Before discussing the issues brought up in Gwendolyn Mink’s article, “The Lady and the Tramp: Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice”, I think some background information on the Personal Responsibility Act might be helpful. I read a book the welfare reform in one of my other classes, so I can shed a little light on the specific policies in the act. The Personal Responsibility Act was passed in 1996 after growing concern about the presence of “welfare queens”- lazy women who sat around all day and used the government’s money on unnecessary items. Although this wasn’t an accurate depiction of a person receiving welfare, the widespread belief that welfare made people dependent on the government led to the Personal Responsibility Act, which sought to restore America’s work ethic. Under this new welfare reform, one can only receive benefits for two years before working, and one can only receive benefits for five years total. To receive benefits, one must comply with rigid rules and regulations. There are many penalties for not adhering to all of the rules, and the strict guidelines of the program cause many women to become frustrated, drop out and disappear. When one enters the program, one must be looking for a job every single day, and if one is offered a job, he or she must take it, no matter what job it is. After the Personal Responsibility Act was passed, the amount of people receiving welfare benefits sharply declined. Some took this to mean the program was a success, while others took this to be a sign that the rules were too rigid and women were giving up and dropping out.
I agree with Mink that when looking at the welfare reform through a feminist lens, it is clear that this in another example of minority, lower-class women losing out, while upper-class women are not affected: “The war against poor women was just that: a war against poor women. And it was a war in which many middle-class women participated on the antiwelfare side” (56). I also agree that this act does have a lot of implied messages about the right and wrong types of families. That being said, I think welfare is a more complicated issue than Mink makes it out to be. First, the problem is exacerbated by low-paying jobs. Even before the welfare reform, women had jobs that didn’t come close to supporting their families. When a women found a job, this meant extra transportation and childcare costs. Even when a woman wanted a job, it was less expensive for a woman to stay home and take care of her children and receive welfare benefits. Secondly, where are the responsible men in this situation? Thirdly, Mink argues that we should start recognizing motherhood as a payable job, but I wasn’t sure if she meant that all mothers should be paid, or just mothers in extreme poverty. If it is the latter, this line would be a hard one to draw. Lastly, Mink seems to argue that regardless of situation, anyone has the right to be a mother. While I agree with this to an extent, I also think that when one has as child, one needs to be able to provide the child with basic necessities. If the pregnancy is unplanned, then it should be expected that one will have to put in the extra time and effort to provide diapers and food. So, while I believe that “responsibility” is the correct end goal, I think the problem is a lot bigger than the Personal Responsibility Act.
The Gwendolyn Mink article raised some interesting thoughts but I had a lot of issues with this article.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, she talks about "entitlement to cash assistance" when describing women's need for welfare. The word entitlement I think is wrong. Entitlement to me means that you have done something to deserve it. These women on welfare have done nothing to deserve money from the welfare system. I understand that our minimum wage is so low that you can barely get above the poverty line on it, but maybe that is where the solution lies, not in criticizing the welfare system and claiming "entitlement" to money that these women have done nothing to deserve. This sense of entitlement seemed to me to not only spark some rage inside of me but make me believe that some of these women are part of the reason that the Personal Responsibility Act was enacted in the first place.
Secondly, Mink discussed the difficulty poor women have in caregiving roles because they are forced to choose wages over their children. While I understand that their priority is shifted toward wages in order to provide basic needs like food for their family, this view seemed very narrow-minded. Poor women are not the only women dealing with problems in the caregiving world. Whether you are a millionaire or suffering in poverty, there is no financial reward for staying home and taking care of your children. Every woman, or man for that matter, who stays home to take care of children forgoes a salary and does not receive any government check recognizing his or her work in the home.
One of the better things that this article did was provoke a thought about how we view children and adults in our society? When questioning why the welfare system looks the way it does, I think that we have a tendency to look at adults and have much less sympathy for their situation because adults to us are much less innocent than children. I think our first thought is that "well they must have done something to deserve to be in the situation that they are in." Maybe they have. Maybe they were the kids that were dropping out of high school and not working hard or doing anything to better themselves. Maybe not though. Maybe this is a perpetual cycle and it is all they know because they as children were disadvantaged. Our society looks at bad things that happen to children with a much more sympathetic eye because children are innocent and haven't been around long enough to do something to deserve the situation they are in. So maybe the solution is to focus the welfare money on education for the children or for daycare so that they parent can focus on just going back to work without having to wonder what to do with the children.
I really like the point that Emily made about the article provoking thought about how we view children and adults differently in our society in situations that involve welfare. I think that what this article was lacking, and what would have contributed to Mink's argument, are the personal stories where despite the mother's best efforts, and extremely hard work, they just can't make it on their own without welfare. I think there are definitely situations where the adult just literally cannot help themselves because they are in a situation that they can't that isn't a fault of their own. I know that in my intro to sociology class we watched a video about mothers on welfare. There was one mother who worked incredibly hard at multiple jobs and ended up getting a raise. That raise put her out of the income range for welfare, therefore all her hard work to get a raise only set her back because she earned less without the welfare in order to survive. There are times when this mother would have to choose between food or medicine for her children. It's not to say that this mother wasn't working hard or wasn't trying to support herself, it's saying that the system is literally working against these women. I think that's where Mink's argument is lacking. She didn't fully explain that it's a system failure, not that these women inherently deserve money for no reason.
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts, Emma, Emily, and Elisabeth. Emily, thanks for offering your blogmates some background; we'll talk more about welfare law and how it's evolved in class. As Elisabeth points out, there are a lot of policies in place that make some sense on paper, but don't necessarily "work" in reality, or when combined with other policies.
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