Whose Welfare?

by Mink, Gwendolyn

• ISBN13: 9780801486203
• ISBN10: 0801486203
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

Over the past few decades, the goal of welfare reform has been to move poor families off of welfare, not necessarily out of poverty. By that criterion, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 has been successful indeed: throughout the nation, millions have vanished from the welfare rolls. But what has been the cost of this "success" to the women and children who were the overwhelming majority of recipients? Here a group of distinguished feminist scholars examines the causes and the impact of recent changes in welfare policy. Some of the authors trace the politics of welfare from the 1960s, emphasizing how attitudes toward "motherwork" and "working mothers" have evolved in the backlash against poor women's motherhood. Several other authors consider the effects of the new welfare policy on employment and wages, on the lives of noncitizen immigrants, on poor women's ability to escape domestic violence, and on their reproductive and parental rights. A third set of authors explores dependency and caregiving, along with the role of feminist thinking on these issues in the politics of welfare. Whose Welfare? concludes with a historical analysis of activism among poor women. By illuminating that legacy, the volume challenges readers to build progressive agendas from the demands and actions of poor and working-class women.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(6)
Gwendolyn Mink
I Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Welfare Politics	7	(76)
1 Dependency and Choice: The Two Faces of Eve	7	(29)
Rickie Solinger
2 When Work Is Slavery	36	(20)
Eileen Boris
3 From Maximum Feasible Participation to Disenfranchisement	56	(27)
Nancy A. Naples
II Class, Race, and Gender in the New Welfare Regime	83	(88)
4 Welfare and Work	83	(17)
Frances Fox Piven
5 Asian Immigrant Communities and the Racial Politics of Welfare Reform	100	(32)
Lynn H. Fujiwara
6 Women, Welfare, and Domestic Violence	132	(20)
Demie Kurz
7 Welfare's Ban on Poor Motherhood	152	(19)
Dorothy Roberts
III Toward a New Welfare Politics?	171	(78)
8 Aren't Poor Single Mothers Women? Feminists, Welfare Reform, and Welfare Justice	171	(18)
Gwendolyn Mink
9 Welfare, Dependency, and a Public Ethic of Care	189	(25)
Eva Feder Kittay
10 Toward a Framework for Understanding Activism among Poor and Working-Class Women in Twentieth-Century America	214	(35)
Mimi Abramovitz
Contributors	249	(2)
Index	251