🏁 4. Module in Review

 Summary 

Care work is not just shaped by gender—it is also a practice where gender norms are made and unmade. This week, we’ve seen how women are forced by circumstances to avoid caring for certain babies. We've also see men who engage in care confront and often reshape ideas about masculinity, responsibility, and emotional labour. Even if women are naturally more caring (and most anthropologists reject that assertion) under certain cultural and social circumstances the relationship between gender and care can shift radically.

Significance 

Understanding how masculinity shifts in caregiving contexts helps us rethink who is imagined as capable of care. It shows that care is not biologically destined or socially fixed—it is relational, dynamic, and political. 

What’s Next 

Our prompt for next module is this: if caring is so important, why is it largely unpaid?