I’ll admit it; I still religiously watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians every Sunday. Does this make me a ‘bad feminist’? Maybe, but frankly I don’t care and I’m going to continue to watch the show that turned six women into multi-millionaires (one, Kylie, close to billionaire status) for letting their entire lives be shown to the world.
However, in the most recent episode, season 16, episode 2 “Kourtney’s Choice,” there were some problematic ideas spouted by the matriarch of the family, Kris Jenner, that I simply couldn’t bring myself to ignore.
The scene I had my main issues with was filmed after Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West’s husband, made an unplanned and controversial rant after his performance on Saturday Night Live as the credits rolled. During this rambling speech, Kanye wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and made several pro-Trump statements. While it was cut from the broadcast of Saturday Night Live, footage of the tirade leaked to YouTube and Twitter almost immediately, and many members of the public and celebrities voiced their disapproval of Kanye’s message.
In the scene I mentioned above from Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kim tells her mom, Kris, about the unplanned speech and states that she is unsure whether her family will ever be invited back to Saturday Night Live. Kim goes on to tell her mother:
Look, I can’t control it… I know that Kanye is always gonna be Kanye, and I’m never trying to change that. I mean, that’s who I fell in love with, and I’m not trying to change who he is.
Kris, clearly frustrated and upset about the negative press making Kim look bad, then advises her daughter:
I just feel like to keep him calm, you really need to pay him a little more attention...I think he just is expecting a lot more than you’re giving."
To which Kim replies, irritated, that, "I don't have any much more to give."
Somehow Kris turns an impromptu, problematic speech made by a grown and independent man into an implication that Kim is deficient as a wife for not controlling Kanye’s actions. Kris seems to think that even while Kim is juggling three (soon to be four) children, running multiple businesses, and doing numerous public appearances and interviews, she still needs to somehow control her husband by giving him more attention and affection.
This advice plays into the outdated and problematic notion that women are not only supposed to be the ones running the home, but they are also representative and responsible for their husbands’ actions. By telling Kim she could stop Kanye’s erratic behavior by catering to his needs more often, Kris is saying Kim not only needs to be a partner to Kanye, but a mother and a manager as well. Kim Kardashian West does not need to answer for her husband’s actions because Kanye is an adult who can answer for himself.
Although Kris is herself a working mother, having acted as Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall, and Kylie’s manager since they first rose to fame in 2007, by making this comment it is clear she still believes Kim’s role as a wife should come before her work. For Kris, Kim should be focusing on providing emotional labor, the type of labor which is typically assigned to women in heterosexual relationships.
In Melissa Curran’s article, “Gender, Emotion Work, and Relationship Quality: A Daily Diary Study,” she unpacks the idea of emotional labor in relationships and the effect it has on the relationship when that labor is unequally divided. She also dives into the long-held belief, as evidenced through Kris Jenner’s comments to Kim, that women are the ones meant to shoulder the bulk of the emotional work in heterosexual relationships. She explains:
Emotion work can underscore greater relational inequality between partners, including perceptions that women are held accountable for emotion work in ways that men are not.
This accountability for emotion work is what Kris was trying to put onto Kim with her comments and insinuation that Kanye’s erratic behavior was directly tied to Kim’s supposed deficiencies in the emotional labor she is putting into her relationship.
According to the theory presented in Rebecca J Erikson’s article, “Why Emotion Work Matters: Sex, Gender, and the Division of Household Labor,” women have historically been the ones assigned the majority of emotional labor in the relationship because it was viewed as a fair tradeoff for the economic labor the husband contributed to the relationship. However, in the case of Kim Kardashian-West and Kanye West, Kim actually provides more of the economic labor to the relationship (Kanye has a net worth estimated at $250 million while Kim has a net worth of $350 million).
Kris seems to want Kim to fall into the archaic sense of what it means to be a wife and a partner – despite the fact that Kim manages a perfume line, make-up line, popular app, as well as countless contracts using her personal Instagram as advertising for companies. Kim wasn’t exaggerating when she said she didn’t have much left to give emotionally to Kanye.
Ultimately, it is not only regressive for Kris to suggest Kim’s lack of emotional labor is directly tied to Kanye’s outbursts, but it is also insulting to Kanye, who has been very open with the fact he is an independent person who is going to do what he wants.
5 comments:
Hi Katie,
This post hit close to home for me. I mean, I'm no millionaire daughter of a family whose names all start with the same letter . . . but it is certainly not unusual for my mother and I to clash in a way similar to Kim and Kris here. As I've grown up, I've noticed my mom and I particularly butt heads when it comes to advice, often unsolicited, about my romantic relationships. The arguments proceed a lot like Kris and Kim's conversation: I volunteer information about my and my partner's life at the moment, and eventually the conversation ends up with my mother claiming I'm not doing that great as a girlfriend, I need to provide more for my partners, or that "one day [I'll] figure out how relationships really work".
