Episode 03: Human Giver Syndrome
In this episode, the question is: What’s the biggest cultural barrier between feminists and their ability to complete the stress response cycles?
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TRANSCRIPT:
Episode 03: Human Giver Syndrome
Emily Nagoski: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Emily Nagoski -
Amelia Nagoski: [00:00:07] And Amelia Nagoski.
And this is the Feminist Survival Project 2020. We're looking for ways to make it all the way through to the end of 2020, because it's going to be a shitshow. In this episode, our question is, "What is the biggest cultural barrier between feminists and their ability to complete their stress response cycles?" In our first episode we talked about how to separate the stress from the stressors. In the second, we talked about how to deal with the stress itself. And now we want to talk about what the barriers are that stand between feminists and their ability to complete their stress response cycles.
Emily Nagoski: [00:00:45] Let's pause for a moment and offer a super quick definition of feminism. As difficult as that might be. For us, a feminist is a person of any gender who believes that being a woman is not inherently a disease or a moral failing.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:01:03] Yeah.
Emily Nagoski: [00:01:04] Sound good enough? Yeah. That's all feminism means to us. So what is the barrier that stands between us the feminists and our ability to meet our own needs to complete the stress response cycle? The answer is: a term we made up for Burnout. It started when we read this amazing book Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny by moral philosopher Kate Manne.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:01:28] In it, she posits a world where there are two types of humans. First, there are human beings, who have a moral obligation to be their full humanity, right? Human beings must be their humanity.
They have a duty to be as competitive, entitled, and acquisitive as they need to be in order to maximize their human potential. And then, there are the human givers who have a moral obligation to give their full humanity. Human givers must give their humanity.
They have a duty. To give everything they have- their time, their attention, their patience, their love, their rest, their bodies, their hopes and dreams, their very lives sometimes, sacrificed on the altar of other humans' comfort and convenience.
Emily Nagoski: [00:02:10] And they dare not have any needs of their own or impose those needs on anyone else.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:02:18] So, you know, which one do you think the women are?
Yeah. Givers.
Emily Nagoski: [00:02:22] So, obviously in real life it's more complex than just men are human beings and women are human givers. In real life, we are both married to cisgender dudes who are givers. It is a major feature of my marriage, for example, that my partner will just, like, give and give and give and sacrifice himself and his own work for me and part of my role in our relationship is to help him monitor his energy and make sure he doesn't go past the edge and give so much that he doesn't have enough left to take care of himself, which could lead to his resenting me and all kinds of bad stuff.
That's what a relationship between fellow givers looks like. We monitor each other's energy. But in the cartoon version of this world, where men are the beings and women are the givers. And it's not just women who are the category of giver. It's all people of color, people with disabilities, immigrants, people who don't speak English as their first language, (in the ) United States), trans people, poor people, gay and queer people, anyone with disadvantaged or marginalized identities expected to behave themselves to perform to conform with a roll of service to the people with advantage to make sure nobody ever feels uncomfortable and nobody has that person's needs imposed on them. Because it's a moral duty. If a human Giver falls short of their obligation or if they dare to ask to have a need met, they deserve to be punished. Which is where human giver syndrome starts to get really dark.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:03:58] They'll be punished by human beings and givers who do not conform to the expectation to be givers will be punished by other givers, because how dare they how, dare they when all the other givers have to do this.
If one giver says, "Nope" and goes ahead and has a need of her own, she'll be punished by other givers and if there is no one else around to punish her she'll go ahead and punish herself if she's internalized this moral obligation.
Emily Nagoski: [00:04:25] Based on Dr. Manne's basic formulation, we invented this term human giver syndrome. And in our formulation human giver syndrome, as it applies to women, is cultural pressure that insists women must be, here's the list. Are you ready?
Pretty, happy, yet calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others. But above all, tied to the demand to be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others. Givers are not allowed to impose anything so inconvenient as their own needs, including their difficult emotions, including their stress, on anyone else.
No need for physical affection. No need for rest. No need to complete the stress response cycle. No emotional need for connection or care. No intellectual need to pursue your own sense of purpose or curiosity. And remember, this is our moral duty. If we fall short of our moral duty, we'll get punished. And if no one's around to punish us, we will just go ahead and beat the shit out of ourselves. Don't worry, there is a whole episode on self-criticism coming up.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:05:39] Because our needs need to be met, but we are not allowed to ask a human being to meet our needs, we're not allowed to ask a human giver to meet our needs. We're not even allowed to take our own resources and turn them towards ourselves to provide ourselves anything.
Emily Nagoski: [00:05:53] Because how dare you?
