Every single person has relied on another at some point in their life and likely will again in old age. However, the caregiver in these instances is often overlooked and not given enough respect or compensation. Eva Kittay has been and will be a dependency worker for her severely handicapped daughter, Sesha, her entire life. She knows the struggles and labor of what dependency work entails. Her experiences with this lifestyle helped her to write, “Love’s Labor,” in which she describes the role of dependency work, its importance and the way it is viewed in society. Her outlook on the subject truly clarifies the ethical issues surrounding how they are treated. After reading this book, I gained more respect for dependency workers and realized that they do not get enough recognition or opportunities.
Kittay makes sure to refer to caregivers of dependents as “dependency workers” in order to emphasize that they do in fact do labor. However, unlike just about every other person who does some sort of labor, dependency workers are very disadvantaged. Society’s competitive nature has a detrimental effect on these people. As Kittay states, “While we are dependent, we are not well positioned to enter a competition for the goods of social cooperation on equal terms. And those who care for dependents, who must put their own interests aside to care for one who is entirely vulnerable to their actions, enter the competition for social goods with a handicap,”(Kittay xi). The amount and type of work they do sets them up for a lesser opportunity than most, however they are not willing to sacrifice the dependents health to gain equality. Dependency work is a job that must be done, without it society the way we know it could not function. There will ...
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...k for this reason alone. However, she then writes that there is no way it could be eliminated because so many people rely on it (Kittay 95). This point stood out to me because it seems strange that the worker can become dependent on the actual dependent. This makes it apparent that the job has many stressors, their own self-worth beigng one of them.
Eva Kittay’s “Love’s Labor” truly opened my eyes to the profession of dependency work. I realized that there are many underlying ethical concerns of the job and that it is not to be taken lightly. I believe that society should provide more opportunities for caregivers and that more people should take the time to learn in more depth about what the profession requires.
Works Cited
Kittay, Eva Feder. Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Works Cited
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...ues women’s work becomes wrong. Yes, in today’s society one could argue further that a woman who stays at home and does not work is only reinforcing the stereotype and prolonging the inequality. However, this essay was not written to change the world. It simply strove to identify and prove the reasons behind a ruined sense of self worth that many women in the early 1900’s felt as a result of their work being demeaned. By reaching out to people’s emotional sides, McBride relayed her grandmother’s tale so that people could clearly feel the hurt and demotion that women of that time lived with in order to have them persuaded that the oppression of women in any manner and capacity is wrong.
From the humble beginning of Social Work there have been many people who have tirelessly worked, fought, and dedicated their life advocating for the people in our world who are disadvantaged. Furthermore, many of these people have been women who not only were strong enough to fight for the rights of others, but also had to fight the forces whom thought that women where in some way second hand citizens themselves. These women were brave and determined enough to break out of the box that society placed them in, and stand up for the social injustices that they seen taking place, and try to make a difference. Of the many women from the early days of Social Work none fought harder for social reform than Grace Abbott. Grace Abbott spent her life fighting to enact legislation for the betterment of society as a whole. This work would eventually earn her the nickname “the mother of America’s forty-three million children.”
This essay will focus on one of these principles which support service users in having a voice and being heard. It will show why it is important for care workers to give services users the opportunity to have a voice and communicate their views and preferences together with the ability to convey their fears and concerns without being judged or discriminated against.
Domestic Labor has been a part of the European society from the 1960s. It is know as a labor work for women, who are working for long hours and low wages. These women have to abandon their home, family, and children to take care of someone else's home and their children. In the reading Nakano Glenn mentions that, “Recruited as ‘cheap hand,’ migrants fathers and husbands rarely earned a family wage. Moreover, many migrant families has destitute kin at home to support.” (Nakano Glenn 2006, 251) I believe this is the main reason why majority of women have to work as domestic worker, because they have to support and fulfill the needs of their own family. In the lecture, we have conversed on how these women are treated by the owners or the people
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