23: The Color of Care Tasks with Danita Platt

I’m excited to have Danita Platt on the show today. I didn’t know anyone of color in the field of care tasks until I met her. Her content resonates with me and my views around care tasks, so I hope you’ll enjoy hearing more from Danita!

Show Highlights:

  • Who Danita is and how she became an expert on gentle care tasks

  • How our society over the last two generations has moralized care tasks and tied them to the worth of a woman

  • Why we need to rethink our views about care tasks and “being a good woman” that go back to the founding of the US, historically speaking

  • How the concept of “invisible labor” has carried over from colonial days even to today

  • How many white people were able to live the lives they did because of the cheap, exploitable labor of Black women

  • How the Great Migration happened to move many Black families to northern cities from the South

  • How the shift happened to push Black (and white) women to work industrial jobs while men were away during the war

  • How the push is recurring for 1950s homemaking to be viewed as the superior role for women

  • What we DON’T talk about in the fulfilling life of a homemaker

  • How Danita chooses to honor the Black women who had to wash clothes, clean house, and cook meals under duress–with no freedom or choice of their own

  • What Danita would say to women who want to live more joyfully in their homes and experience more freedom and quality of life

 Resources:

Connect with Danita: TikTok and Instagram

Mentioned in this episode: Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism

Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website 

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

Christy Haussler