Feminist Approaches to Poverty

History

Feminism came of age in the 1960s, and its rise is often attributed to the popularity of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. While this certainly played a part in some women's growing awareness of their subordinate status, for others participation in the social justice movements of the 1960s was more important. College-age women participated in many of the early civil rights groups and were active during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

These experiences changed many participants, who became active in such groups as the National Welfare Rights Organization and other organizations with a special focus on poor mothers. Such participation led feminists to question assumptions made about poor women, particularly those receiving welfare. Welfare or Aid to Dependent Children (AFDC), as it was then known, had historically been a state-provided widow's pension that preceded Social Security.

In its early years, single mothers and women of color generally were barred from receiving benefits. However, over time, its composition changed. Widows received Social Security survivors’ benefits and left the welfare system. Pressure to allow African Americans to receive benefits rose. And African Americans began migrating north for industrial jobs, sometimes applying [Page 353]for benefits to tide them over or to support a family that had been displaced.

In some sense, the system had shifted from what most Americans considered the deserving poor, white mothers who had lost their husbands owing to death, to those who were undeserving, black mothers who were regarded with suspicion because of an unreflective racism that defined blacks as inherently lazy and immoral. The feminist critique added the dimension of gender, asking why women were shouldering the complete child-rearing burden. Feminists also asked why women were subjected to demeaning inquiries about their sexual behavior, why their homes were raided to search for the presence of men (men were assumed to provide women with money beyond their welfare payments), and why women were tracked into poorly paid but gender-appropriate jobs.

...