Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-10T09:47:27.585Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Affective Equality: Love Matters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Sara Cantillon  and
Kathleen Lynch
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The nurturing that produces love, care, and solidarity constitutes a discrete social system of affective relations. Affective relations are not social derivatives, subordinate to economic, political, or cultural relations in matters of social justice. Rather, they are productive, materialist human relations that constitute people mentally, emotionally, physically, and socially. As love laboring is highly gendered, and is a form of work that is both inalienable and noncommodifiable, affective relations are therefore sites of political import for social justice. We argue that it is impossible to have gender justice without relational justice in loving and caring. Moreover, if love is to thrive as a valued social practice, public policies need to be directed by norms of love, care, and solidarity rather than norms of capital accumulation. To promote equality in the affective domains of loving and caring, we argue for a four‐dimensional rather than a three‐dimensional model of social justice as proposed by Nancy Fraser (2008). Such a model would align relational justice, especially in love laboring, with the equalization of resources, respect, and representation.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 32 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Feminist Love Studies, Winter 2017 , Winter 2017 , pp. 169 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, Sara. 2004. Affective economies. Social Text 79 (22) 2: 117–39.Google Scholar
Akerlof, George, and Shiller, Robert. 2015. Phishing for phools: The economics of manipulation and deception. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Badgett, M. V. Lee, and Folbre, Nancy. 1999. Assigning care: Gender norms and economic outcomes. International Labour Review 138 (3): 311–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, John, Lynch, Kathleen, Cantillon, Sara, and Walsh, Judy. 2004. Equality: from theory to action. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, Marian. 2005. Caring and social justice. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 1992. Situating the self: Gender, community, and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bryson, Valerie. 2013. Time to love. In Love: A question for feminism in the twenty‐first century, ed. Jónasdóttir, Anna G. and Ferguson, Ann. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bubeck, Diemut Elisabet. 1995. Care, justice and gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, Raymond. 1989. Late fragment. In A new path to the waterfall. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Crary, Jonathan. 2013. 24/7: Late capitalism and the ends of sleep. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Crean, Margaret. 2016. Care consciousness: Classed care and affective equality. PhD diss. School of Social Justice, University College Dublin.Google Scholar
Damasio, Antonio. 2006. Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. London: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Delphy, Christine, and Leonard, Madeleine. 1992. Familiar exploitation: A new analysis of marriage in contemporary western societies. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
England, Paula. 2005. Emerging theories of care. Annual Review of Sociology 31: 381–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engster, Daniel. 2005. Rethinking care theory: The practice of caring and the obligation to care. Hypatia 20 (3): 50–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Federici, Sylvia. 2012. Revolution at point zero: Housework, reproduction, and feminist struggle. Oakland: PM Press/Common Notions/Autonomedia.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Ann. 1989. Blood at the root: Motherhood, sexuality and male domination. London: Pandora/Unwin & Hyman.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Ann. 2014. Feminist love politics: Romance, care, and solidarity. In Love: A question for feminism in the twenty‐first century, ed. Jónasdóttir, Anna G. and Ferguson, Ann. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fineman, Martha. 2004. The autonomy myth: A theory of dependency. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Folbre, Nancy. 1994. Who pays for the kids? Gender and the structures of constraint. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folbre, Nancy. 2004. A theory of the misallocation of time. In Family time: The social organization of care, ed. Folbre, Nancy and Bittman, Michael. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Folbre, Nancy, ed. 2012. For love and money: Care provision in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 1997. After the family wage: A post‐industrial thought experiment. In Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the “postsocialist” condition, ed. Fraser, Nancy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 2005. Reframing justice in a globalizing world. New Left Review 36: 69–88.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 2008. Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 2010. Injustice at intersecting scales: On “social exclusion” and the “global poor.” European Journal of Social Theory 13 (3): 363–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1995. Hearing the difference: Theorizing connection. Hypatia 10 (2): 120–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gürtler, Sabine. 2005. The ethical dimension of work: A feminist perspective. Trans. Andrew Smith. Hypatia 20 (2): 119–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutierrez‐Rodriguez, Encarnacion. 2014. Domestic work–affective labor: On feminization and the coloniality of labor. Women's Studies International Forum 46: 45–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1981. The theory of communicative action. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hardt, Michael, and Negri, Antonio. 2009. Commonwealth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, Virginia. 2006. The ethics of care: Personal, political and global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1979. The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1997. The time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York: Metropolitan Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 2009. Love and gold. S&F Online 8 (1): 1–6. http://sfonline.barnard.edu/work/hochschild_01.html (accessed August 13, 2015).Google Scholar
