The Road Leading To Care

More and more people pay attention to family policies in the welfare-state, but weshould know that family policies are not only in the welfare-state. Since there are manychanges for the structure of family all over the world, the relationship between familyand state is more and more close and reciprocal. The pursuit of gender justice is animportant aspect of family policy, but until now, gender equality is just as associatedwith family policy results. On the one side, feminists have not been able to make anyspecific proposal of a family policy model for the feasibility of gender justice; On theother side, the family policy which is already existing still needs re-carried out the valuejudgments through the perspective of gender justice. This dissertation tries to do acomparative research on these three theoretical model of family policy by the analyticalmethod of political philosophy.In the first chapter, there will be some description about the total tendency offamilies in the world, these content will be a background introduction for the followingchapters. This section outlines and cited the United States, Sweden and Singapore,which three are located in the developed industrialized countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia, pointing out working families as a dominant family model epitomizesthe gender role conflict and the integration process. And then, through genderperspective, we proposed three theoretical models of family policy: Care SeparationModel, Shared Responsibility Model and Universal Care Model.Care Separation Model is recognized by the first wave of feminists when they fightfor the equal right to vote and equal right to public participation, the goal of this modelis equality, and for realizing this goal, the government should provide institutionalguarantee for female employment. However, the model has exacerbated the plight ofwomen within groups of classes in non-institutional contradiction. SharedResponsibility Model is a theoretical model of family policy derived from the secondwave of feminism which debated on issues of difference, it takes respecting individualdifferences as the goal and advocates that the government should pay for caringactivities. This policy model was very popular in most European countries, and could befound expression in Generous Parental Leave, Flexible Schedule and Cash Support. Butthis model also can’t avoid the division in the group of women which is happened inCare Separation Model, at the same time, it faced with the predicament to curingmarginalized status of women and the deconstruction of family cohesion.Since the first two theoretical models of family policy can’t realize gender justice,in chapter four, I proposed a new theoretical model of family policy called UniversalCare Model, and took caring theory as its theoretical foundation. Obviously, as thereisn’t real system carrier in practice, Universal Care Model is only a theory ofimagination, nevertheless, we should recognize the possible acceleration for genderjustice of this policy model. Caring theory, which is the theory basis of Universal CareModel, beyond the debate on equality and difference lasting long in feminism, it arguedthat the basic form of human existence is dependence, and the basic value of genderjustice is maintaining the caring relationship. Meanwhile, it confirmed that the system2 guarantee of gender justice is breaking through the division of public and private area.These viewpoints of Universal Care Model will undoubtedly played a completeremodeling of existing gender order. On this basis, Universal Care Model advocatedreturning to family area, making care as the value basis of family policy, reshaping thepolitical value of care, which will fundamentally reverse the basic social structure whichrelied mainly on productive labor while making unproductive labor subsidiary, andprovided a system effectiveness which constructed a theoretical model of family policyin favor of achieving gender justice. But we still can’t ignored that, in care-orientedfamily policy model, this chapter attempts to put forward a kind of governmentintervention called paternalism, it will be an important supplement for perceptions ofgovernment intervention which takes the liberal harm principle as their onlyjustification. It will need some external forces for reconstruction of the traditionalgender order in family area, which means careing political values can’t be separatedfrom the strong roles of government, and the relationship between family and countrystill need the government to play a more positive role.Finally, after the analysis and comparison on these three theoretical models of family policy, I pointed the special content of caring in Chinese culture by combining withChinese traditional culture and social condition, and argued the Confucian culture which characterized by family ethics will make China has fecund soil for constructing the theoretical model of family policy which is called Universal Care Model.