Care Work Is Not Just Woman's Work

Raising children, caring for elders, and tending to the sick is a social responsibility.

That means it’s a responsibility we all share, not just the women in our society. Care work is not, and should never be, gendered work. Yet, we’ve been conditioned to believe otherwise, and that conditioning serves capitalism and patriarchy, not us.

This didn’t happen by accident. The idea that women are naturally caregivers was manufactured to justify their exploitation. During slavery, Black women were forced to care for white families while being denied the right to care for their own. Today, poor and immigrant women, particularly women of color, still shoulder the bulk of domestic labor, often in conditions that are underpaid, undervalued, and invisible.

Our homes, our people, our elders, and our children are all our collective responsibility. This is a responsibility we should all hold with love, regard, and nurturance. But instead, we’ve been taught that women should sacrifice for this labor while others benefit.

Women who become mothers inside heteronormative relationships know the trade-offs well. They must either work for free inside the home, depend on a man for financial security, or take on two jobs—one inside the home and one outside of it.

Even when a woman earns enough to hire help, what does that really mean? Another woman, often a woman of color, is now working two jobs: one in her employer’s home and another in her own. The exploitation doesn’t disappear; it just shifts from one woman to another.

So what do we do? We refuse to accept this as the way things have to be. We challenge the idea that care work is “just what women do.” We demand policy shifts that recognize and compensate care labor. We push men, workplaces, and entire communities to take responsibility, not just women.

Because the struggle isn’t just about getting women higher pay at work. It’s about dismantling the entire system that makes care work invisible, unpaid, and expected from women alone.