Honneth, Axel. 2003. Redistribution as recognition: A response to Nancy Fraser. In Redistribution or recognition? A political‐philosophical exchange, ed. Fraser, Nancy and Honneth, Axel. Trans. Joel Golb, James Ingram, and Christiane Wilke. London: Verso.Google Scholar
hooks, bell. 2000. All about love. New York: William Morrow & Co.Google Scholar
Jónasdóttir, Anna G. 1994. Why women are oppressed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Karamessini, Maria, and Rubery, Jill. 2013. Women and austerity: The economic crisis and the future for gender equality. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder. 1999. Love's labor. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 2008. The political mind: Why you can't understand 21st‐century politics with an 18th‐century brain. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Lanoix, Monique. 2013. Labor as embodied practice: The lessons of care work. Hypatia 28 (1): 86–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Kathleen. 2007. Love labour as a distinct and non‐commodifiable form of care labour. Sociological Review 54 (3): 550–70.Google Scholar
Lynch, Kathleen. 2014. Why love, care and solidarity are political matters: Affective equality and Fraser's model of social justice. In Love: A question for feminism in the twenty‐first century, ed. Jónasdóttir, Anna and Ferguson, Ann. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lynch, Kathleen, Baker, John, and Lyons, Maureen, eds. 2009. Affective equality: Love, care and injustice. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Kathleen, Grummell, Bernie, and Devine, Dympna. 2012. New managerialism: Commercialization, carelessness and gender. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Kathleen, and Lyons, Maureen. 2009. Love labour: Nurturing rationalities and relational identities. In Affective equality: Love, care and injustice, ed. Lynch, Kathleen, Baker, John, and Lyons, Maureen. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Kathleen, Lyons, Maureen, and Cantillon, Sara. 2009a. Love labouring: Power and mutuality. In Affective equality: Love, care and injustice, ed. Lynch, Kathleen, Baker, John, and Lyons, Maureen. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Kathleen, Lyons, Maureen, and Cantillon, Sara. 2009b. Time to care, care commanders and care foot soldiers. In Affective equality: Love, care and injustice, ed. Lynch, Kathleen, Baker, John, and Lyons, Maureen. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matheis, Christian. 2014. On various notions of “relations” in Enrique Dussel's philosophy of liberation. Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy 13 (2): 9–15.Google Scholar
Mattingly, Cheryl. 2014. Love's imperfection—moral becoming, friendship and family life. Suomen Anthropologies: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 39 (1): 53–67.Google Scholar
McKie, Linda, Gregory, Susan, and Bowlby, Sophia. 2002. Shadow times: The temporal and spatial frameworks and experiences of caring and working. Sociology 36 (4): 897–924.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meagher, Gabrielle. 2002. Is it wrong to pay for housework? Hypatia 17 (2): 52–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 1995. Emotions and women's capabilities. In Women, culture and development: A study of human capabilities, ed. Nussbaum, Martha and Glover, Jonathan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2001. Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2013. Political emotions: Why love matters for justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Maeve. 2007. Mothers’ emotional care work in education and its moral imperative. Gender and Education 19 (2): 159–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller. 1989. Justice, gender, and the family. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Oksala, Johanna. 2016. Affective labor and feminist politics. Signs 41 (2): 281–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. 2001. Servants of globalization: Women, migration, and domestic work. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sara. 1990. Maternal thinking: Towards a politics of peace. London: Women's Press.Google Scholar
Scholz, Sally J. 2007. Political solidarity and violent resistance. Journal of Social Philosophy 38 (1): 38–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sevenhuijsen, Selma. 1998. Citizenship and the ethics of care: Feminist considerations on justice, morality and politics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Strazdins, Lyndall, and Broom, Dorothy H. 2004. Acts of love (and work): Gender imbalances in emotional work and women's psychological distress. Journal of Family Issues 25 (3): 356–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toye, Margaret. 2010. Towards a poethics of love. Feminist Theory 11 (1): 39–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traustadottir, Rannveig. 2000. Disability reform and women's caring work. In Care work: Gender, class and the welfare state, ed. Harrington Meyer, Madonna. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 1987. Beyond gender difference to a theory of care. Signs 12 (4): 644–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 1993. Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 2012. Partiality based on relational responsibilities: Another approach to global ethics. Ethics and Social Welfare 6 (3): 303–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 2013. Caring democracy: Markets, equality, and justice. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Wærness, Kari. 1984. The rationality of caring. Economic and Industrial Democracy 5 (2): 185–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, Richard, and Pickett, Kate. 2009. The spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always do better. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar