Pets or Meat

I am interested in exploring questions of whether and when commingling commodification with affection is more problematic than naked commodification. My title comes from the scene in the Michael Moore film Roger and Me depicting the marketing of rabbits. The dynamic I am interested in is common, not only in human relations with other animals, from lab and farm animals to pets, but also in pink collar work. The secretary given flowers instead of a bonus, the housekeeper whose employers say of her, she\u27s one of the family —each of these cases is troubling, although it is not clear that more naked commodification of personal services would be preferable. What about instances when affection is explicitly what we\u27re buying? Laws against prostitution say money cannot (legally) buy some forms of love. But why don\u27t we think of nannies as mistresses and baby sitters as hookers

How High the Apple Pie? A Few Troubling Questions about Where, Why, and How the Burden of Care for Children Should Be Shifted

In this Commentary, Case urges more careful thought from a feminist perspective about the as yet underexplored details and implications of proposals to shift more of the burden of care for children from mothers to employers or the state. Among her concerns is that some possible ways of structuring employer or governmental responsibility risk further increasing the advantages of men with wives and children at the expense of relatively untraditional women such as the childless and those in jobs disproportionately occupied by men with dependent spouses