The relevance and opportunity of the project, given the profound social transformations of recent years, the impacts of the economic crisis of the past decade and the consequences of covid-19, is notorious. First, the project raises the consequences of the social reorganization of care from an integrated perspective that complements epidemiological knowledge with knowledge developed by the social sciences in Spain.
The pandemic reveals the clear consequences that the commodification of public, common and solidarity spaces has on common life. Thus, the care crisis has deepened; the vulnerability of women in the labor market; gender-based violence has been exacerbated; the essential reduction of the female prison population; the irreconcilable articulation of time and work of single mothers and the overexploitation of the migrant and/or displaced female population, among other groups of vulnerable women. The pandemic has deepened gender gaps and the vulnerability of women, thus promoting transformative change for equality by addressing the paid and unpaid care economy, incorporating the gender perspective in the approach to responding to the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 is key.
The importance of recognizing care as a right of individuals and, therefore, as a responsibility that must be shared by men and women from all sectors of society, families, private companies and the State, is evident. The current situation deepens the care crisis. It is necessary that the measures taken to address this situation have at their core care policies and programs that make it possible to alleviate this reality immediately while promoting co-responsibility between women and men in family, work and social life. This will allow us to think of a post-pandemic world where women can join employment, study and politics and fully enjoy their autonomy. In addition, it is necessary to break with the sexual division of labor both inside and outside the home. It is necessary to move towards a cultural transformation that allows breaking with the subjectivities built around the feminine and what is considered feminized. In this sense, the solution is not only to distribute care more equitably between men and women at the individual level, but rather its importance and value is recognized and can also be provided in part by society, the market and the State.