Towards a critique of care fetishism: Social reproduction feminism and the ethics of care

Recently, there has been a notable rise in scholarly publications, research projects and public discussions engaging with care ethics and social reproduction feminism. However, despite their shared focus on caring activities, these two feminist traditions diverge significantly in their theoretical foundations and political implications. The primary distinction lies in their conceptualization of care itself: whereas care ethics emphasizes the affective and moral dimensions of caregiving, social reproduction feminism understands care as labour essential to sustaining life and reproducing labour power. In addition, they differ in their interpretations of interdependence – care ethics views it as an inexorable part of the human condition, while social reproduction feminism examines it through the relationship between production and reproduction. This article analyses hitherto under-scrutinized differences between these traditions. More specifically, it brings to the fore misinterpretations of social reproduction feminism by care ethics scholars while addressing underexplored dimensions within social reproduction feminism itself, including the role of affect in care labour, and Marx's concept of social relations of production. Ultimately, the article argues that the ethics of care tends to idealize caring activities as a moral good, detached from social and economic contexts. Using Marx's theory of commodity fetishism, it thus contends that care ethics risks treating care as a fetish, obscuring the systemic inequalities and inherent contradictions embedded in caregiving.