Anyone who has ever worked in a customer service job knows the literal pain that comes from smiling at customers for eight hours. The numb cheeks and glazed-over eyes as you answer the same question for the twelfth time that hour. Sometimes you get home and can’t stay up; you're so physically exhausted.

But sometimes this heaviness comes from more than an overtime barista shift. What about always cleaning up after office birthday parties because you feel responsible for everyone else? Maybe it’s the time spent proofreading your emails and adding in exclamation points or emojis to make sure you don’t sound too mean.

There is an unspoken expectation that weighs down the shoulders of oppressed and marginalized groups of people who are often forced to maintain a level of dissonance between how they truly feel and what society around them deems correct to feel: emotional labor.