Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare - Hardcover

Gordon, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0029124859 ISBN 13: 9780029124857

Publisher: Free Press, 1994

Synopsis

Looks at the intentions of those who started the welfare system, describes the economic conditions of single mothers, and argues that false assumptions must be discarded if true reform can be achieved

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Reviews

Claiming in this cogent, timely study that the Social Security Act of 1935 has failed "to protect its citizens from the cruelties of capitalism," Gordon (Woman's Body, Woman's Right) concerns herself here with the increasing number of minority, stigmatized, single mothers inadequately covered by the Aid to Dependent Children. The ADC, a stepchild, she alleges, of the Act's provisions, resulted in "stratification of programs" which "deepened the already existing social inequalities." This stratification was further exacerbated by low wages for women, creating an underclass of the "hopelessly poor." Welfare reform, Gordon suggests, must address the needs of both children and mothers, offering income support for single parents, while also helping mothers make the transition to becoming "workers supported by wages" and by day care, adequate parental leave policies and medical insurance. Gordon is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A scholarly but resonant analysis of ``the cultural meanings of the welfare system,'' probing the mistaken assumptions behind fundamental policies forged during the 1930s. Beginning in 1890, writes Gordon (History/Univ. of Wisconsin), single mothers were portrayed as a symptom and cause of social decay; unlike today, however, the situation was seen as a temporary misfortune that usually befell white immigrants, often widows. Middle-class women's groups helped to create ``mother's aid'' for the deserving poor; the author calls this policy (a forerunner of the current Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC, program) ``maternalist,'' rooted in the subordination of women in domestic roles. But there were other points of view: Black women activists, notes Gordon (Woman's Body, Woman's Right, 1976), had less distance from those they wished to aid; they emphasized universal education and health programs rather than charity. The thinkers behind Social Security, all white and nearly all male, focused their lens on money and jobs for men, even though they knew it was a fallacy to consider men the sole supporters and protectors of women. During the New Deal, social movements ``valorized'' the elderly and unemployed, ignoring single mothers; the women's movement was quiet, and the lack of African-American political power meant that blacks' views on welfare were ignored. Gordon argues that the Social Security Act of 1935 created generous programs for the elderly and unemployed that operated under a single, federal standard; she cites a range of factors, including accommodations for southern employers and bureaucratic infighting, leading to the stratified, state-administered Aid to Dependent Children (later AFDC). Gordon doesn't enter the current policy debate, but she does note trenchantly that in order to fight inequality we must make such entitlements as corporate tax breaks and home mortgage deductions as ``visible as welfare.'' The arguments get complicated, but this is challenging history--and a goad to clarify modern-day rhetoric. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this book, Gordon (Women's Body, Women's Right: The History of Birth Control in America, LJ 12/1/76) traces the development of the federal welfare system. Beginning at the early part of this century, she follows events leading up to the Social Security Act of 1935. In so doing she provides fascinating glimpses of the early welfare reform leaders and how their different backgrounds, beliefs, and alliances resulted in a stratified system of public aid in which some recipients are provided with the widely accepted social insurance benefits labeled entitlements while others are given public assistance and looked upon as "welfare" recipients. With a clearer understanding of how and why our welfare system has evolved as it has, Gordon suggests that the time has come to revamp this system to align it with the needs of today more closely. Her book is thoroughly researched, well written, and persuasive in its presentation. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
Robert Logsdon, Indiana State Lib., Indianapolis
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As the debate over welfare reform heats up, University of Wisconsin history professor Gordon offers a thoughtful analysis of the roots of welfare's "negative charge." Combining social, economic, political, and intellectual history, Gordon probes the roles of social workers and settlement houses, the Department of Labor's Children's Bureau and African American women's clubs, the crisis of the Depression, and 1930s social movements in building a stratified welfare state. Gordon provides a gendered perspective--tracing the role of women in establishing assistance models as well as the effects of actual and alternative approaches on women and children receiving aid--but stresses the interactions of race, class, and gender, and of political realities with philosophical ideals. Most notably, Gordon points up the "maternalism" of the women's social work network, and the commitment of most welfare advocates--male and female--to an already outdated "family-wage" concept that assumed and reinforced women's economic dependence. Pitied but Not Entitled is a vivid, enlightening exploration of the causes and consequences of unexamined assumptions. Mary Carroll

Edition details

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0029124859
• ISBN 13: 9780029124857
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 433