Mahli-Ann Butt

Uploaded: February 22, 2018.

By Mahli-Ann Butt

We need to talk about Florence – it’s been a week since Valentine’s Day and the inaugural release from the Melbourne studio Mountains. Florence is a self-proclaimed interactive love story for ‘people-who-don’t-usually-play-videogames’, playable now on iOS and coming out soon to Android devices. It’s a charmer and a great amount of care has been taken to create a moving experience for Florence players. I’m a sucker for these sort of evocative games: similarly noted by Jessica Conditt, under the siege of ‘war’ games, ‘love’ is a thematically refreshing change of pace. As championed by fellow Melbournian initiative Blush Box and podcast Lovegames, the indie scene is certainly taking a turn towards games dealing with intimacy, love, sex and romance.

But let’s take a break – I need a bit of space to clear my head from the butterflies I get around playing something which feels different from what is usually thrown at me by the public face of AAA games. I’m a 27 year old Thai-Australian woman who has dated men. With the title character ‘Florence Yeoh – a 25 year old Chinese-Australian woman who dates an Indian-Australian man named Krish Hemrajani – it’s easy to argue that this game was intended for someone like me to have a connection through the representation of adjacent experiences. Because I don’t regularly see my likeness portrayed in media, I get easily infatuated by what I can grasp onto as semblances of relatability. But I’m not here to talk about ‘how representation is important’: through great advocacy work of the last decade or so, I feel like we’re getting close to a very apparent and unanimous consensus that representation is good; furthermore, in recognition of the ‘non-gamer’ and diverse demographics that Florence has targeted, I have a feeling that I’d be preaching to the choir.

But something else hits home – despite the positive chorus of reviews, what is lacking in the coverage of the game has been a critical reading of how Florence reveals the societal norms of how we conceptualize heteronormative relationships. When we call Florence a game about ‘how it feels to fall in love’, it romanticizes how the text positions itself, which is arguably one towards a more complex conception of heterosexual dating. Like Krish’s box of belongings used to move into Florence’s apartment, there’s an important counter reading that needs to be unpacked: Florence exposes how the woman’s everyday emotional labour is sustaining the relationship.

Emotional labour is a packaging: the invisible efforts taken to create the feeling of ease, comfort, and pleasure. In the lineage of philosophy, emotional labour is also referred to as ‘affective labour’. I’m a PhD researcher studying gaming culture and my honours thesis analysed affective labour performed by women who played videogames with their male partners and the gendered pressures to be support roles in both gaming and in their intimate romantic lives.

Emotional labour is frequently used interchangeably with affective labour. Although, for me, the term ‘affective labour’ helps shifts the focus from ‘emotions’ – which, in short, I think are easily made theoretically and politically problematic to conceptualize – towards acknowledging social powers of bodies and how they can impact and be impacted i.e. affects. For example, customer service representatives are required to be skilled in affective labour because large parts of the job is centered around interacting with people. A systemic implication is that affective labour focused professionals, like flight attendants and nurses, are commonly gendered to be imagined as careers for women.

From this move to affect theory, ‘emotions’ are thus a capturing of one potent and identifiable form of affective labour. This small technical move clarifies how affective/emotional labour interlocks with structural social powers, and helps us link it to important discussions around the authorities of heteronormative status quos and the institutionalised ideology of commodified romance. It’s not just about the labour of making someone feeling happy or contented in an interaction between individual players, but unravels the fabric of social pressures, the processes, and the implications around these dynamics.

For the majority of the game, we are positioned with Florence Yeoh as our avatar. It makes a few jarring scenes where – I hoped – I was suddenly playing as Krish: when we clean his room; when we (un)pack his belongings to move into/out of Florence’s apartment. The game has framed our player perspective to align with Florence’s, and it’s not uncommon for women to perform the majority of domestic work, so there’s a very acceptable reading which illuminates something less rosey about their relationship that we are choosing to ignore.

There’s the rub: we can readily accept that Florence herself cleaned Krish’s room and (un)packed for him; we can readily accept to frame these moments in a way where we’d feel like it could be something that Florence did for both of them – for their relationship. There seems to be just enough indication – Florence’s look of mild surprise entering Krish’s room; Krish carrying the boxes to Florence’s front door – which allows for the other more hopeful interpretation where we have been placed into Krish’s shoes.

The affective labour of binary gendered dynamics is exemplified through a side by side comparison of how Florence and Krish support each other’s dreams. Introduced as an aspiring cellist, and the reason for Florence’s attraction to Krish (portrayed as literally floating and being pulled towards his music), he spends early parts of their relationship talking about his musical goals to a silent and enamoured Florence. Passion is an attractive quality, but Florence has made no secret that the great romanticization of the game is the idealisation of ‘the creative’ life. Before long, Florence is struck with inspiration to rejuvenate her passion for art, earlier discouraged in her youth by her mother so as to pursue more practical (and positively stereotyped) mathematical skills and an accounting career. Sitting in Krish’s newly cleaned room, Florence finds a student application for a music academy peeking out from under Krish’s bed. Florence literally pushes Krish to apply. When Krish attends the audition, he presents Florence with a paint palette.

