Covid, Crisis, Care, and Change? International Gender Perspectives on Re/Production, State and Feminist Transitions

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis has intensified already existing social inequalities in different spheres. The book examines how fundamental and sustainable the social changes over the course of the pandemic will be at the social levels of labour, care work, and state regulation, emphasizing their gender dimensions. The contradictory organisation of labour and life under capitalist conditions and their gender relations is particularly visible in the service sector as well as in the sectors of health, care and childcare. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the social recognition of these previously devalued activities has risen to new heights. However, gestures of symbolic acknowledgements do not meet with comprehensive material recognition. So how (strongly) do processes of recognition and appropriation in system-relevant professions actually change in times of social crisis and what role do gender relations play?