Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

by Emily Nagoski

In Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, philosopher Kate Manne describes a system in which one class of people,7 the “human givers,” are expected to offer their time, attention, affection, and bodies willingly, placidly, to the other class of people, the “human beings.”8 The implication in these terms is that human beings have a moral obligation to be or express their humanity, while human givers have a moral obligation to give their humanity to the human beings. Guess which one women are. In day-to-day life, the dynamic is more complicated and subtle, but let’s imagine the cartoon version: The human givers are the “attentive, loving subordinates” to the human beings.9 The givers’ role is to give their whole humanity to the beings, so that the beings can be their full humanity. Givers are expected to abdicate any resource or power they may happen to acquire—their jobs, their love, their bodies. Those belong to the beings.