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Feminist Perspectives on Family Care: Policies and Gender Justice Gender & Society; Thousand Oaks; Feb 1997; Hill, Shirley A;Volume: 11Issue: 1Start Page: 133-134ISSN: 08912432Subject

Terms:

 NonfictionFeminismSexesCaregivers

Families & family lifeAbstract:

 Hill reviews "Feminist Perspectives on Family Care: Policies and Gender Justice" by Nancy R. Hooyman and Judith Gonyea.

Full Text:

Copyright Sage Publications, Inc. Feb

1997 Feminist Perspectives on Family Care: Policies and Gender Justice. By Nancy R. Hooyman and Judith Gonyea. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sa1995, 418 pp., $55.00 (cloth), $25.95 (paper).In this modestly titled book, Hooyman and Gonyea give scholars and policy analysts a broad, detailed, and policy-oriented critique of family caregiving. Gender is the center of their analysis, from demystifying current gender-neutral terms for caregivers to calling for ge justice in public and private caregiving policies. Their analysis makes clear that women, rather than families, perform most unpaidcaregiving work and the demand on women to provide care for an increasing population of adult dependents constitutes an oppressive sobligation and set of activities. Caregiving can be gratifying, but most researchers have provided extensive evidence of its negative impon the social, economic, and emotional well-being of caregivers. Overall, the average woman spends 33 percent of her life in the caregirole, with the obligation to care for dependents reinforcing the dependent status of women. Men are usually only marginally involved incaregiving work, and even then a gender division of caregiving work prevails, with women performing the most repetitive and routine tMen define their caregiving roles more narrowly than do women, and, perhaps as a result, men experience less caregiver stress. None of the hypotheses advanced to explain the gendered nature of caregiving (e.g., gender-role socialization, external resources, etc.) h been strongly supported by empirical studies. Hooyman and Gonyea transcend these limited theories by showing how gendered caregivis woven into our most fundamental family, cultural, and political ideologies. Gendered caregiving is traced to the early 19th-century noof separate spheres, when the home was reconstructed as the loving, private sphere and caregiving was exalted as "women's mission to civilization" (p. 115). Yet, this unpaid caregiving work of women quickly became invisible and devalued, while the labor market work men garnered power, prestige, and economic affluence. Despite the devaluation of care work, strong familistic ideologies define the famas a natural caregiving institution. Self-determination, privacy, and freedom from intrusion (p.111) are touted key family values, caringabout is confused with caring for, and family care is assumed to be better than institutional care. Familism reflects the broader culturalideology of individualism and independence that, as Hooyman and Gonyea point out, contradicts the realities of infirmity, disability, andeath (p. 108).

Cultural ideologies about families and individualism, though scarcely in touch with current transformations in marriage, gender roles, anthe economy, provide the context for a residual welfare system in which public services are seen as a needless drain on the economy aninfringement on individual and family autonomy. And despite the demise in the breadwinner-homemaker family model, the massive enof women into the labor force, the growth of single-parent and alternative families, and the increase in low-paying jobs in the service seof the economy, families are seen as capable of providing long-term health care. This ideology has resulted in the passage of familyresponsibility laws in 34 states and meager public support for family caregivers. Hooyman and Gonyea provide an extensive critique of public policies and expenditures on caregiving, documenting vast inequities in government support given to caregiving families versushealth care institutions and the lack of any comprehensive long-term care system. They also examine family policies in the private sectonoting that fewer than 1 percent of the 17 million U.S. businesses have instituted family-responsive policies. Many of those policies,however, simply insure that family work does not interfere with labor market work.Hooyman and Gonyea offer numerous suggestions for reorganizing caregiving based on feminist principles. They show the link betweeeconomic position of women and their caregiving responsibility and expose the gender consequences of seemingly gender-neutral policThe concept of gender justice is introduced and advocated as a strategy for making caregiving work an option and insuring that men and

women have the same opportunities to engage in family caregiving. Gender justice requires a broad reorganization of the workplace andcaregiving work. Employers would have to rethink the presumed boundaries between work and family, adopt a better work-family balaextend family-oriented resources, and promote the advancement of women and minorities into higher-level jobs.Caregiving would have to be redefined as a public responsibility, and caregivers would have to be seen as making a worthwhile contribto society. And caregiver empowerment and compensation would have to be implemented if caregiving work is to be valued. This goalcould be achieved through the formation of a national caregiver alliance dedicated to political activism. All caregiving work should be pwork; in fact, the notion that caring and giving are free could be abolished by adopting the concept of attendant care.Hooyman and Gonyea have written one of the broadest critiques of family care available. It takes us beyond simplistic thinking about thcaregiving dilemma and tackles the tough issue of how to solve the gender inequities in caregiving work. And while their book focuses gender, it also gives a solid analysis of how race and class affect paid and unpaid caregiving work. The shortcomings of the book are soredundancy in the arguments and the assumption that caregiving policies can be implemented with no consideration of economic realitiOverall, the authors provide a thorough and useful book for those interested in families, the changing roles of women, and caregiving byfamilies and other institutions.

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[Author note]

SHIRLEY A. HILL University of Kansas