anti-capitalistlesbianwitch:

Twitter thread by Christina Wolbrecht:

I was going to stick w sarcasm but as an actual gender studies prof, there’s just so much to unpack here, I just can’t help myself. Thread! 

Care work (for children, infirm, elderly) is necessary for human flourishing & has been traditionally performed by women for free, which contributes to women’s lesser financial & politics power.

As care work has moved into the market, it remains poorly paid & overwhelmingly female, which again makes women more vulnerable.
We [heart] to laud a woman “cradling her child,” but don’t provide paid maternity leave or support quality childcare & good pay/benefits for childcare workers (women, immigrants). But wait! There’s more!

As budgets for care work (mental health, health care) have been cut, a lot of that work has shifted to agencies like police & fire, who often lack training & capacity, and result in troubling outcomes. At same time, economists note that a central challenge to male workers is skills mismatch - men reluctant to take jobs in expanding care sector, partly bc jobs are “female,” partly bc they are low paying, low prestice (because their [sic] “women’s jobs”).

IN SUM your rigid and illogical sexual division of labor, & related hierarchy of value, hurts both women & men, the US economy, & the flourishing of society as a whole. The value of work - holding the baby or carrying the mother - should be recognized & rewarded, no matter who performs it. Given how much care is needed, all hands on deck. /end for now

For the record I realize the poster (who I won’t tag) is a provacateur. I don’t intend to engage or convince him. This is for everyone else.

On the point about policing & care work see [link - Policing explained in a few graphs]

On the point about the growth of care sector work and men’s employment follow economist @BetseyStevenson