Barcelona Metropolis

The ethics of care is not a feminine ethics

The first thing that needs to change is the perception of care as a women’s issue exclusively. The ethics of care is not a feminine ethics, because ethics has no gender, and allocating the responsibility of caring for those who need it solely to women and families goes against fairness in its most elemental form. The majority of carers currently are women, but this does not have to continue, nor does it mean that women are especially qualified for these tasks. While only women have been responsible for care, and they have done so for free, care has not been considered work. Looking after children, the sick or other dependent people has never been seen as productive work. Care has just been viewed as a part of reproduction: a feminine area by definition.

For various reasons that will not be analysed here, this view of things is neither sustainable nor fair. Care is a universal responsibility, from which no one should be exempt. Care work must be seen as just that, work (paid or otherwise, depending on the circumstances), recognised as such and with some sort of recompense. The ancient division of roles between men and women cannot continue any further into the twenty-first century: men are not the only providers in the household, and women are not solely responsible for care tasks. Economists have long recognised that the economic value of care is significant and that it should translate as social recognition at least comparable to that granted to productive work.

Care: a universal right and duty

The above reflections give rise to an axiom that should become one of the basic principles of ethics: ‘Everyone has the right to be cared for and everyone has a duty to care’. Everyone means every-one, with no exceptions: nobody should be exempt from a duty that should not necessarily be considered feminine. The fact that care-oriented professions, such as nursing, are dominated by women is a distortion that can only be explained by the cultural inertia that contributes towards reproducing gender stereotypes.

Caring is a universal duty, because it is derived from an equally universal right. If we take them seriously, rights must be guaranteed by the only institution with the power to do so: the State. If we accept that care has become a basic need, deeming it a right is a consequence of this need. It thus becomes another social right, on its own and in tandem with other rights, such as the protection of health, education, housing or work. In fact, to care for people in the least fortunate situations is to ensure they have access to the basics to which everyone is entitled.

The problem with social rights is that, unlike rights to freedom, they require intervention from the State. When the State does intervene, it often does so with significant, well-known shortcomings. Social rights tend to be seen more as programmatic rights – to be ensured in an ideal world, but only where possible – than as ‘positive obligations’ that must be fulfilled. There is no need to list examples. The rights to housing and work are rarely understood as true rights; the Law on Dependence was doomed from the beginning due to a lack of resources to apply it; work-life balance policies, which should make care compatible with paid work, are little more than a declaration of intentions.

All too often, social rights are empty formulas that do not lead to proactive measures designed to guarantee them. Here, we can be relatively satisfied with the implementation of the right to education and the right to health, but we cannot say the same of other social rights, or of a possible right to care. The reality when it comes to most social rights contrasts starkly with the propagandist slogans issue by governments and all kinds of organisations. Take ‘person-centred care’, for example: this is a statement with no concrete purpose if it does not translate as an effective effort to care for, protect and accompany people who require assistance and protection.

Finally, calling for a ‘caring democracy’, as Joan Tronto calls it, should not be reduced to a series of essential ‘services’. Care as a real ethical and political value is not just a set of services. It is an arrangement of people in their mutual relationships. It is the way institutions act towards the people they serve. The social state governed by the rule of law must be compelled to be an attentive, considerate, respectful, friendly state. As well as executing care policies, the public administration must be diligent and close to citizens, provide care, and lead in a ‘caring’ way. A caring attitude is essential, according to Virginia Held, because ‘without some level of caring concern for other human beings, we cannot have any morality’. If we do not feel concerned by existing injustices and committed to fighting them, we will never demand more justice, more fairness and more rights.

Bibliographical references

Gilligan, C., In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Human Development. Cambridge, 1982.
Held, V., The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. Oxford University Press, 2006.
Marçal, K., Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? New York, Pegasus Books, 2016.
Nussbaum, M.; Levmore, S., Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, & Regret. Oxford University Press, 2017.
Tronto, J., Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice. New York University Press, 2013.