Recognizing gender, redistributing labor

Many feminists have theorized welfare regimes designed to degender labor and encourage men to share caregiving responsibilities. I claim that such policies are problematic to the extent that they do not account for the joint effects of choice and enculturation in people's use of welfare benefits. In a patriarchal society and a democratic state, people's choices will reflect and reproduce the gender norms of their own socialization. To foil this paradox, I claim that feminist welfare regimes must promote equal cultural agency as a component of universal citizenship, Cultural agency is best understood as what Amartya Sen calls a "capability."