This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (2) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by McCormack, K. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Stratified Reproduction and Poor Women’s Resistance

Wheaton College

The welfare mother is a powerful symbol of the supposed irresponsible, sexually promiscuous, and immoral behavior of the poor. Resting on dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender, the welfare mother suggests not a poor mother but a bad mother. Based on interviews with 34 mothers receiving public assistance, this article explores how women receiving assistance claim for themselves an identity as good mothers by defining the appropriate responsibilities of mothers to prioritize, protect, discipline, provide for, and spend time with their children. The material realities of poverty combined with work requirements now attached to public assistance exacerbate contradictions between these roles and create difficulties for these mothers. This article explores these contradictions and examines the possibilities for and limits of their use as resistance strategies.

Key Words: welfare • mothering • family • poverty • resistance

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. Kelly and L. Grant State Abortion and Nonmarital Birthrates in the Post Welfare Reform Era: The Impact of Economic Incentives on Reproductive Behaviors of Teenage and Adult Women Gender Society, December 1, 2007; 21(6): 878 - 904. [Abstract] [PDF]