Amelia Nagoski: [00:05:54] How dare you.
Emily Nagoski: [00:05:56] If we had set out to design a system to burn out half the population with emotional exhaustion, We could not have invented anything more efficient.
One, the system where at least half of people are expected to behave themselves and submit their lives to the service of others without imposing their needs on anyone.
Remember, stress is a cycle that needs to complete or else it can literally kill us. And human givers are not allowed to have that need, to meet it for themselves. This is why so many of the typical aphorisms around self care do not help a human giver, like, you know that, "Put on your own mask before assisting others?"
Amelia Nagoski: [00:06:38] But if you're a human giver, how dare you keep that mask for yourself and that voice in your head is saying, "You took that mask for yourself."
Emily Nagoski: [00:06:46] You can't- oh, my favorite, "You can't pour from an empty cup." Well, when a human giver syndrome sees me standing there with an empty cup because I've given all I had, the rules don't say, "Oh Emily, take a break and go fill your cup because you can't pour from empty cup." It says, "Hey Now, human giver. What are you doing hoarding that cup? It doesn't even have any water in it. Go give it to someone who could use it, you selfish bitch."
Amelia Nagoski: [00:07:11] So even when you're receiving, like, those messages that are, like, "Oh take a break and go fill your cup," that message is fighting with the internalized moral obligation to give everything you have. And now the pressure you feel that "I need to go fill my cup" is fighting inside with your feeling of obligation to give everything you have and now trying to fill your cup is now a source of stress.
Emily Nagoski: [00:07:33] Right .Which is when we get the, "oh you got all eight hours of sleep last night?"
Amelia Nagoski: [00:07:38] "Good for you"-
Emily Nagoski: [00:07:39] "Self care is so important."
"I was up until three o'clock baking the cupcakes for Becky's birthday party, but good for you, self care is so important."
Amelia Nagoski: [00:07:46] "Yeah, I'm so glad you did that for yourself."
Emily Nagoski: [00:07:48] And then there's my favorite one: "You don't have to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm." And you don't have to set yourself on fire, but human giver syndrome sees me and my shivering loved ones and it says, "You don't have to set yourself on fire to keep those people you love warm, but I mean, you're just standing there with all that kinetic energy busily trying to keep yourself from freezing to death, but you know what? Good for you! Self care is so important. How good of you not to chop off your own limb and light it on fire to keep other people warm."
Amelia Nagoski: [00:08:25] This is what we talk about when we talk about the patriarchy. Human giver syndrome is a big part of the dynamic where women are mean to each other.
Emily Nagoski: [00:08:35] In the workplace, this is going to look like - at an undisclosed social media company where Amelia and I gave a talk, over the registration desk. There was this big poster that said, "Never say yes because you're afraid to say no."
Amelia Nagoski: [00:08:48] Except what about all the really good reasons you might have to be afraid to say yes?
Emily Nagoski: [00:08:53] Right! So, you know, like, think about how this actually plays out in the workplace:
Person A comes over to Person B. They're both human givers, and Person A says to Person B, "Hey, can you help me with this project?" And Person B, imagine they say, "No, I really can't."
Is Person A's response, "Cool. I appreciate you're protecting your boundaries. I'll check in with you later"? Almost never.
Person A's response is more likely to be, "Oh, it's just going to take a little bit from you" or my favorite, someone was like, no, what they say is, "Let's have a meeting about it."
Amelia Nagoski: [00:09:28] Oh, yeah.
So now if the Person B wants to say no and really can't, they have to keep working and defend their "no".
Emily Nagoski: [00:09:36] Eventually, it becomes easier just to say yes and do the thing they tried to say no to then it was to defend their no in the first place.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:09:45] And if you're thinking, "Gosh this dynamic does not seem to be a thing that only happens in the workplace, you are right.
Emily Nagoski: [00:09:50] You are correct. In the community, it might look like, well, I mean, let's take it right to a sexual situation where one person is a human being and one person is a human giver and they both believe that Person B, the human giver, really does have a moral obligation to be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of the other person.
And they both believe that the human being has a moral obligation to be competitive, acquisitive, and entitled in order to maximize their own humanity regardless of the cost to others. You can see where this dynamic gets really dark really fast. I'm reminded of a story from Peggy Orenstein's really important, pretty dark, but really important book called Girls and Sex.
She tells the story of a high schooler who wanted to get a boy out of her house, and she couldn't get him out of her house, and didn't want to escalate the situation, and put herself in any kind of danger, so she gave him a blowjob so that he would leave.
