It is almost unanimously that the population of Quebec supports the social project making education and health the priorities. But the Legault government and Minister LeBel do not seem to have seen the train go by. They negotiate as if nothing had happened. Nothing prevents us from thinking that if the majority of union members were men, this would already be resolved.
“Mr Legault, Mrme LeBel, it is especially to women that you refuse full access to a new social status. » This sentence is taken from a text by Maxine Iannuccilli in The duty. She won’t blame me if I extend her thoughts on the established fact that predominantly female professions are undervalued to Joan Tronto’s remarks on the so-called “care” theory. » (care of all kinds, but also solicitude).
This American political scientist and feminist defines “care” as “the human activity which covers everything we do with the aim of maintaining, perpetuating and repairing our world, so that we can live in it as well as possible”. She opposes the theory of “care” to Beck’s theory of risk as the dominant paradigm of civilization. Personally, I prefer to contrast it with the theory of power, mastery and control as a masculine paradigm. And I make the link with the context of public sector negotiations where the majority of union members are women.
It is on the basis of the following reasoning that I interpret the creation of a common health/education front under the banners of “care” as the announcement of an imminent upheaval of the dominant paradigms of civilization. Almost everywhere on the planet, the current situation is leading us towards an exponentially growing demand for “care”.
New factors in their importance and urgency are forcing governments to constantly review their priorities in this area. The aging of populations, global warming and all the cataclysms it brings, the drying up of natural resources, epidemics and pandemics, all factors which force the redefinition of national priorities. And consequently the social redefinition of servants of these priorities.
Tronto recalls that, since time immemorial, caring functions have been assigned mainly to women and people with little education. This made it possible not to pay them and, as they stayed at home, to offer them very little social consideration.
It is by making the link between the growing and unforeseen demand for “care” of all kinds on the one hand and the demands of union members in the present negotiations on the other hand, that I dare to put forward the idea that we can enter -to be at the beginning of a tectonic clash between two paradigms of civilization, that of power and that of “care”. In the end, what the union members are demanding is basically this (which I paraphrase): “We are willing to take on the tasks of “care”, but on condition that you give us the material conditions, the conditions of professional exercise and social consideration equivalent to the importance that you are increasingly obliged to give to the functions of care and solicitude. »
If taking care of the elderly in CLSCs represents a value of eight or nine on a scale of ten, you have no choice, Mr. Legault and Mr.me LeBel. You must give those who serve this new priority level eight or nine status and social consideration. A question of pure social logic.
Until very recently, you accepted without problem the logic of the time where a less important social function corresponded to less material and social consideration for the holders of these functions. Now that many of them are national priorities, what are you waiting for to give the holders of these functions a global social status to match? Your current social logic seems encrusted in this atavism according to which this area is natural to women, it is not necessary to socially reconsider them under the pretext that it has become a priority.
Wake up, Mr. Legault and Mr.me LeBel! Take advantage of this to upgrade the socio-political bases of your governance. Hurry up and settle while there is still time for a win-win settlement including children and patients. All of Quebec will be better off and perhaps finally become the true-most-best-country in the world!
Once again, the example of an open socio-political logic comes to us from a small northern country, Finland. Because education is a national priority (and we know quite well what they have done with it), we have put in place the means to ensure that teaching and related professions are professions that are equally well paid and as well regarded socially and envied as the liberal professions. And there is no shortage of teachers there.