Main Post for 4/15

Mink’s “The Lady and the Tramp (II)” addresses the economic insecurity experienced by poor women, particularly single mothers. She recognizes the social value of caretaking and argues that there should be a welfare reform to protect the poor woman’s right to be a caregiver. She also discusses that economic dependence is connected to power in both the home and the public sphere. I think she makes a valid point when she states that because women have traditionally been denied a role in economics, they have been without the power to be heard and therefore can’t impact policy decisions. It is unfortunate that society has been constructed like this and I hope this can be changed in the near future. What viable options are there?
Mink writes, “The Personal Responsibility Act does not make work pay, or even make work available…Yet it insists that single mothers are worth more outside their homes than inside them.” Forcing poor mothers into the workforce regardless of the type of jobs available to them assumes that any job is more beneficial to their families than the care they provide at home. But in my view, this is not the case. Why should we deny the value that caregivers provide to their children? This goes along with Mink’s discussion of the 2nd wave of feminism since woman like Betty Friedan advocated for women to get out of the house and into the labor market to have fulfillment in their lives. However, is it necessarily true that woman must leave the house in order to be “worth more” to society? This idea ties back to our class discussion on Tuesday when we discussed how there is value to being a stay-at-home parent. Many individuals view it of utmost importance and therefore we should not overlook its significance.

I agree with Mink when she states that poor mothers have had a loss of independence. Her analysis of the struggles faced by poor woman open my eyes to the intense hardships they face. She talks about how they suffer from a loss of marital freedom, loss of choice regarding relationships with their children’s biological fathers, and the obligation to work outside the home, which reveals the need to immediately address this issues in society. In our readings for last week, we saw how women could not get out of marriages because of financial issues, leading them to suffer from domestic violence and unfortunately having to put up with it, because they feel they have no other choice. All these struggles put poor women under attack with no support from middle class feminists. Feminists have made great improvements in society by influencing government policies in the past, so they should come together once again to fight this welfare debate.

Mink’s analysis of the convergence of racial and gender ideologies in middle-class women’s reformist politics was another point of interest. The “racial mythology,” Mink states, places African American women as the “welfare mothers” and implicitly defined African American women as “other peoples’ workers rather than their own families’ mothers” (59). She implies therefore that while middle class white women are fighting for their right to opportunities outside the home, African American women are fighting for the right to care for their own children. It is interesting to highlight the differences than white woman face over African Americans. This section made me regress back to previous readings in our class as well as readings from my SOAN class on Social Inequality on the intersection between race and gender.

In my sociology class, we read a section from Patricia Hill Collins’ work titled “Toward a New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender as Categories of Analysis and Connection” and Maxine Zinn and Bonnie Dill’s writing, “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism.” These authors touch upon the unique struggles of African American women as compared to other women. Zinn and Dills’ analysis draws on “multicultural feminism,” which stresses the importance of “race as a power system that interacts with other structural inequalities to shape gender.” Similarly, Collins developed an intersectional perspective on the interlocking systems of race, class and gender, which she called the “matrix of domination.” In addition, Mink’s reading also reflects our reading of Tiya Miles since she argued that the women of color in a particular magazine group experience feelings of racial oppression along with struggles of being a female. These examples indicate that one cannot assume that all women struggle with same issues.

On another note, after reading this article, I spent some time researching welfare, particularly looking at differences in other countries. I found an article titled, “Scandinavian Welfare Policies, Gender Equality and Globalization” (http://vbn.aau.dk/fbspretrieve/16519664/AB.Sino-Nordic.pdf) by Anette Borchorst who discussed the welfare states in Scandinavia. She argues they have been regarded as forerunners of gender equality, and this has been a central part of their political image. The countries are often celebrated for their “woman-friendly” potential. Hernes defines a “woman-friendly” potential in the following way:

“In a woman-friendly state women will not have to choose futures that demand greater sacrifices from them than are expected of men. It would be, in short, a state where injustice on the basis of gender would be largely eliminated without an increase in other forms of inequality, such as among groups of women.”
Helga Hernes (1987). Welfare State and Woman Power. Essays in State Feminism, Vojens: Norwegian University Press: 15.

The quote emphasizes the significance of women’s choices to mothering. The “woman-friendly” potential has strengthened women’s economic autonomy. The article reveals that an outcome of this has been the relatively low poverty rates of single mothers in this region. I wonder how this would play out in the US and if it is at all feasible. What do you think?