Both Florence and Krish support each other in notably gendered ways. Florence has spent her effort – incalculable and unquantifiable – to motivate Krish to do something integral to his musical career. Florence’s encouragement was integral, the implication being that Krish wouldn’t have applied to the academy without it. Like a box of chocolates and a dozen roses on Valentine’s, Krish buys his support for Florence – the art supplies are thoughtful and the thoughtfulness here locates an appreciation and reciprocation of affective labour, but it’s still an ‘easy gift’. Purchasing gifts is easier than affective labour. Too often, men in heterosexual partnerships are ‘buying easy gifts’ in lieu of reciprocating affective labour, without being able to comprehend why this practice is sexist, exhausting, and frustrating for women. While societal norms pressure women to be carers through the assignment of gender roles, men choosing to take the easy way out intensifies gender inequality between partners. Money can’t pay someone back for doing something invaluable; in the literal sense of the phrase without the sentimentalism: ‘you can’t buy love’.

Florence gives space for players to piece together conversations happening in speech bubbles. When we notice that Florence and Krish’s fights occur while they’re grocery shopping and while they’re washing the dishes, thinking through gender and affective labour in heteronormative relationships paints a clearer picture of what’s being said between the couple. We can grow more intimate knowledge about their relationship by further inspecting the details: in the supermarket, Florence is running through the shopping list while Krish holds the basket; at the sink, Florence is washing the dishes while Krish is drying them. Such designation of chores form the cornerstones of domestic arrangements with gender essentialist assumptions regarding the private realm of the home as something to be run by women. If women are not the primary housekeepers, women are shamed for going against societal expectations of womanhood and accused of undermining the man’s masculinity.

Who runs the world? Women’s everyday affective labour – organising, maintaining, sustaining, growing, nurturing, soothing, homemaking – weave a tapestry of invisible and unpaid domestic duties. Florence’s shopping list is indicative of the ‘office housework’ women are expected to perform as micromanaging housekeepers. She not only runs the upkeep of their home and the upkeep of their relationship, but she also organises the upkeep of Krish’s everyday life on his behalf. When men are taught that they ‘get girlfriends’ who will love them for who they are – as aspiring cellists – and women are raised to view relationships as being ‘work’, men learn that they do not have to, and therefore, do not learn how to look after themselves, because a woman will. Krish can assume the entitlement that Florence will fall in love with him, then look after him too, because he’s a cool musician who deserves love; Florence must earn Krish’s love by helping to organise his day-to-day life so that he can be a musician, while neglecting her own dreams of being an artist.

While men see themselves as being in charge of their dreams and their destinies, ‘women are in charge of helping men,’ and remain a hybrid of ‘both surrogate mother and sex partner’ for the men in their lives. Studies indicate that men are reluctantly participating in domestic chores while impelled by their partners to help around the house. Women have to consistently perform exhausting amounts of affective labour to convince men to contribute to their shared home, and worse yet, men then resent their partners for asking them to pull their weight and call women ‘nags’. No wonder tensions arise out of performing domestic duties. It feels greatly unfair when men demand praise for chores because they’re seen to be outside of the expected tasks for men, while women have do the same chores without acknowledgement because they are culturally obliged. No wonder as the years march on that we keep hearing women say in unison how they feel un(der)appreciated. Men make the rules for women to do the work. Closing the wage gap for women includes the recognition of this unpaid domestic labour. It is also necessary to recognise that the wage gap is worse for women of colour, to the point that there are stereotypes that maids and janitors are occupations for women of colour.

The aesthetics and puzzle gameplay mechanic of treating Florence and Krish’s relationship as jigsaw pieces replicates the problematic concept of ‘soulmates’. Searching for soulmates: two souls that ‘complete’ each other. This suggests that good relationships should be based on unconditional love for your partner. Any individual problems can be resolved by finding that magic cosmic match. When the relationship doesn’t work, it is just because Florence and Krish don’t ‘fit’ together, there is a fundamental romantic incapability which is not anyone’s fault and is very sad for both of them. Thus, there is no need to reflect on how exactly the relationship was conducted, what Florence can learn from her own conduct and from her experience with Krish. As Krish and Florence were not destined to be, there is no need to consider how the lack of reciprocal affective labor from Krish may have factored in the break-up. When Florence shows us the growing distance between the couple through subtle variations in the puzzle gameplay mechanic, it is relatable. Their distress resonates. It is a poignant and important moment in the game, one that justifies the considerable attention that the game has been given. But the highly dubious version of romance that is portrayed doesn’t seem to offer the player an opportunity to think about why they broke up. Things just didn’t work out between Krish and Florence…

…Or did they? She ended up becoming an artist because Krish believed in her so much he brought her a paint set and she used it to make commercially successful art. “Oh!! I guess everything happens for a reason, after all!” For a game about the everyday relationships and intimacy Florence comes across as quite burdened by cliches about love which aren’t very helpful for women or men. Cliches that are associated with, even seen as encouraging, stalking and abusive behaviour, where a women is an interesting object of affection rather than an actor, and obsessive behaviour from men is ‘cute’.

