from the interviews show that women adopt gender roles very naturally; therefore, they undertake a large part of household and care duties in the name of ''sacrifice''. Women who are expected to show understanding, patience, care and empathy, experience not only physical and mental exhaustion, but also emotional exhaustion since they are forced to manage their emotions by constantly suppressing them. The result of this study reveals that women mostly manage emotions while caring, nursing and giving attention to children. In addition, it has been observed that emotion management varies according to age and women do emotional labor more frequently and more unconsciously as they get older via displaying surface, deep and genuine acting. And this supports the assumption that emotional capital is necessary for emotional labor. Key Words: Emotion, Emotional Labor, Gender, Phsyical Labor, Mental Labor, Household Labor, Emotion Work