ABSTRACT
This chapter builds on the work of feminist theorists by applying a public ethic of care to reconceptualize families as relationships of intimacy and care. It relies on the work of contemporary feminist care theorists who are more explicitly political than early proponents of care. Contemporary feminist care theory provides useful insights and analyses of families and the politics of care. Eva Feder Kittay recognizes that both receiving and giving care are essential goods, as fundamental and irreducible as political liberty and economic well-being. Care theory is particularly helpful because it rejects the false dichotomy between those who seek to raise the status of women by raising the status of care and those who want to raise the status of women by distributing care work more fairly between the sexes. By paying more attention to care work and applying care values, to provide more specific criteria useful for functionalist legal approaches.
