December 25, 2025

Racial healing doesn’t happen by demanding more "uncredited," "hidden" or "invisible" labor from the most exhausted people. Read this again.

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“Invisible" or "hidden" labor is often framed as something that simply goes unnoticed—an unfortunate oversight in otherwise well-meaning systems. But the emotional and caregiving labor performed by Black women has never been invisible. It has been deliberately uncredited, systematically absorbed, and culturally naturalized.  To call this labor invisible suggests accident. What history shows instead is intention.

From the earliest days of this country, Black women’s care was extracted and then stripped of its status as work. Feeding children, tending homes, regulating emotions, and maintaining order were framed not as skills but as innate qualities—something Black women were believed to possess rather than provide. When labor is recast as nature, it no longer requires acknowledgment, compensation, or rest.

This framing persists. Emotional steadiness is expected. Availability is assumed. Endurance is admired, but only insofar as it remains quiet. The moment Black women articulate exhaustion or set boundaries, the labor becomes visible—but only as a problem.

What is labeled “strength” often functions as a silencing mechanism. Strength becomes the reason no support is offered. Competence becomes justification for continued extraction. And exhaustion is treated not as evidence of harm, but as a personal failure to cope.

This is not invisibility.  It is structural erasure.

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In recent years, there has been a growing cultural conversation about emotional labor, particularly as it relates to women and the holidays. Social media, opinion pieces, and pop psychology now routinely acknowledge how much work it takes to create feelings of warmth, continuity, and nostalgia. This recognition is often framed as progress.  But recognition alone does not alter who is expected to do the work.

As independent scholar and TikTok creator Dr. Shawna shows in her series titled ‘24 Days of Hidden Holiday Labor,’ American holiday traditions rely on the hidden and backbreaking work of Black women, making it possible for white women to take credit for curating warmth, nostalgia and seasonal joy. 

During slavery, Black women’s labor went far beyond the fields. In the households of white families, they managed homes, cared for children not their own, and performed the emotional work necessary to maintain the appearance of joy, warmth, and order. This grueling, complex, invisible labor was essential—it made white households function and appear whole, even as it left Black women drained and unacknowledged. The patterns established then—the uncredited work, the emotional scaffolding, the exhaustion—set a precedent that echoes in holiday traditions today.

Under Jim Crow, the labor of Black women shifted and formalized as paid domestic work in white households. Cooking, cleaning, childrearing, and managing the emotional life of the home remained essential yet invisible. The same economic necessity that forced Black women to work outside their own homes left them little time or freedom to provide emotional and caregiving labor to their families. Their backbreaking work sustained the appearance of warmth, care, and celebration for others, while their own needs and household labor were often neglected. What looked like effortless functioning in white households depended on invisible scaffolding, exhausting and uncredited work performed largely by Black women.

Today, the patterns persist. Black women continue to provide backbreaking, invisible emotional and caregiving labor, both in professional settings and in households, enabling others to appear competent, joyful, and nurturing. Many still work outside their homes out of economic necessity, leaving them less time to provide such labor within their own families. Yet cultural expectations endure: holidays, celebrations, and the appearance of warmth still depend on this labor, which remains largely uncredited.

Dr. Shawna rightly acknowledges —and I agree—that the cultural recognition of white women’s holiday labor rests on a long history in which Black and Brown women performed similar work without acknowledgment, sympathy, or choice. The narrative has shifted just enough to center white women’s fatigue, while leaving the underlying system intact.  

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Popular culture reinforces historical precedent and contemporary notions of white women’s exhaustion during the holiday, staging it as both relatable and redeemable. Films and television often center a familiar character: the overwhelmed white mother who is solely responsible for creating warmth, continuity, and celebration. Her stress is visible. Her frustration is understandable. Her eventual unraveling is framed as evidence of how much she cares.

The 2025 film Oh. What. Fun. offers a clear example of this trope. Michelle Pfeiffer’s character, Claire Clauster is a mother and a wife portrayed as emotionally frayed and increasingly resentful of the labor required to hold her family together during the holiday season. Her efforts go unnoticed, her exhaustion unacknowledged. When her family leaves her behind to attend a Christmas performance she planned, the narrative positions this moment as a breaking point.  Rather than confronting her family directly or naming her exhaustion, Claire responds by staging a public spectacle—driving from Texas to Hollywood to appear on a talk show and embarrass them into recognition. This behavior is treated as impulsive but understandable, even sympathetic. The film ultimately rewards her emotional disruption with attention and validation.

Claire’s foil, Jeanne Wang-Wasserman, played by Joan Chen, is presented very differently. Jeanne is composed, hyper-competent, and seemingly unaffected by the demands of holiday preparation. She executes Christmas with precision and ease. Her labor appears effortless, her emotional interiority largely unexplored. Yes, Jeanne is not a Black woman, but the contrast is not incidental. White women’s chaos is framed as proof of love and overextension, while women of color’s competence is read as natural aptitude rather than labor. Exhaustion only counts when it is visible, messy, and emotionally disruptive. Calm is interpreted as capacity. Efficiency becomes erasure.

In this way, popular culture does not challenge the unequal distribution of emotional and caregiving labor—it aestheticizes it. White women are permitted to struggle publicly. Women of color are expected to make it look easy.

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The persistence of these patterns has had dire consequences within Black communities, fueling the "gender war" between Black men and Black women. 

Black men frequently insist that Black women are unwilling, unable, or ill-equipped to provide emotional and caregiving labor for Black families, either ignoring or brushing off the historical and structural realities that shaped these patterns of labor.  They have essentially weaponized historical and contemporary precedent to shame and guilt Black women into accepting blame for circumstances out of their control, i.e., generations of Black women performing backbreaking, hidden labor for white households leaving them less available to provide care within their own communities. Resistance or limits on their labor are often misread as ‘masculinity’ rather than necessity or choice.  Missing from these conversations are a frank and honest acknowledgment that Black men were locked out of opportunities that would have made it possible for them to support their wives/significant others and children on one income, making it necessary for Black women to work outside the home.  These misperceptions, alongside centuries of systemic erasure, make clear that the labor itself is only part of the story—how it has been concealed, misread, and culturally coded must also be confronted.

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For so long, white women have avoided or dodged expectations placed on them to perform the backbreaking, grueling emotional and caretaking labor historically outsourced to Black women, who are continually expected to absorb both exhaustion and critique. If we are to heal—racially, culturally, and within our communities—we must unhide this labor, and confront the attitudes and denial that motivated its concealment in the first place, acknowledging its foundational role in both celebrations and family life.

We must acknowledge the work that underpins white American celebrations and family life, interrogate both historical patterns and contemporary perceptions that obscure it, and challenge the denial and willful ignorance that continue to misread and diminish Black women’s labor. Healing is impossible without recognition, honesty, and accountability.