I would like to share an analysis of the social context in which we live, in order to make a political contribution from my area to the transformation of it. Being aware of the dimension of the analysis that needs to be done in order to overcome this generality and not lose it in its complexity, I will start with the issue of women. Today, in particular, I shall refer to a subject that has become important and which it will take: care work; or what is the same, work that is done outside the labour market.

I would divide care work into two large groups, depending on the function they play as a whole. On the one hand, there are jobs that fulfill the function of ensuring the reproduction of the workforce: preparing meals, keeping the house comfortable for rest, cleaning, shopping, etc. On the other hand, these are care tasks that have the function of guaranteeing the survival of dependent people: children of the family, the elderly or people with some disability to carry out the basic activities of life autonomously. All these works have two main characteristics: on the one hand, they are essential for the survival of both the individual and the social organization; and, on the other, they are structured according to the sexual division of work.

First of all, we need to focus on the whole to know how and with whom they reproduce. The survival of society depends on the form of production of the moment. The current one has a capitalist form and the workforce is oriented towards the accumulation of capital from those who have power. This phenomenon does not stop because the system has a permanently available exploitable workforce. Likewise, capital is essential for this workforce to be always efficient, and for this it is necessary for workers to buy and prepare food to renew our workforce, to meet affective and psychological needs, to alleviate physical pain, etc. The latter are also works, but do not generate capital gains, are not productive for the accumulation of capital, but are essential for workers to be able to continue selling workforce on a continuous basis. Therefore, it is these works that have the function of guaranteeing the reproduction of the workforce that perpetuate the capitalist system.

The same applies to the care work of dependent people who at one point assume the responsibility of non-productive people, the system saves costs and guarantees the workforce for the future.

In addition, it is necessary to take into account the changes undergone by this phenomenon of the assistential works in each context, as they directly involve the authors and recipients of them. The pandemic situation generated by COVID-19 and the economic crisis that has emerged are causing economic, social and political reorganization. This has led to the improvement of the ways of exploiting the workforce (flexible working conditions, redundancies...) and the tendency to privatize many of the services offered so far. Many of them have been suspended or replaced by others.

In short, Capital uses this new phase to obtain capital gain through a new form. However, care work is confined at home, as it cannot meet the new economic and social demands of the services. Thus, through the sexual division of work that has been structured, these responsibilities lie with working women, reinforcing their social and political isolation and reproducing their oppression towards them.

Faced with this, it is up to us to fight against the socialization of care work. But not for them to adopt a mercantilized form, which does not guarantee to the whole of society the accessibility of these services, and which does not mean the end of the sexual division of labour. When I refer to socialisation, I refer to the organisation of services that respond to the interests of the proletariat, that is, to quality services that are accessible to all and, in particular, to the social organisation that women liberate us from this workload.