“Why Don’t They Just Use Cloth?” Gender Policy Vacuums and the Inequalities of Diapering
通过访谈70位经历尿布需求的母亲和40位尿布银行工作人员，分析性别、阶级和种族不平等如何塑造育儿的社会组织，并提出“性别政策真空”概念来解释为何结构性问题的系统性应对被阻碍。
Drawing on feminist theories of parenting and the welfare state, I analyze experiences of diaper need as a case of how gender, class, and race inequalities shape the social organization of caregiving and limited policy responses. Data from in-depth interviews with 70 mothers who experienced diaper need and 40 diaper bank staff revealed obstacles low-income mothers face in managing lack of access to children’s basic needs and how gendered assumptions of parental responsibility thwart public diaper support efforts. I use this case to theorize gender policy vacuums: These occur when gender disparities and ideologies prevent systematic responses to structural problems. Empirically this study contributes to understandings of diaper need as a problem of the gender structure that cannot be solved with alternative diapering methods that assume middle-class, white, androcentric privileges. Theoretically it illuminates key mechanisms by which feminized care labor is devalued and rendered invisible and how this erasure rationalizes lack of redress for gendered inequalities and creates policy gaps around caregiving.