“Caring for children – just one of many types of crucial care – is not a marginal or women’s issue. On the contrary, it has enormous significance for poverty (men’s, women’s and children’s), gender justice, national economic development and global inequality”
Fiona Robinson
Within our society there is an unequal proportion of women working within the care sector, and immigrant women fulfilling caregiving roles through the Live in Caregiver Program (LCP). This can be attributed to patriarchal ideologies that equate caregiving as a natural responsibility that is essential to being a woman. These ideologies are rooted within the culturally dominant concept of a gender binary, that defines women in direct opposition to men due to their inherent differences that are rooted within nature. Women are commonly attributed as being motherly, docile, and caring and men are represented as tough, unemotional, strong, and providers for the family. This essentialist view contributes to the construction of a gender hierarchy based on essential characteristics that are associated with femininity and masculinity that that place men above women within our society. The idea of these inherent gendered characteristics contributes to a gendered division of labor where women are naturally suited for domestic work and results in the feminization of caregiving work.
This gendered division of labor can be viewed through a Marxist feminist analysis that divides labor into productive and reproductive work. Productive work is associated with men and includes dangerous industrial jobs that are paid and valued within the society. In contrast, reproductive work is done by women and involves domestic duties, like cleaning, and caregiving, that are often unpaid and not valued. Within this model society fails to recognize the importance of reproductive work in enabling productive work to happen, and is indicative of the devaluation and invisibility of caregiving work within our society currently.
These patriarchal ideologies have been challenged through movements like the second wave feminist movement that addressed many issues including the importance of recognizing domestic work, and the importance of a national child care program in response to a care deficit that was created when women began entering the work force. This influenced the development of a national child care program (The Foundations Program) in 2005, that was almost implemented before a shift to a conservative government. This shift in the government resulted in the end of The Foundations Program and a neoliberal shift in how childcare was viewed, making childcare an individual issue rather than a societal problem. This left the burdens of caregiving once again on women, and through the continuation of the LCP, women of colour.
Caring for Caregivers 