Caring Masculinities and Race: On Racialized Workers and “New Fathers”

Abstract

Karla Elliott defines caring masculinities as both embracing care and rejecting domination. Most work within critical studies on men and masculinities that engages with masculinities and care focuses on care yet sidelines non-domination. For caring masculinities to not be/come a “White” concept, this article argues for a broad grounding of caring masculinities in a rejection of all forms of domination and starts with race. Bringing research on the international division of reproductive labor together with fatherhood studies, the article illustrates systemic oppression within the field of care. It is here that privileged men manage to actualize ideals such as involved fatherhood by relying on a marginalized workforce—that simultaneously remains locked out of involved fathering—in the coloniality of labor. I close by advocating not for the “inclusion” of men in the margins but for exploding the dominating power that the center holds.