Women in Late Life by Holstein Martha;

Author:Holstein, Martha;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Essentialist Ideas about Women and

the Matter of Choice

The continued evocation of essentialist ideas about gender and the assumption that caregiving is freely chosen buttress the private nature of care. Women are naturally more adept at giving care than men, or so go the claims, and, moreover, they freely choose to play this role. “A good woman,” observes feminist sociologist Cecilia Ridgeway (2011), “should be, as a deep moral obligation, intensively committed to her family and this commitment should take precedence over all others” (129). All the “informal” caregiving in this country—now estimated to be worth $450 billion each year (Feinberg et al. 2011) and still primarily done by women—seems to support both claims. In a country where choice is central to our understandings of autonomy and where obligations are all putatively chosen ones, it is not a stretch to assume that the act of caregiving itself becomes proof of choice. To observers, the sheer number of hours family members devote to caregiving (Feinberg et al. 2011; MetLife 2011) serves as evidence that they have voluntarily adopted this role. In one sense, they have chosen the role, but how real is the choice when desirable alternatives are absent?

This assumption negates the fact that many of our obligations are unchosen. “Choice” may also reflect one’s class position, the persistence of gender expectations, and the fact that there really are no choices for many women except abandonment, which is hardly a choice. Women become caregivers for multiple reasons, especially love, but to suggest that they actively chose the role is to assume that they have good alternatives from which to choose, a fundamental requirement for autonomous action. Those alternatives do not exist. Often the task is thrust upon them by circumstances they do not control. Think of this situation: Jane and her mother, Grace, have a warm and loving relationship. Grace, who is eighty-two, has emphysema and osteoarthritis. She has trouble getting around, bathing, dressing, and preparing meals. She lives on her $1,500 monthly Social Security check and the modest assets that she and her late husband saved; she lives in her own home and wants to stay there. Jane lives twenty miles away and supports her mother’s wish to stay at home, but she also has a job, which does not give her any flexibility in her working hours, which she needs to help support her family that includes two teenage sons. Grace does not qualify for public assistance and can pay for only occasional assistance from a paid home care aide. Jane honors all that her mother has done for her over the years and wants to do what she can to make Grace’s life easier. Given the family’s financial constraints, the only option she sees is for her to do whatever her mother needs to have done. She steps into the breach because she loves Grace, because she knows it is expected of her, and because there is no other way for Grace to get the daily help that she needs.

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