Caring Across Difference
In her chapter “Race and Feminist Care Ethics: Intersectionality as Method,” Dr. Parvati Raghuram describes care as the things we do to maintain, contain, and repair our world. She defines our world as our bodies, ourselves, and our environment. Feminist ethics draw on women’s caring roles as the basis for thinking of care as a universal good.
She points out that most care work globally is done by women. However, she acknowledges the debate over whether the term care is feminine or gender-neutral. She discusses femininity and masculinity and how they interact with language like care and justice. These conversations have implications within the words and the movements through the intersection of gender, race, and class in care-giving and care-receiving practices and frameworks. In particular, she notes how slavery and colonialism have historically defined who cares and who receives that care. There is also violence in restructuring care groups and forcing groups to care. In addition, care is enacted on different racialized bodies differently.
Dr. Raghuram also discusses how we care. Care requires responsibility, attentiveness, responsiveness, and competence. How we enact and define these skills depends on geography, race, history, class, culture, gender, and many other factors. Colonialism has also segmented and controlled how we see different groups of people in caring roles. We, therefore, need to expand and redefine our ethics of care for a globalized world.
Care can also have huge impacts culturally. The care we receive as children shape our definitions and impact us both socially and culturally. These factors can influence how you are able to communicate your needs as an adult and how you can address others’ needs. Caring can generate risks to yourself as it requires vulnerability. In addition, the quality of care cannot be guaranteed, and it is possible for carers to be taken advantage of.
Care practice might not always lead to care as an outcome. There can be a disconnect between someone’s care needs and another person’s response to those needs. Just because you attempt to be helpful does not mean you will succeed. Additionally, there are questions about forms of caring, such as tough love. Should this be defined as care? Is it beneficial or harmful in the long run, and who has the authority to decide what is and is not caring? We face many challenges of caring across differences. This is why we need to engage and reengage with these questions, especially as we become increasingly globalized.
About the Author
Stella Hudson is a Graduate Assistant with the Baha’i Chair for World Peace. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2021 with a B.A. in English. She will graduate from the University of Maryland with her MLIS in spring 2023.