What does this look like on the ground, and what are people doing about it now?
See the pedagogy document for what this lens does across all themes.
The care crisis is not abstract. It is a home-care worker on poverty wages, a parent priced out of childcare, a nurse burning out, a nanny separated from her own children, and it is also the movements building power in response: domestic-worker unions, the reproductive justice movement, and campaigns for a real care economy. This lens brings the theme into the present and asks what it takes to organize work whose site is the home.
Anchor questions
- Who does the paid care work where you live, and on what terms? Who organizes them?
- What would it take to organize workers whose workplace is someone else’s home?
- What does reproductive justice mean beyond the right to an abortion?
- How is the care crisis showing up around you, in childcare, eldercare, and health?
- What are people building to share care rather than privatize it?
Materials
Free unless marked otherwise. Several of these documentaries stream free on PBS or with a library card.
Journalism and reporting
- The 19th (2020 to present). A nonprofit newsroom reporting on caregiving, the childcare economy, and reproductive justice through a gender-and-race lens. Free to read. Free: 19thnews.org
- Rewire News Group (2012 to present). A national nonprofit newsroom dedicated to reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice, with the podcasts Boom! Lawyered and The Breach. Free: rewirenewsgroup.com
- “Capitalism’s Crisis of Care” (Nancy Fraser, Dissent, 2016). An accessible interview framing the care crisis as structural to capitalism, and a free way into Fraser’s argument for a group that cannot reach the New Left Review essay. Free: dissentmagazine.org
Handbooks and how-to material
- Domestic Worker Organizing Toolbox (National Domestic Workers Alliance). A free, open organizing toolkit with eleven sections, from theory of change and base-building to strategic campaigns, political education, and communications. The core practical resource for this lens. Free: organizing.domesticworkers.org
- Reproductive Justice framework (SisterSong). The originating collective’s plain-language explanation of the three-part reproductive justice framework, health, rights, and justice, and its access-not-choice principle. A clear first reading before a reproductive-justice session. Free: sistersong.net
- A History of Domestic Work and Worker Organizing (Guglielmo, Joffroy, and Sierra Becerra, with the NDWA). An interactive timeline and the “We Make History” political-education materials on domestic-worker history. Free: dwherstories.com
Films and documentaries
- Caregiving (Chris Durrance, WETA, 2025, 115 min). A PBS documentary on paid and unpaid caregivers and the history and stakes of care in America. Strong on the invisible care workforce, and streams free. Free: pbs.org
- Dignidad: Domestic Workers’ Journey for Justice in California (Independent Lens, KVIE, 2022, 27 min). Follows caregivers, nannies, and house cleaners winning workplace-safety protections during the pandemic. A direct look at domestic-worker organizing, and streams free. Free: pbs.org
- Care (Deirdre Fishel, 2016, 60 min). A documentary on the hidden world of in-home elder care and the low-wage women who do it, arguing that care work is essential work deserving a living wage. A free 35-minute version is offered on the film site. Free: caredocumentary.com
Podcasts and interviews with organizers
- Death Panel (2018 to present). A leftist political economy of health and care show. The free Thursday episodes lay out how capitalism separates “care” from need and excludes long-term care and disability support, with transcripts. Free: deathpanel.net
- Upstream, “Post-Capitalist Parenting” (with Toi Smith, 2025). A documentary-podcast pair on how capitalism shapes parenting and reproductive labor, and on reimagining the family. Session-friendly audio from a podcast the school already draws on. Free: upstreampodcast.org
Explainers on video
- “The work that makes all other work possible” (Ai-jen Poo, TED, 2019). Roughly 16 minutes, about 88,000 views. The director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance on organizing nannies, cleaners, and home-care workers. A strong practical anchor. youtube.com/watch?v=JqcDzptviFw
- “Explained: Why Women Are Paid Less” (Netflix, Vox, 2020). Roughly 19 minutes, about 1.5 million views. Ties the pay gap to the motherhood penalty and unpaid care. A mainstream explainer to open a session and then push further. youtube.com/watch?v=hP8dLUxBfsU
- “Loretta Ross Defines Reproductive Justice” (WebsEdge Medicine, 2022). Roughly 5 minutes, about 10,000 views, a niche pick. A co-founder of the framework defines its three core rights. A short anchor for a reproductive-justice session. youtube.com/watch?v=lsOKBLmvqGI
Further reading
For resources behind a paywall, see the note on access.
- Liberation School (PSL), Women Fight Back (study and discussion guide). A free study and discussion guide on women’s oppression and organizing, built for group use. Marxist-Leninist (PSL) in framing; label the standpoint and use it for the structure, which is ready to run. Free: liberationschool.org
- Metro DC DSA, Reading Group Resources (socialist feminism). Socialist-feminist reading group materials from a DSA chapter, useful both as content and as a working model of how another group runs its study. Democratic-socialist in framing. Free: mdcdsa.org
- NYC-DSA Socialist Feminist Working Group, Political Education syllabi. Session-by-session socialist-feminist syllabi from an active working group, the closest thing here to a drop-in curriculum for this theme. Democratic-socialist in framing. Free: nycdsasocfem.org
- Pirate Care, Pirate Care Syllabus. A syllabus treating care as a site of disobedience, gathering cases where providing care meant breaking the law, from migrant rescue to abortion networks. Unusual, practical, and committed to the position that care work is political work. Free: syllabus.pirate.care
Status
First pass, and it may be a while before there is a second. Contributions welcome, especially accounts from groups that have run local sessions, and material on childcare campaigns, disability justice, and trans health organizing.