For a long time, this was called " care ", limiting the approach to the medical and paramedical sectors. From now on, with the notion of " care ", the field of " solicitude " (commonly accepted translation of " care ") extends to any form of relationship that makes individuals responsible for the well-being of others.
A real woman's job, that ! Irony aside, what is the real place of women in what is at the same time an ethic, an economic sector, a galaxy of professions, an anthology of skills and above all, above all, a challenge for the future ?
The origins of " care ", a feminist philosopher
It is to the psychologist and philosopher Carol Gilligan that we owe the concept of " care " in the modern sense. The notion appears in the book A Different Voice, published in 1982. In his writing, it designates an ethics, that is to say a vision of moral dilemmas and the solutions to solve them.
In a perfectly assumed way, Gilligan intends to challenge the pre-eminence of Kohlberg's model, which bases morality on the sense of justice and the appropriation of the rule. For Gilligan, this definition of the moral response by the norm excludes those who are not at the negotiating table (starting with women) when the rule is written, when the good and the right are defined. We must therefore go up a notch, before the institutions and the texts, to find the reference framework that should guide our actions.
It suggests starting from what makes up the basis of a collective : our ability to take care of each other, beyond the sole necessities of survival and reproduction of the species. Anthropology proves him right : all human societies produce solidarity and put in place solutions to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. This human faculty does not proceed, says the philosopher, from utilitarianism but from a disposition for solicitude. This is what she calls " care " : a constant attention to others, to the community, to the environment.
Are women better wired for " care " ?
Gilligan's book was not very well received when it was published. By positioning women among, if not the vulnerable, at least among the populations disadvantaged by the rule and by presenting the ethics of " care " as more likely to recognize the value created by women, his argument is taxed as essentialism.
Is " care " an intrinsically feminine skill and value? The massive feminization of professions that strongly demand a " care " spirit seems, at first glance, to confirm this hypothesis : more than 97% of care assistants and childminders are women ; more than 97% of secretaries and assistants ; 96% of social workers; 94% of home helpers; 90% of nursing assistants ; nearly 88% of nurses ; 85% of primary school teachers...
To shed light on these figures, we readily invoke the effects of gendered socialization that encourage young girls to orient themselves towards this type of profession and discourage men from embracing them. But it is also necessary, with the historian Marie-Françoise Collière, to think on a long-term scale about the conversion of an informal social function into a profession that calls for professionalized skills, protocols, rights and, of course, valorization. In his famous book Promoting Life. From the practice of women caregivers to nursing, the researcher and activist for the cause of women caregivers highlights an imperfect consideration of the " care " professions. These professions are considered more as an extension of maternal functions in the world of work than as a profession in their own right, involving the implementation of skills (technical and social) and inducing remuneration indexed to the value produced.
Thus, the vast majority of " care " professions are paid at the minimum wage, compensating for working time but taking into account neither the difficulties, nor the technicality, nor the added value of this work. However, the situation could change with the increase in the need for staff in these professions : in its latest study on the professions of tomorrow, the DARES estimates an 18% growth in the need for workers in the nursing and midwifery professions to be filled ; The same goes for home helpers. The only professions that are expected to experience a higher level of tension are those of computer and industrial engineering. And in the same way that sectors in need of workers trained in science and new technologies will not be able to do without women ; Those in " care " will have to find ways to attract men as well. It will therefore undoubtedly be necessary to degender the perception of these professions so that men can also project themselves into them.
Degendering " care "... And value it
More gender diversity in care is a necessity at the heart of the economic and social transformations of today and tomorrow. This diversity is that of the workforce in the " care " professions, that of the governments that can no longer make decisions without integrating the dimension of " care ", that of our daily practices when , faced with environmental challenges, the weakening of democracies or the widening of inequalities, we can only count on half of humanity to repair through " care " what activities destroy destructive of balances.
" Care " belongs to all of us and for this to be effective, it will have to be taken out of the trap of the differential valence of the sexes. This differential valence, theorized by Françoise Héritier, highlights that when a field of human activity becomes feminized, it devalues itself. And it is enough to put the figures of the feminization of " care " functions face to face with the average levels of remuneration in these professions to see this unfortunate correlation.
" Care " doesn't pay. " Care " is often underpaid work, sometimes it is free work, domestic and family tasks being the most striking example, which are still carried out at more than 70% by women, whose equivalent in wealth production is estimated by the Nobel Prize in Economics Joseph Stiglitz at 30% of the world's GDP. And the economist invites us to put common sense (and by the way, justice) back into our choice of value creation indicators.
How much longer will we be able to consider that we are doing " performance " by measuring said " performance " with instruments that underestimate or even invisibilize what contributes to preserving resources, to raising future generations, to healing, to humanizing, to protecting, to pacifying… How much longer can we consider that we are doing " performance " without looking at the fact that our way of looking at " performance " accommodates 734 billion extremely poor people on the planet (and according to World Bank projections, there should be 70 million more by 2030), more than 60% of whom are women ?
Degendering " care " is not only about responding to a gender equality issue, it is about asking the question that interests us all about what wealth really is and providing sensible answers to it, together.
