Rethinking Care: Arlie Hochschild and the Global Care Chain/Response to ReviewersPremilla Nadasen
Women's Studies Quarterly, Volume 45, Issue 3/4, Pages 124-, 2017
Arlie Hochschild is a pioneering feminist labor scholar. Over the past forty years, she has examined how both paid and unpaid labor reflects and generates women's subordination, demonstrated the interconnections between the private and public spheres, and inserted care and emotion into analyses of work, thereby redefining Marxist notions of alienated labor. A prolific writer and public intellectual, her research and writing has reached beyond the walls of the academy, deepening our thinking about women, gender, labor, and care. Hochschild situates household responsibilities in a larger global political economy, illuminating how private, individual decisions are tied to broader transformations. Global restructuring and neoliberal social policy have led to falling wages and made the male-breadwinner model obsolete. Although Hochschild's work has been foundational, a number of scholars have offered critiques. Perhaps most important is the presumed heteronormativity and essentialized notion of gender embedded in the idea of a female migrant who transfers her love from her own children to those of her employer.