Nancy Fraser argues that capitalism inherently exploits and devalues social reproduction—the unpaid care work essential to sustaining life and labor—while structurally relying on it, creating a fundamental contradiction. She demonstrates how capitalism’s separation of "productive" (paid, male-dominated) and "reproductive" (unpaid, female-dominated) labor enforces gender oppression across historical phases: from 19th-century "separate spheres" ideologies to today’s financialized capitalism, which pulls women into paid work while privatizing care through global inequities. Fraser critiques how progressive neoliberalism co-opts feminist language to mask this crisis, celebrating individual empowerment while dismantling collective support systems. Ultimately, she shows that gender inequality is not accidental but foundational to capitalism, as its profit-driven logic systematically undermines the very care work it depends on, demanding transformative structural change to reconcile production with social reproduction.Source: Fraser, N. (2022). Care Guzzler: Why Social Reproduction Is a Major Site of Capitalist Crisis, in Cannibal Capitalism (pp. Ch. 3), United States: Verso Books