In one instance, I spoke to my mom about some health issues my partner was going through. After we discussed some of the details my mom told me in a scolding tone, "You know Taylor, you have to really be there for him." She went on to talk about how I needed to change my schedule and do whatever he needed in order to comfort him.
I realize this is not a direct parallel to the emotional labour implied by Kris, but in many ways my mom imposed a similar sense of
responsibility and total emotional and physical sacrifice on me. For one, her tone and insistence that I "be there for him" implied that I wasn't already doing enough. Second, she insisted that I sacrifice more of myself to help my partner. While I'm sure her "advice" came out of concern for my partner (and I expect concern of Kanye's well-being likely motivated Kris as well), I couldn't help but resent my mom's comments.
In my experience, women go above and beyond on any task given to them, whether it is professional or personal. The idea that a woman needs to give even more (when she is likely already giving so much) is exasperating! What more do you want from us?! When I read your post one of my first thoughts was, I bet Kim already internally feels an immense pressure to provide for her partner, why is someone wanting her to give even more?? That is how I often feel in these situations. Be it internalized misogyny or something else, I naturally feel compelled to take on vast amounts of emotional labour. To hear that I need to take on more is actually a little insulting. We - myself, my mother, Kris, and Kim - need to have a bit more compassion for women. Whether we see it first hand or not, women take on a lot of additional work. Instead of insist she do more, we need to encourage what she currently does and support her emotionally as she takes on the emotional labour of many others.
Katie,
Thank you for shedding light on the heightened emotional burden women face in romantic relationships. It always amazes me that this burden continues to persist despite the advancements made towards diminishing the separate spheres women and men have been traditionally allocated to in our society.
Although women continue to gain more opportunities to enter the workplace over time, I find that this expectation to be the primary carrier of the emotional labor in a relationship fails to subside. In that sense, it is quite akin to the expectation that women must remain responsible for cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids even if they work a grueling full-time job equivalent to their male partner. If the inequality and double standards are starting to somewhat disperse in the workplace, why should they not also disperse in other male-female dynamics such as personal relationships or home environments?
Equality must exist in all domains where males and females interact. However, I find that it is much harder for women from older generations to detach from the idea that women are expected to always do more in a relationship.
For example, many older generation women in own my family continue to promulgate such views. They are continuously telling me how I should learn how to cook, how I am going to be expected to “sacrifice” later on in life when I have children and how my husband will always need to be “my priority.” It appears as though traditional culture norms and a lack in ability to empathize and fully understand the depth of the new roles women are starting to adopt outside the private sphere plays a significant role in this double standard persisting. I wonder if there are ways to make the experiences of the new generation women more relatable and if there are specific tactics we as a society can employ to help bridge this gap between the newer and older generation of women.
Katie,
I really enjoyed your post. It was entertaining (from the Kanye rant to his tweet at the end). I also appreciate you highlighting a very real issue heterosexual women encounter in their relationships: a male partner's outlandish, impulsive behavior is somehow due to the female partner's lack of attention/care for him (as if we're supposed to be their mothers too). However, I don't know if this is truly a double standard as suggested. I've witnessed others harshly judge the male partner based on the female partner's inappropriate behavior. I've heard comments like, "Maybe she wouldn't act like that if he was taking care of things like he should." With men, the "cause" isn't the lack of emotional support, but rather, the lack of financial support. Here again problematic by reinforcing a gendered stereotype that is damaging to everyone. I think inevitably your partner's actions will be a reflection on you, but we should definitely consider and question these problematic associations and comments for both genders, and for everyone's sake.
Thank you so much for highlighting this issue! I am curious whether she is putting the burden of emotional labor on Kim as Kim's manager or mom. Was she giving Kim this advice to keep Kanye calm in order to maintain their empire or because she believes that it is Kim's duty (as Kanye's wife) to provide added emotional support?
Kim commented on this issue later in the show and said that she and Kanye fight a lot because she pays more attention to her kids than she does to him. Not only is Kim the head of a multi-million dollar empire, but she has three children (another one on the way!). I understand that partners in a relationship provide emotional support to one another, but in this dynamic, it looks like Kim bears the brunt of the emotional labor.
This reminds me of how women are expected to "do it all" - if we have a career, we are still expected to be mothers, caretakers, and homemakers. Women have stretched themselves thin giving to others, but when they spend most of their time giving, they are left with nothing for themselves.
This post reminded me a lot of things I have seen in my own family. Although my mom runs her own business, takes on the majority of the housework, and spends almost all of her free time doing something related to parenting, my grandmother still insists that my mom be more attentive and loving to my dad when he is being unreasonable. I find myself constantly telling her that he is a grown ass man who does not need babying, but my grandmother just does not understand! It makes me really wonder what she is going to say to me ten years down the line about paying attention to my own partner. Slowly though I am convincing her that marriage and romantic partnerships are a two-way street. A few days ago I overheard her telling her sister not to put up with the sister's husband's bad attitude, so it looks like I am a good influence on her!
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