And you know what? She was doing what it takes to deescalate the situation and get out of there safely. It worked and I'm glad. And I think we can all agree that the world will be a better place when that is not a situation that girls find themselves in or anyone does
Amelia Nagoski: [00:11:20] It'll be a much better place when she's not going to get called a slut for having done that.
Emily Nagoski: [00:11:26] Because she's not allowed to have any sexual needs of her own. It's not an accident. When givers violate the rules, fellow givers can often be far more punishing than the human beings are. So when Person A and Person B in that workplace scenario get into that, "Will you just help me with it? No, I really can't. But come on, it's just going to take a little bit." Person A, the giver who's trying to solicit the help from giver B is feeling betrayed because we are competing in what our students have called the "Stress Olympics". We compare our level of exhaustion to others and judge ourselves if we're not doing enough or judge them if they're not doing enough. Or resent them because they're doing so much and yet still seem so together. Or resent them because they're daring to protect their limits as if the rules don't apply to them. How dare they.
So, if I'm Person A trying to get something out of giver B and she's saying no,a lot of my response is going to be, "how dare she" because I invest so much time, energy, money, self-criticism on making sure I conform to this culturally constructed aspirational ideal of being pretty, happy, calm, generous, and unceasingly, unlimitedly attentive to the needs of others.
And here she is suggesting that it's not necessary for her to do that. And if it's not necessary for her to do that, then what that suggests is maybe it's not necessary for me to do that and all that energy I've been investing in making sure I do that has been a waste and my whole life has been devoted to the pursuit of a goal that I didn't have to pursue.
And so we get really critical. We feel betrayed by fellow givers who set limits. Let's offer a little gentleness to giver A who feels betrayed, because there are real consequences to givers who fall short of the ideal. We genuinely are punished. We are criticized and ostracized when our bodies don't conform, when our mental state does not conform, we fail to be pretty, happy, and calm, generous and attentive to the needs of others really bad things happen, and it comes out as the dynamic behind, like, the Karens of the world. You remember the angry mom tweeting from Disney World that childless millennial women were ruining Disney World and should be banned because making her child wait in line behind a childless woman was - who the childless woman is just wasting her money on crap that doesn't matter and she's never going to know the joy of buying that same worthless crap for her child.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:14:29] Which is so much more important than buying it for yourself, because how dare you do something to make yourself happy-
Emily Nagoski: [00:14:33] Which, apart from anything else, doesn't take into account that we don't know what the story is behind that childless woman.
Maybe that's a woman who tried for a long time and really wanted kids and couldn't have it. Isn't child-free by choice and is there celebrating this place in spite of the fact that children were not a thing that you could have happen in her life. But even if not, even if not that, it's still saying "how dare this woman grant herself the pleasure of a vacation where she is not fully in service of her child the whole time".
And as as a white lady, I gotta say human giver syndrome is a part of why people of color get abused by white ladies.
Fellow white ladies. We are so tired, I know. And we see other people who we know are supposed to be even more giving than we are. People of color, especially black people, especially black women, when we see them going ahead and celebrating, experiencing joy for themselves and not in service of others, but just in celebration, it can trigger our exhausted, isolated rage that we have been suppressing because we're not allowed to feel those things. And we discover in those people of color an outlet where we have permission, oh God, to purge those feelings at last. So we might be passive aggressive toward a fellow white lady at the grocery store who blocks the aisle, but the white supremacist part of the white supremacist cisheteropatriarchal postindustrial capitalism keeps us passive in our aggression toward another white lady. If it's a woman of color blocking the aisle, the rules of human giver syndrome give us permission to be straight-up aggressive. Well, saying that out loud sucks a lot.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:16:31] And also as human givers, we experience the pressure all the time to give our time, our lives, and our bodies and it's exhausting. And one of the ways we can protect ourselves is by disconnecting from outside stories of other people's oppression.
And that is a comfort to us where we can escape and when we see oppression happening to people who are not like us, it's really safe and comfortable to disconnect from that and not notice it because we're already exhausted from the oppression we experience ourselves. And so we just don't have room in our heads or space in our hearts to care about other people's oppression and the result is we're protecting ourselves temporarily.
But what we're allowing to happen is perpetuating a cycle of oppression on people who are not like us so that our children are going to have to protect themselves from the same thing.
Emily Nagoski: [00:17:21] We think this is an explanatory narrative for why white ladies call the cops on black people having a barbecue, or kids with a lemonade stand, or taking a shortcut through somebody's yard.
It's because of human giver syndrome and the rules it imposes and the ways it exhausts and overwhelms all of us. But here is the big secret. This is the part where you transition from the description of the problem to actual solutions
the secret is these rules do not actually apply to any of us. Human giver syndrome is not a real rule. It is a lie designed to control you.
