New
Edition
UNDER ATTACK, FIGHTING BACK
Women and Welfare in the United
States
by Mimi
Abramovitz
Named
"Outstanding Book" by the Gustavus Myers Center
for the Study of Human Rights in North America
"This lively and
informative book deserves to be widely read. It provides an excellent history
of AFDC and the activities of various women's groups who have campaigned hard
over the years for improvements in services to the poor." —
JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL
WELFARE
"Quite
successfuly, [Mimi] Abramovitz weaves a story about welfare in America with
historical writings and current research…. The strengths of this book are
many…. Abramovitz brings a refreshing litany of facts into the welfare
discussion…" —
WOMEN &
POLITICS
"Extraordinarily
lucid and useful.... In compact sections, [Abramovitz] describes the current
and historical attacks on welfare, offers gender-sensitive theories of the
welfare state, and provides an overview of underpublicized welfare
advocacy." —
IN
THESE TIMES
This new edition updates a highly acclaimed work with an analysis of the
most recent developments in welfare "reform" and welfare rights
activism. Drawing on first-hand reports of women forced to leave welfare and
other newly available data, Mimi Abramovitz documents the impact of this
historic change in public policy on the lives of poor single mothers and their
children. She punctures the highly publicized claims that equate successful
reform with shrunken rolls, showing that if the reformers set out to improve
the lives of women and children, something went dangerously awry. Abramovitz
argues that welfare reform has penalized single motherhood; exposed poor women
to the risks of hunger, homelessness, and male violence; swept them into
low-paid jobs, and left many former recipients unable to make ends meet.
In four readable essays, Under Attack, Fighting Back also presents
the long history of punitive attacks on programs for poor single mothers and
applies a gender lens to conventional theories of the welfare state. The last
essay, a short history of low-income women's activism during the twentieth
century, pays special attention to the welfare rights activism spurred by the
latest welfare reform. Contrary to popular wisdom, Abramovitz shows that poor
women have always the courage and ability to fight back.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Part 1. Still Under Attack: Women and Welfare Reform
The Wider Context of the Attack on Welfare
What Is Welfare? The Core Programs
Reasons for the Latest Assault on Welfare
Changes in the Political Economy
The Ideological Arguments
The Latest War on Welfare: Reform in the 1980s and 1990s
Cutting the Cost and Size of Welfare
Enforcing the Work Ethic
Upholding the Family Ethic
Childbearing
Marriage
Parenting
Attacking Entitlements
The War on Welfare Concerns all Women
Why Now?
Part 2. A Program Just for Single Mothers
Attacks on Public Aid in the Early Nineteenth Century
Creating a Program for Single Mothers
The Social Security Act: From Mothers’ Pensions to ADC
The Postwar Attack, 1945–1960
Welfare, Women’s Work, and the Labor Market
Women, Welfare and the Family
The Welfare Crisis and Welfare Reform, 1967-1972
Low Wages and Labor Shortages
A Women’s Right to Choose
Still More Welfare Reform
Part 3. The Gendered Welfare State
Gender Matters
Feminist Critiques and Correctives
Bringing the Family in: The Origins of the Welfare State
Gender Blind: The Differential Treatment of Women and Men
Twin Dynamics: The Work Ethic and the Family Ethic
Recreating Race and Gender Hierarchies
What About Patriarchy and Gender Oppression?
Part 4. Fighting Back:
From the Legislature to the Academy to the Streets
The Feminist Corrective
Middle-Class Women Take Action
Poor and Working-Class Women Rise Up Angry
A Woman’s Work Is Never Done: Women’s Activism After World War II
Early Welfare Rights Organizing: The National Welfare Rights Organization
Welfare Rights Becomes a Woman’s Issue
The Struggle Continues: Post-TANF Welfare Activism
Notes
Index
About the Author
MIMI
ABRAMOVITZ is a professor at the Hunter College School of
Social Work in New York. She is the author of Regulating The Lives of Women:
Social Welfare Policy From Colonial Times to the Present (1996, 2nd ed.,
South End Press) as well as numerous articles on women, poverty and social
policy for professional journals and the popular press.
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