Rejection of Valentine’s Day is nearly as loud as the celebrations of it, which poses the date as an interesting choice for the release of Florence. Valentine’s Day embodies the capitalist nature of designating one day to showering monetary-based affection. This becomes part of a heteronormative consumerist ritual and annual performance which can substitute for the lack of everyday acts of care. It’s a day meant to make us feel bad about the state of our love life, regardless of being single or in a relationship. If the division of labour were to be equal in a household, we have to consider context:

‘[F]ull-time working women spend 6.4 hours more per week working inside and outside the home than full-time working men. Averaged across the year, this means a 332 additional hours (or two weeks of 24-hour days) of work. […] Women do more housework than men even when they are more educated, work full-time and are more egalitarian. In fact, some studies show women spend more time in housework even when their husbands earn less money or stay at home.’

In the history and continued systemic discrimination against women in all spheres of their professional and private lives, if we want to see an emerging pathway towards returning a fraction of equality back to women, men need to be just aiming to want to do the majority of affective and domestic labour. Men need to also be turning on the switch which sees how being considerate and using creative problem solving skills, honed through practicing affective labour, is beneficial for themselves, for their partners, for their relationships, and for gender equality. Women don’t need chocolate, roses, and art supplies. Women need to be appreciated for what they do, they need genuine attempts of reciprocation, and they need to be treated fairly. We all need men to want that for women too.

Florence shoulders the artistic pressures of the ‘craft-game’, where the genre itself is ambitious to redefine what are otherwise shallow categorisations of ‘what games are’. Being able to shed light and provide a counter reading for how Florence exposes a problem about the way we romanticize relationships has offered a chance to talk about relationship dynamics outside of conventional contexts. Here we can locate a gap in games to keep crafting: where it is currently too difficult to conceptualize hetereosexual dating from the perspective of a woman without programming her to perform unequal amounts of affective labour. In the memorials of Ursula K. Le Guin, and in the monumental successes of Black Panther, forging utopian worlds has an important role in minds to conceptualize the possible futures we want to pave.

CW: ranting about sexism, mention of r*pe culture, descriptions of men abusing power, mentions of #metoo,

There is a trend of men who are often 'woke', feminist, and well-educated, but who will also always consider themselves as exceptions to the rule.

For example: - The activist who interrupts and talks over women to talk about feminism. - The gender studies academic who doesn’t think it’s an abuse of power to sleep with his students. - The feminist who talks about the importance of sharing domestic labour but doesn’t practice it. - The sex-positive guy who’ll find excuses to push touch boundaries. - The leftie friend who treats women as emotional weight bearers and doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. - The good boyfriend who doesn’t know how to be friends with other women and ends up objectifying or ignoring them. - The chill guy who doesn’t think his mate is really as bad as what women say about him, cuz he’s a good bloke who just isn’t like that.

If you feel personally accused by these descriptions, or that it hits close to home, then I’d like us to take a moment to process this, because it’s important to have this discussion move towards looking at it as a systemic problem. Depressingly, yes, I probably know at least a couple of people who would fit into each description above, but it’s not a problem of thinking it as if they are ‘bad eggs’. I’m sure everyone knows some - if not all - of these types of ‘good’ feminist men. That’s the point.

All men fuck up, yes even the ‘good ones’ #yesallmen, because everyone fucks up.

Learning to apologise is an important skill for the times after we fuck up, and the first step is to practice trying not to be defensive, which is really hard but something that can be unlearnt with some effort. But if someone is taking the time and energy to say something, maybe something about how you’ve hurt them and opening up and being vulnerable about this, it’s probably because they care and believe that you can do better (which I think is a rather nice thing, and that its productive to not think of ourselves as stable beings but as people who are in processes of becoming~ H/T simone de beauvoir~).

There’s a bunch of resources online about how to apologise well. There’s many ways and approaches to apologise, but here’s 5 steps published in a psychology journal (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1025068306386):

“These five strategies are

[1] an illocutionary force indicating device (IFID; such as, "I'm sorry," "I apologize," or "Excuse me"),

[2] an explanation or account of the cause which brought about the violation,

[3] an expression of the speaker's responsibility for the offense,

[4] an offer of repair,

[5] and a promise of forbearance.”

Something I would like to add here is that there are political implications at play in these dynamics. Women are pressured and assumed to be the ones who must fix relational tensions (c.f. my honours thesis, 2016). Men who perform defensively, who do not show a desire to listen, and who have not taken the time to learn to apologise well, are continuing to force women to perform as healers. In this gendered dynamic, not only has the man hurt the woman, the onus is always on the woman to repair the hurt the man has inflicted on her.

I've seen feminist people rationalise how it’s okay to pick and choose between when and where they will listen and dismiss women, like tuning in and out of radio stations. But if we've learnt anything this past year is that we should be \ \ \ LISTENING TO WOMEN / / /

The #metoo movement was people sharing their personal stories and exerting huge amounts of emotional labour en masse to educate people. #Metoo allowed those who didn’t think it was ‘as bad as it was’, the privilege of a lens into people’s deeply vulnerable and traumatic experiences, so that we all might understand something about how the patriarchy and rape culture works.