We have described a big scary thing out in the world, but now is when we pivot to the survival gear you can put in your kit to protect yourself when you encounter human giver syndrome. Remember the problem with human giver syndrome is not the giving. It's the people who, the more you give them they more they feel entitled to take.
Let's take a large scale view, first of all, on the solution to human giver syndrome.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:18:30] It is really tempting to think that human beings are the default- first of all because that's a phrase we already use to describe, like, just the species of humanity. "Human beings."
Emily Nagoski: [00:18:40] And that's intentional. Kate Manne did that on purpose.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:18:42] Yeah, we think, "Oh, a human being. That's who we ought to be. That's what we should strive for." But if you think that through. What if all humanity were human beings entitled to the energy and time and bodies of everyone else around them? The world would look like a Hobbesian nightmare. Poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
We do not want that. Now imagine, what if the world was-
Emily Nagoski: [00:19:09] Let's pause and say that Hobbes' solution to the world that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short was totalitarian government or eternal war. So that's - that's fun.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:19:21] There's an option, it turns out, we've discovered a possibility. What if the world were full of human givers?
No one felt entitled to anyone else's time, life, energy, or body. What if everyone felt a moral obligation to care for everyone else around them? No one would burn out, because as they give to the others around them, they're surrounded by other people who are looking out for them, protecting them making sure they never drain themselves past the point of renewal.
Emily Nagoski: [00:19:51] Imagine getting home from a long, hard day at work and you're drained, but you're coming home to a household full of fellow givers. They're going to notice how exhausted you are and they're going to be like, "You should go take a shower and then have a nap and we're going to cook stew while you are doing that and then come down and eat and we will all sit around and talk about our feelings!" That is a world full of human givers.
So survival skill number one is noticing the difference between how it feels to give with a fellow giver versus how it feels in your body to give with someone who, the more you give to them, the more entitled they feel to take from you. This might be the single biggest lesson I learned in the process of writing the book. Being able to feel what it's like to give with someone who's just going to take the more I give with them and making a choice where I possibly can to divest from those people and give more and more with fellow givers. Which brings us to survival skill two-
Amelia Nagoski: [00:20:56] Survival skill two is gently disentangling human giver syndrome from your decision making process about where you put your energy. Human giver syndrome is going to be a voice in your head that tells you "you can't give less at work," "you can't just not have a relationship with your father," "you owe it to him, to the universe, to your boss, to the economy to capitalism."
Emily Nagoski: [00:21:19] "To feminism!"
Amelia Nagoski: [00:21:20] "You owe it to the world to give everything that you have. We will not rest until X or Y or Z, because if we rest that's good for us and X or Y or Z needs us to empty ourselves until we have nothing left."
But then if we have nothing left who's fighting for X or Y or Z?
Gently disentangling that sense of moral obligation to give allows you to think, "Where is my energy going? And where is it best and most efficiently spent?"
Emily Nagoski: [00:21:54] This is going to show up for example in your decision of how much to consume the news. Do you owe it to anyone to suffer through learning the details about how terrible everything is, even though knowing how terrible everything is does not change how much of an impact you are capable of making? Do you owe it to the world to have that information?
I'm interested in hearing from people about ways that they are navigating this because we think it's important that people stay informed, and we also think it's important that people not sacrifice their own well-being on the altar of being a good Progressive person who stays aware of how terrible everything is.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:22:52] I struggle with this because I choose not to engage with the news, just as little as possible. But I also am aware that it is a privilege for me to be able to disconnect because a lot of the legislation that's at risk right now will not affect me personally. I'm not going to need an abortion any time in my life. I'm in late middle age and, like, that's just not a thing for me.
So should I be paying attention to the Supreme Court every minute of every day to see what's happening? Well, I owe it to all the generations and all the other women around me to care, to fight, but do I need to do that every day? Well, kind of yes, but kind of what's that going to do to me in my life and my feelings?
Emily Nagoski: [00:23:31] Or is it enough to show up to the protests that you can get to, to donate money that you can afford to give, and to volunteer for organizations?
Like, do you need to know the details of how much worse it's getting every day in order to continue doing work that makes you feel like you are participating in creating positive change. That you are part of the solution. I'm interested in hearing from people in their conversations like this.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:23:59] but that brings us to survival skill number three, which I believe is the most important and that is:
Emily Nagoski: [00:24:07] To celebrate others' rest and joy.
