Welfare Policy: Feminist Critiques

by Bounds, Elizabeth M.; Brubaker, Pamela K.; Hobgood, Mary E.

• ISBN13: 9781608992317
• ISBN10: 1608992314
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-02-01
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub

Summary

Welfare Policyis for me an occasion for rejoicing. Grounded in the present public controversy over so-called welfare reform, these chapters . . . model a genre of feminist ethics, informed normatively by radical readings of Christian or related religious traditions. This book is distinctive, however, because its theological perspective is profoundly and unapologetically political, rooted in an advocacy stance for a policy that aims at women's well-being. --Beverly W. Harrison, from the ForewordWelfare Policy: Feminist Critiqueslooks behind the political-moral mask to explore the issues at stake for women and children in the welfare debate.

Author Biography

Elizabeth M. Bounds is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Pamela K. Brubaker is Associate Professor of Religion, California Lutheran University. Mary E. Hobgood is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Contributors	p. xv
Welfare "Reform": A War against the Poor	p. 1
Theological and Philosophical Ethical Frameworks
Making Women and Children Matter: A Feminist Theological Ethic Confronts Welfare Policy	p. 25
Liberation from the Welfare Trap?	p. 47
Decentering Poverty	p. 60
Rational Man and Feminist Economists on Welfare Reform	p. 77
Race, Class, and Family Values
The Production of Character: A Feminist Response to the Communitarian Focus on Family	p. 95
Family Values and Working Alliances: The Question of Hatred and Public Policy	p. 109
Agenda for the Churches: Uprooting a National Policy of Morally Stigmatizing Poor Single Black Moms	p. 133
Analysis of Responses of Churches and Activists
Welfare as a Family Value: Conflicting Notions of Family in Protestant Welfare Responses	p. 157
Poor Women, Work, and the U.S. Catholic Bishops: Discerning Myth from Reality in Welfare Reform	p. 175
Face to Face: Transforming Faith-Based Outreach	p. 201
Afterwords
Economics, Ethics, and the Everyday: Reflections from Another Shore	p. 215
Welfare in the Age of Spectacles	p. 225
Resources	p. 233
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