Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-31-2024

Publication Title

Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work

Pages

1-18

Publisher Name

Sage Publications

Abstract

Neoliberal capitalism creates a “crisis of care” in which social reproduction—though necessary for society—is undermined by stripping away support for caregivers, who are disproportionately women. “Social reproduction” refers to the reproduction and maintenance of the labor force via childbirth, child rearing, and caregiving for loved ones more generally. This interpretive phenomenological study examines how a crisis of care manifests for women in the workplace. Drawing upon in-depth, semistructured interviews with Chicago-based women who work as community organizers, our findings demonstrate that sexism in the workplace, coupled with the gendering of care work, creates unique difficulties for these women. By integrating the work of feminist critical theorists who argue that neoliberal logics produce gendered impacts, particularly due to processes they call responsibilization and retraditionalization, our findings help explain why and how gender subordination and gendered divisions of labor persist, even in organizations with a professed commitment to social justice.

Comments

Author Posting © The Authors, 2024. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Sage Publications for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work, Pages 1-18, March 2024. https://doi.org/10.1177/08861099241238199

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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