Feminism and Care Perspectives

In her introduction, Hochschild discusses addressing the question, “why do we care?”. I believe that it is equally as important to ask, “why do some people not care for families?”. As mentioned in class, it is not necessarily deviations from the traditional family structure that create problems for children or spouses, but rather neglect, lack of social support, or abuse from a family member, and the effect these relationships can have on an individual or society when institutionalized, (I'm not talking about divorce or people who choose not to have children). As discussed by Ferree, this can be viewed in terms of both locational and relational intersectionality. Locationally, this is partially addressed by Pyke’s discussion of masculinities and Hoshschild’s take on balancing femininities. We can examine why men and women act a certain way by viewing their place within these somewhat set expectations of men and women. Expectations placed upon men within society tends to separate them into upper-class ideologies in which the man can solely provide for the family, and working-class tendencies which can result in abusive or domineering “male” tendencies due to pressures to achieve this expected economic masculinity. However it is equally important to realize that we create these enduring expectations, and to examine where they come from.

I think what is left out of these discussions is the truly intersectional nature of the individual. Expectations and norms from society and the groups we belong to shape us all, however no two individuals experiences can be derived from generalizations regarding groups, simply because there are too many complex and competing ideas. It is important to examine the individual when looking at families that did “not work”. This makes policy creation harder, however as brought up by Pyke, policy is already established on a somewhat faulty basis of the traditional family, and should be rearranged.

Questions:

1. In last weeks class we discussed life courses and institutionalized gender norms. Do both kinds of masculinities (working and upper class) discussed in Ferree’s article fit in with the life course approach? If not, how does is differ for these two groups? What other factors could influence the differences between masculinities?
2. Ferre touches on race in discussing masculinities yet focuses on white middle class men. Can “cultural differences” create different expectations on working and upper class men of different races? Do the same class divisions hold as much weight when other factors are introduced?
3. We see how inequalities become normalized through advertising, social expectations and policy. What changes could be made to promote gender equalities? What about policies regarding the family (and care) specifically?