In this framework, the health crisis caused by the expansion of COVID-19 highlights the consequences that the commodification of the public sphere has on life; the market as the regulatory axis of human relations; and showing the relevance and weakness of the social organization of care. In three months, COVID-19 put on the agenda what has been advocated for more than 15 years from the care economy. Suddenly, the measures of social isolation and the interruption of face-to-face classes in schools and care centers have all the members of the household living together all the time, trying to make a multiplicity of demands and roles coexist: caring, educating, parenting/ maternity, cooking, working remotely, mediating in family conflicts, etc. Extreme situations like these clearly show the relevance of care. Because a pandemic requires care. And because the measures taken to deal with it increase care work in homes. Also, prevention measures against the disease increase domestic work, particularly due to the greater hygiene tasks that are needed in homes. As in so many other emergency situations, the time, the work and the bodies of the women are there, enduring the situation, and sustaining daily life.
The world is in an unprecedented situation. The market economy, focused on the production and sale of goods and services, has slowed down while, on the contrary, the economy of unpaid care work is in full swing. The measures to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus, the period of confinement and the measures of social distancing, have paralyzed some public services while they have put greater pressure and restrictions on others. Families, from one day to the next, have had to take charge of all the care work, looking for strategies that allow them to respond to the needs of people’s well-being and the sustainability of human life. Movement restrictions have meant that all household members are home at the same time, allowing them to witness (and potentially participate in) household chores that were previously invisible. Thus, it has been shown that the productive system has been able to stop and/or slow down, but the care system is unavoidable. Although in some cases the confinement allowed more time to be spent caring and has meant a “rediscovery” of the home as a safe environment and care as restorative and satisfying activities; in other cases they have faced a “new care crisis” (Moré, 2020).