So, like, don't judge Amelia for disconnecting from the news. Celebrate the way she takes care of herself. Celebrate her rest and joy, which puts her in a place where she is well enough to do the thing she is here on Earth to do. Especially let us celebrate the rest and joy of people of color, of disabled people, of trans and non-binary people, people of size, and folks with other marginalized identities.
They are not taking anything away when they pause from the burdens of life and enjoy being alive. If you're a white lady like me, the skill you want to develop is to not insinuate yourself into black people's joy. Just witness it! Witness public displays of joy and rest with celebration in your heart. Again, I'm going to recommend that you find Tricia Hersey, The Nap Bishop and the Nap Ministry on whatever social media platform you like to follow. Back them on Patreon and learn to celebrate the joy and rest of people who are not like you. It is to step between human giver syndrome and the giver's rest and joy.
The ultimate way to be a giver is to give your celebration of another giver's rest and joy. The opposite of giver A and giver B beating the crap out of each other. I want to make survival skill number three your homework. Especially if you're a white lady like
Amelia Nagoski: [00:25:50] me
.
Hey white ladies-
Emily Nagoski: [00:25:52] Hi, white ladies. Begin to notice those instantaneous judgments that bubble through your brain when you see a fellow giver breaking these oppressive rules and not behaving themselves.
When you see a woman of size enjoying delicious food, notice that there might be a part of your brain that's like, "ugh" and then go, "HELL NO. Good for her!" Genuinely, when you see a black family having a picnic in the park, you might have, like a like- Racism is like herpes. Kind of everybody has it. Most of us, like, we got it from our grandmothers when they were kissing us. The goal is just not to spread it. You just want to be aware when you have a breakout and you might have like a breakout of racism just bubbling up from your subconscious-
Amelia Nagoski: [00:26:43] Not on purpose because you're, like, a white supremacist on purpose. Not conscious. It's not because it's your choice. You've been brainwashed by a large-scale society that tells you that certain people are better than you and certain people - and consciously you don't believe any of it. But deep down in your heart, you've been brainwashed. And that brainwashing is going to bubble up at times and it's going to make you resent a social media post that celebrates- it's going to make you bothered by the fact that Black Panther is a superhero movie about a hero of color. And you're going to think, "Well, what about white heroes?" Well, like every other superhero movie is about, but you're not going to remember that because you've been brainwashed and it's not your fault you've been brainwashed. It's not your fault. You can overcome this, but it takes some choices and some active attention.
Emily Nagoski: [00:27:33] And survival skill three is a really powerful way to begin that work of when you see that family in the park, when you see a trans man posting on social media, taking his shirt off, celebrating his top surgery, celebrate those things with joy in your heart.
Make a deliberate effort to go, "Yay! Hooray!" Even though it violates some deep down, hidden dark evil rule about human giver syndrome or even just when you drop yourself into the role of human giver. Decline to perform as the pretty, happy, calm, generous, attentive giver that human giver syndrome says you must always be. When you notice yourself missing that cruel mark, be kinder to yourself than human giver syndrome says you are allowed to be.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:28:33] And that's it for this episode of the Feminist Survival Project. If anything was written it was written by-
Emily Nagoski: [00:28:38] us, Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. To the extent. It was produced, it was produced by my marital euphemism.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:28:45] And any music that you happen to hear was made by me.
Emily Nagoski: [00:28:48] You can follow the podcast on Instagram or Twitter at @FSP2020 or email us at feministsurvivalproject2020 at gmail.com.
We want to know how human giver syndrome manifests in your life and what you can do to begin counteracting its effects in your own personal life and your family and your work relationships.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:29:08] Did you immediately think of someone in your life who is definitely a human being? Someone who feels entitled to your time, your body, your energy, your whole life.
What does it feel like to give to them? To experience their entitlement? And is there anyone in your life who you know is definitely a giver alongside you? And what does it feel like to share giving with them?
Emily Nagoski: [00:29:28] We hope this helped. If it did and you wish everyone knew about human giver syndrome, please share this episode. If you want to dive deeper, we talked about it a lot in our book Burnout. And of course we highly recommend Kate Manne's book Down Girl. If you like the podcast, we'd appreciate it if you took a minute or two out of your day to rate and review the podcast on the platform of your choice. Rating and reviewing helps fellow exhausted feminists find the podcast and I feel like the more people who know about these things and the more conversations we're having about how to overcome human giver syndrome, how to complete our stress response cycles, the better place the world is going to be, the more of us are going to make it to the end of 2020.
Amelia Nagoski: [00:30:07] Because the cure for Burnout is not self care. It's all of us taking care of each other.
Emily Nagoski: [00:30:12] Thank you for listening.