Reproductive Labor Has Always Been Fundamental to Social Movements’ Resistance

Part of the Series

The Struggle for Caregiving Equity

Resistance forms not only with the loud clatter of rebellion, but in quiet corners, too: Unseen agreements are hidden within the labor of care, nurturing and sustenance that upholds daily life.

It is true that we have recently witnessed the resilience of popular mobilization — a coordinated challenge to some of our faltering systems. While advocating for systemic change is laudable, traces of the entrenched structural flaws can persist, even within movements that seek to foster positive political transformation. History has established a precedent not only for the success of these formal organizations but also for acts of dissent operating in subtler, quieter forms. They are often overlooked because of the shape they take.

Reproductive labor — work that sustains future generations — is everywhere, and has historically been performed predominantly by women. It can be cooking, cleaning and maintaining the home, caring for the elderly or sick, or raising and looking after children. Though this type of work is often undervalued, dismissed as irrelevant by institutions that neglect it in labor laws, or poorly compensated and outsourced, it has had a profound impact on history.

Today, its significance is underscored as it is frequently targeted by authoritarian policies. Regulation of happenings inside of the home — from childbirth to home care to family structure — are ways for governments to exert control. Whether they are pushing an ideology of motherhood, attacking contraception access, or exploiting paid domestic workers, policies aiming to control reproductive labor can perpetuate social hierarchies.

That said, the very same disregarded labor is fundamental to social movements and resistance.

History is replete with accounts of communities using domestic activities as tools for resistance, whether it is neighbors passing messages on laundry lines or stocking community fridges in times of upheaval. Such acts have a familiar heroic resonance, and their stories survive history alongside traditional battlefield gallantry.

During World War I, for instance, spies in the Belgian resistance knit patterns to communicate encoded messages. In fear of German invasion during World War II, British civilians removed street signs to disorient occupiers, and Jewish couriers in Nazi-occupied Poland known as liaison women helped transport secret messages, arms and medical supplies.

The civil rights era is also rich with examples of the labor of care underpinning resistance — and in many cases, serving as radical reform itself. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, sparked by Rosa Parks’s arrest and championed by the Women’s Political Council, was able to persist for over a year due to the tireless organizing and care work of Black women. They organized robust carpool systems, provided food and offered child care for participants. Without this reproductive labor, the protest could not have been sustained.

In the early 20th century, in response to exploitative landlords swelling rent prices, Black women in cities across the country hosted thousands of rent parties to collectively raise money for housing costs. Neighbors gathered for food, drink and entertainment in exchange for a small donation. Pooling together these funds from house parties was one of the only ways families could keep up with climbing rents on inadequate wages. The domestic work involved was the backbone of this operation.

There has always been a correlation between acts of caregiving — reproductive labor — and radical action. Those who manage the functioning of our daily lives are also those who energize and sustain acts of insurgence. Beyond being monumental in and of themselves, these seemingly modest acts lead to the creation of the grassroots organizations operating on larger scales, fueled with the same scrappy righteousness.

For example, during the French Revolution, women known as Dames des halles circumvented official channels to distribute bread and other essentials when markets wouldn’t meet public demand. These same women spearheaded the March on Versailles — one of the most significant uprisings of the French Revolution —after weeks of creating a mutual aid network on the cobbled streets of Paris.

Despite their profound impact, quiet acts of resistance are often overshadowed by more overt, conspicuous and traditionally masculine forms of defiance — violent uprisings, military coups and acts of sabotage that dominate our understanding of revolution. History, shaped by those in power, tends to prioritize the spectacle of conflict over the subtle, domestic forms of insurgency that uphold communities and undermine oppressive systems. This neglect is precisely what has made these efforts so essential.

Caregiving, organizing and mutual aid — work long associated with women and dismissed as peripheral or apolitical — can be the critical acts of resistance that make revolution possible. Though quiet and often thankless, such acts of reproductive labor cultivate resilience, solidarity and subversion from the ground up. They carve out spaces of autonomy within systems designed to exploit and control, and lay the groundwork for sustained liberation struggles.

Grassroots networks continue to be a lifeline in resisting systemic oppression, and reproductive labor fuels our movements’ ongoing struggles. Care networks formed by LGBTQ+ individuals during the AIDS crisis inform ways we can confront public health epidemics today. Robust networks distribute at-home abortion kits and share vital reproductive health information, using encrypted communication and decentralized organizing to combat restrictive laws. Such acts weave the webs of large-scale organizing efforts.

As more policies attempt to control the labor of care, parenthood and aid, it is important to establish the importance of this work not only in its function of upholding society, but in proving that it itself is a radical, transformative force. Disregard of domestic workers, or belittlement of care work is a direct attack on one of the tools at our disposal to fuel worthy, fundamental change.