Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency

by Eva Feder Kittay

This new edition of Eva Feder Kittay’s feminist classic, Love’s Labor , explores how theories of justice and morality must be reconfigured when intersecting with care and dependency, and the failure of policy towards women who engage in care work. The work is hailed as a major contribution to the development of an ethics of care. Where society is viewed as an association of equal and autonomous persons, the work of caring for dependents figures neither in political theory nor in social policy. While some women have made many gains, equality continues to elude many others, as in large measure, social institutions fail to take into account the dependency of childhood, illness, disability and frail old age and fail to adequately support those who care for dependents. Using a narrative of her experiences caring for her disabled daughter, Eva Feder Kittay discusses the relevance of her analysis of dependency to significant cognitive disability. She explores the significance of dependency work by analyzing John Rawls' influential liberal theory and two examples of public policy―welfare reform and family leave―to show how theory and policy fail women when they miss the centrality of dependency to issues of justice. This second edition has updated material on care workers, her adult disabled daughter and key changes in welfare reform. Using a mix of personal reflection and political argument, this new edition of a classic text will continue to be an innovative and influential contribution to the debate on searching for greater equality and justice for women. Love’s Labor has spoken to audiences around the world and has had an impact on readers from many countries and in many philosophy, sociology, disability studies, nursing. It has been required and supplementary reading on many undergraduate courses on Ethics, Feminist Ethics, Gender and Religious Ethics, Political Theory, Bioethics and Disability Studies. It has been translated into Italian, Japanese and Korean.

Genres: Philosophy, Feminism, Nonfiction, Gender, Disability, Womens, Disability Studies

218 pages, Paperback

First published December 17, 1998

About the author

Eva Feder Kittay is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University/SUNY; a Senior Fellow of the Stony Brook Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics, and an Affiliate of the Women's Studies Program. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEH Fellowship, and the APA and Phi Beta Kappa Lebowitz Prize. She has also been recognized for her work in Feminist Philosophy, being named Women Philosopher of the Year (2003-2004) by the Society for Women in Philosophy and having chaired the Committee on the Status of Women (1997-2001). Her book Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency (Routledge, 1999) has received international attention and has been translated into Japanese and Italian. Her other work includes Cognitive Disability and the Challenge to Moral Philosophy (Blackwell, 2010), Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy (Blackwell, 2007), Theoretical Perspectives on Dependency and Women (Rowan and Littlefield, 2003), Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure (Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1987, 1985), an edited collection Frames, Fields and Contrasts (Erlbaum, 1992), and Women and Moral Theory (Rowan and Littlefield, 1985). She has edited many journal issues in feminist philosophy and the philosophy of disability and has published over 85 articles and book chapters.

She chairs and was a founder of Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute, a summer program for undergraduates who are from groups underrepresented in philosophy.

She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in philosophy and has directed many dissertations in feminist philosophy, feminist ethics, social and political theory, metaphor, and disability studies.

Reviews

[JonK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theorizing dependency and dependency care as essential starting point to address in/equality. Centering race and gender as primary factors in devaluing care, those cared for, and those doing the caring.

Esp chapter "'Not My Way, Sesha. Your Way. Slowly' A Personal Narrative"

Love, happiness, attachments, dependency, care, care work, "maternal thinking", "mothering distributed"

Not my way...Your way. Slowly.

[mwr · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the clearest statements of care ethics in a field that has (understandably) a lot of vagueness.

[Gizem Kendik Önduygu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toplum, siyaset ve adalet teorileri yıllardır “bağımsız, kendi kendine yeten rasyonel birey” üzerine kurulu. Ama aslında hiçbirimiz öyle değiliz. Hepimiz bir dönem (bebekken, yaşlanınca, hastalanınca) başkalarının bakımına ihtiyaç duyuyoruz. Yani bağlılık bir istisna değil, insanlığın ortak hali.
Eğer hepimiz bir şekilde birbirimize bağlıysak, adalet anlayışımız da bu gerçeği yansıtmalı.
Eşitlik sadece haklardan ibaret olamaz; bakımın adil paylaşımı da bir eşitlik meselesi olmalı. Engelliler, yaşlılar, çocuklar ya da onlara bakım verenler hepsi toplumun merkezinde düşünülmeli, kenarında değil.
Felsefenin “ahlaki özne” tanımı da Kittay’a göre sorunlu. Klasik liberal etik ve adalet teorilerinde, bir kişinin “ahlaki değeri” ya da “özne olarak saygı görmesi”, rasyonel ve bağımsız olmasıyla ölçülür. Yani kişi ne kadar kendi kararlarını alabiliyorsa, ne kadar bağımsızsa o kadar “tam insan” sayılır.
Peki ya ağır engelli bir birey?
Ya da yaşamı boyunca bakım alan biri?
Kittay bu soruları sorarak bence çok radikal bir şey yapıyor: insan olmanın değeri bağımsızlıktan değil, ilişkilerimizden, yani birbirimize bağlanmamızdan, birbirimizle kurduğumuz bakım ilişkisinden gelir.
Yani, bir kişi başkalarına bağlı olduğunda bile değersiz değildir. İnsan olmanın temel kriteri, birinin ne kadar bağımsız olduğu değil, ilişkisel varlık olarak diğer insanlarla ve toplulukla nasıl bağ kurduğudur. Bağlılık, eksiklik değil, insan deneyiminin doğal bir parçasıdır. İnsan olmanın değeri, “başkalarıyla bağlantıda olma kapasitesi ve onlara bakım gösterme/almaya açık olma” üzerinden ölçülür.

[Kace Boland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Required reading for an ethics class I took at Georgetown. I felt really aligned with almost all of it. The good speaks for itself. You should read the book. Here's the bad: Kitty posits care ethics as an inherently feminist ethical framework. I see that, but I docked a star because I don't think she did enough to defend against the feminist *critiques* of care ethics. To me, it is not enough to say "By the way, care is a universal human capacity which requires broader recognition beyond gendered expectations.", and it is cowardly to guard against logical objections by saying "Enough with your logic! It's all context specific!" Unsurprisingly, the few direct objections to the most common feminist critiques are pretty logically lousy. The conversation is the method in philosophy and ethics, so it's quite unfortunate that she cuts off the conversation in that way.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essential philosophical feminist work that is dense (as expected) but brings to light quite a few good points.

Marked as "not finished" because did not read intros/preface and stopped after chapter 3.