http://www.shanlaxjournals.com 23 SHANLAX International Journal of English Being the Carer in the Household: A Study on the Role of Gender in Care Narratives Selvaraja A K PhD Research Scholar School of English and Foreign Languages The Gandhigram Rural Institute (Deemed to be University), Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1666-398X G. Baskaran Professor and Dean School of English and Foreign Languages The Gandhigram Rural Institute (Deemed to be University), Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, India Abstract The word ‘Carer’ is mostly associated with a woman and an image that pop up in one’s mind while reading its defnition. It has been socially constructed that nurturing a child, nursing the sick and caring for the needy are all the responsibilities and works of women. Men rarely engage in such aforementioned activities. The gender role and tasks assigned to the gender are obstacles for the empowerment and development of women. The role of being a carer in a household consumes much time and is energy draining, physically, mentally and emotionally. Sacrifce, tolerance, responsibility and kindness are all the qualities that are mainly associated with the carer’s role. Texts like Diane Broeckhoven’s A Day with Mr. Julesand Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie talk about this issue. The paper deals with the aspects in the gender role that act as hindrances in women’s pathway to success. The discussed texts bring in discourse about the division of labour and de-naturalizing the constructed gender roles in the society. The article presents the relationship among gender roles, caregiving and carer’s quality of life and it also brings to attention a different aspect of gender studies. Keywords: Carer, Caregiving, Care Narratives, Gender Role, Illness Narratives, Women, Caretaker, Disability. Introduction After the pandemic of Covid-19 the topics like caregiving, professional and informal carers, and palliative care became more signifcant and prominent. Collaborating with the felds of medical humanities, sociology, literature and medicine, care narratives gained signifcance. Psychological impacts of the caregiver profession, prerequisites for the job, and opportunities for employment were widely discussed. Readership for care narratives also increased. The role of a carer in a household is multi-faceted and it requires multitasking and a special set of skills such as time management, work-life balance, etc. In care narratives and in the aspects of caregiving, gender has always been considered as one of the important factors to be discussed. The study analyses the relationship between the gender norms and the role of the carer in a family in the contemporary age. It tries to get a clear picture of how women are gendered into becoming the carers of the household. This kind of an analysis is signifcant in the contemporary scenario, where the gender norms are questioned, deconstructed and the concept of gender itself is being redefned. OPEN ACCESS Manuscript ID: ENG-2023-11026077 Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Month: March Year: 2023 P-ISSN: 2320-2645 E-ISSN: 2582-3531 Received: 29.12.2022 Accepted: 12.02.2023 Published: 01.03.2023 Citation: Selvaraja, AK, and G. Baskaran. “Being the Carer in the Household: A Study on the Role of Gender in Care Narratives.” Shanlax International Journal of English, vol. 11, no. 2, 2023, pp. 23–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.34293/ english.v11i1.6077 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License