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The author of this article focuses on the theoretical framework of the concept of care as a critical category of social inequality in order to outline possibilities for a redefi nition of the relationship between work and care. Gender inequalities as well as inequalities that are based on other social categories, such as class, ethnicity, nationality, geopolitical location, marital status, and so on are incorporated in the social organisation of care which retrospectively reinforces them. Feminist debate has thus far formulated demands for the recognition of caring persons mainly at the national level, but the author of the article, referring to Arlie Hochschild and Allison Weir, shows that the current challenges of global capitalism point to the need to articulate these demands in a transnational context and to embed care in the discourse of transnational justice. She critically addresses the challenges that efforts to attain recognition for caring persons by including care as a labour-market activity are confronted with owing to the current changes in the social organisation of care under global capitalism, which involves among others the employment of marginalised groups of women and women immigrants in the caring professions. Drawing on the work of Nancy Fraser, the author formulates two normative criteria for reconceptualising care as a social engagement without subjecting it to the logic of market valuation.

Offers four strategies of deconstructing gender symbolism, one of the methods & goals of contemporary feminist theory & practice - politics. (1) Lesbianism denaturalizes the institutions of 'compulsory heterosexuality.' (2) One can question the belief that sexual violence is the natural expression of male aggression, & women are men's victims. A better strategy seems to be to take the violence as a discursive matter that can be redescribed. If the narrative about successful resistance prevails over the narrative of woman as a natural victim, the aggressor's expectations can be changed. (3) Beauty discourses lead women to be weak, unable to resist violence, & susceptible to mental diseases like anorexia. (4) Maternity discourses associate women with maternity & see a woman's body as the subject of necessary control by the psychomedical sciences. They form an idea of woman's nature that is invariable & unchangeable. This notion is questioned by feminism as a serious limit on women's agency.

The transformation of the social institution of the family in an individualised society is tied also to other demands and expectations relating to parenthood, and fatherhood is no exception in this regard. This article focuses on fathers who have accepted the modern norm of fatherhood and have played an active role by personally caring for their children, in particular, as primary carers during their period of parental leave. The entry of fathers into a sphere our culture has traditionally defi ned as belonging to women necessarily raises one basic question – 'What does the experience of caring for their children mean in the minds of fathers?' – which contains an entire series of other more specifi c questions: How do these men interpret fatherhood? Is the experience of caring for their children refl ected in how these men construct gender identities and what does this mean from the perspective of the production of gender and gender relations? Interviews based on a prepared scenario were conducted on a sample of twenty families in which the father had taken parental leave, and the resulting data was analysed with the aid of grounded theory in an effort to answer the questions outlined above. Of particular interest in the analysis are the interpretative frameworks that the actors employ in their perception of experienced reality and to what outcome or how much are common gender perceptions disrupted in their outlook. The author applies the constructivist perspective of making gender, which permits a focus on the similarities and differences between men and women and within those categories. The fi ndings contribute to the understanding of the construction of fatherhood in this group of fathers, of gender and gender relations, and of how gender stereotypes operate on the micro level of Czech society.