Reproductive Labor, Gender, and Middle-Class Subjectivities in Morocco

In what ways do ordinary practices of care illuminate the broader social transformations unfolding within Morocco’s urban middle class? Drawing on seventeen months of rich ethnographic fieldwork, M. Ruth Dike reveals how cooking, cleaning, childcare, and related forms of care work continually produce, perform, and subtly transform gendered and classed subjectivities within and beyond the household. Dike’s research shows that younger urban middle class men are taking on slightly more domestic labor than previous generations, influenced by shifting educational pathways, changing household structures, new occupations, and evolving ideals of fatherhood and marriage. The book examines these entanglements of paid and unpaid care, the emergence of new masculinities, the material and symbolic dimensions of class, and the tensions surrounding modern marriage, love, and middle class identity. By tracing how households negotiate and redistribute reproductive labor, Dike ultimately uncovers how domestic life becomes a key site through which broader social change takes shape.