Saggio introduttivo al numero 3/2025 di SINAPPSI

The introductory essay to Issue 3/2025 of Sinappsi - Family caregivers between care burdens, gender inequalities, and the search for protection - edited by Ignazia Bartholini, frames care as a foundational social practice that is nonetheless systematically devalued within contemporary capitalist arrangements. It situates the volume at the crossroads of critical theory, feminist thought, empirical research, and normative reflection, advancing a central premise: care is constitutive of social and political life, yet it continues to be marginalized within prevailing economic, legal, and symbolic orders. The introduction argues that the persistent lack of structural and systematic recognition of care work – particularly that undertaken by family caregivers, the majority of whom are women – has profound consequences for the social, economic, and cultural fabric of the country. This absence of recognition not only undermines gender equality, but also reinforces asymmetries embedded in welfare systems and labor markets. By conceptualizing care as a site of systemic invisibility, the introduction highlights how its extensive privatization sustains the chronic reproduction of gender inequalities. It calls for a renewed normative and policy framework capable of ensuring substantive recognition, legislative equity, and a reconfiguration of care as a shared public responsibility rather than an individualized and feminized burden.