Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency

Description

This new edition of Eva Feder Kittay's feminist classic, Love's Labor, explores how theories of justice and morality must be reconfigured when intersecting with care and dependency, and the failure of policy towards women who engage in care work. The work is hailed as a major contribution to the development of an ethics of care. Where society is viewed as an association of equal and autonomous persons, the work of caring for dependents figures neither in political theory nor in social policy. While some women have made many gains, equality continues to elude many others, as in large measure, social institutions fail to take into account the dependency of childhood, illness, disability and frail old age and fail to adequately support those who care for dependents. Using a narrative of her experiences caring for her disabled daughter, Eva Feder Kittay discusses the relevance of her analysis of dependency to significant cognitive disability. She explores the significance of dependency work by analyzing John Rawls' influential liberal theory and two examples of public policy--welfare reform and family leave--to show how theory and policy fail women when they miss the centrality of dependency to issues of justice. This second edition has updated material on care workers, her adult disabled daughter and key changes in welfare reform. Using a mix of personal reflection and political argument, this new edition of a classic text will continue to be an innovative and influential contribution to the debate on searching for greater equality and justice for women. Love's Labor has spoken to audiences around the world and has had an impact on readers from many countries and in many disciplines: philosophy, sociology, disability studies, nursing. It has been required and supplementary reading on many undergraduate courses on Ethics, Feminist Ethics, Gender and Religious Ethics, Political Theory, Bioethics and Disability Studies. It has been translated into Italian, Japanese and Korean. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Preface Introduction to the Second Edition Introduction to the First Edition PART I: Love’s Labor: The Requirements of Dependency 1. Relationships of Dependency and Equality Reflections on Being a Mother’s Child Dependency in the Human Condition 2. Vulnerability and the Moral Nature of Dependency Relations The Transparent Self of the Dependency Worker Moral Obligations of Dependency Workers and an Ethics of Care Moral Obligations to the Dependency Worker PART II: Political Liberalism and Human Dependency Introduction Dependency as a Criterion of Adequacy The Role of Equality and Equality’s Presuppositions The Arguments in Outline 3. The Presuppositions of Equality The Circumstances of Justice for a Well-Ordered Society The Idealization That “All Citizens Are Fully Cooperating Members of Society” Free Persons Are Self-Originating Sources of Valid Claims 4. The Benefits and Burdens of Social Cooperation The Two Powers of aMoral Person and the Index of Primary Goods The Public Conception of Social Cooperation Conclusion: The Principles of Justice and Dependency Concerns PART III: Some Mother’s Child Introduction 5. Policy and a Public Ethic of Care Welfare De-Form Justifications of Welfare The Family and Medical Leave Act Welfare Re-Formed: A Vision of Welfare Based on Doulia 6. “Not My Way, Sesha. Your Way. Slowly.” A Personal Narrative A Child is Born Portrait of Sesha at Twenty-Seven On the Very Possibility of Mothering and the Challenge of the Severely Disabled Child Mothering Distributed: The Work of Dependency Care Alternative Routes—Routes Not Taken 7. Maternal Thinking with a Difference Preservative Love Socialization for Acceptance Fostering Development Care for Disability and Social Justice Lessons for the Theoretician Afterword References Index