A Partnership in Eldercare
A note to our readers: next week, we will be moving our newsletter to Substack to better engage with our community of readers. Later today, you'll receive an email confirming the move–you don't have to do anything, but just know that it's coming!
If you don't see the confirmation email later today or the normal FD email next Friday, please check your spam folders.
The Sex-Based Challenges of Eldercare
This week, Shelby Kearns reflects on the need for both men and women to participate fully in caring for the elderly—and argues that we should begin by "reframing care as a privilege."
Fairer Disputations
A Partnership in Eldercare
SHELBY KEARNS
Modernity has exacerbated the sex-based challenges of eldercare. The large extended families that once helped women fulfill their responsibilities no longer exist. In an atomized society, men hesitate to ask for help from those with whom they do not have strong bonds. But when men and women work together, their complementary skills ensure that seniors receive holistic care, or care that meets their physical and emotional needs.
The Weekly Round-up
Fairer Disputations
This Week: The Trans Reckoning, 'Sexist' Feminism, and Polycules
THE EDITORS
This week: Featured authors Nina Power on the trans reckoning, Mary Harrington on the anti-suffrage feminists, Eliza Mondegreen on polycules, breastfeeding vs. "chestfeeding", the golden age of dating, what featured author Ivana Greco is reading—and more!
From the Archives
Today's piece on caring for the older generation pairs well with this piece from the archives, showing the other side of the equation: how younger generations can benefit from living with older relatives.
Fairer Disputations
Multi-Generational Mothering
SIOBHAN HEEKIN-CANEDY
The biological and emotional realities of motherhood don’t fit neatly into to the male model of work-family balance (which, arguably, hasn’t been working well for men, either). Mother-friendly alternatives to the ideal worker model are just beginning to emerge, and women who seek a more integrated approach can often feel isolated.
Too often, the proposed solution to work-family conflict is “less family.” Given that American women are increasingly having fewer children than they desire, this is an unhelpful response. Women have made real legal, educational, and professional gains in the twentieth century, but the ideological hijacking of the feminist movement has predicated these gains upon the suppression of female fertility.
Upcoming Events
Featured Author Mary Harrington on "The Future of Feminism" at the Dissident Dialogues festival on May 3-4th in New York City. Details.
Today and tomorrow, you can see Featured Authors Mary Harrington and Angela Franks at the Veritas Conference at Providence College. Details.
ICYMI, check out Featured Author Holly Lawford Smith and FD author Alex Byrne's MIT debate: Is Sex Binary?
We Need Your Support
Fairer Disputations relies on donors to keep us running. Give here, or contact info@fairerdisputations.org to discuss how you can help.