From wages for housework to self-care: feminist perspectives on the care economy

Abstract

This article argues that privatization of health care since the 1970s has created a paradox whereby a neoliberal discourse of ‘freedom of choice’ masks the fact that it is increasingly difficult to make good choices when it comes to caring for oneself and for one’s loved ones. Part one historicizes this paradox by examining the pioneering international feminist movement Wages for Housework. I argue that Wages for Housework offered a glimpse of a counter-model of state-renumerated care through its revolutionary demand that all houseworkers receive a government wage. At the same time, I call attention to limitations of the movement. Building on the insights of this case study, part two contends that the privatization and commodification of care – especially in the US and the UK in recent years—is fundamentally linked to the ‘responsibilization’ of female-identified subjects. To demonstrate this, I turn to the issue of self-care, arguing that the emergence of self-care as a lucrative twenty-first century market is an important consequence and indicator of this responsibilization. Specifically, I show how individual choice is recast as a societal obligation to assume a consumerist standpoint of ‘self-investment’ that, in itself, becomes a necessary precondition of the ‘right’ choice. I conclude by asserting that it is unjust to frame care—whether for oneself or for others—as a problem of individual responsibility and explore proposals for a ‘universal basic services’ model as the most equitable solution to the current care crisis.