Blaming Working Women for Poverty
January 8, 2010
by Helen McCombs
|Working women are being blamed for a lot of things one of which is poverty. They look at the fact that the majority of poor people are women, and so it is assumed that working women are either the cause of poverty or that they contribute to it. The fact is that most poor adults are women has nothing to do with either the breakdown of our families and communities or of the poverty in these communities.
The breakdown of our families and communities occurred because of the old welfare laws. You could not get cash assistance, food stamps, or Medicaid if you were married. This is what lead to the explosion of out of wedlock birth in all poor communities not just the minority communities. This law has changed and there is an increase in marriages among poor people.
Working women in the poor communities keep their families afloat because public assistance keeps you locked in extreme poverty. It is the women in poor communities who are going back to school and who are also supporting their families.
Yes the majority of people in the hood are women but that has nothing to do with women working or otherwise. The problem is that the men in our communities are on the verge of becoming extinct. The violence in our communities the result of 24 years of drug wars and street gangs. A poor mother must deal with these issues and especially mothers of sons. Statistically the males here do not often make their 21st birthday. Working mothers who work shift work, like I do, must often make decisions between working full time and losing their sons to the streets. Or they can cut back their hours and try to save their sons. I work mainly shift work which means I cannot be home when my kids are for most of the day. I had to cut back my hours so that I could be home to make sure my sons stayed away from the streets.
Here making money is not difficult: all you need is to sell crack cocaine. To a young man this is a powerful temptation. The gangs are also a concern. Working women did not bring drugs or gangs into our neighborhoods but they make an easy group to blame.
How about the men who will not support their children regardless if the mother is poor. There are a lot of men from all walks of life who refuse to support their children whether the children were born in wedlock or not. Men must be held accountable for the children they create. Things in this area have improved but there is still far to many men out there not taking care of their responsibilities. How about we put the blame on these men.
Poverty has been around forever and it isn’t going anywhere. Working women are not the blame for poverty nor is poverty their fault. This is just another way to make women feel guilty. These folks publish statistics but yet never visit or even see an inner city neighborhood where poverty lives. They just look at the numbers of women and somehow it must be their fault. Women want this war to end and we want our men back but that isn’t likely to happen as long as unjust prison sentences and the crack wars continue. The woman blaming days need to end. It’s been going on since Adam blamed Eve for eating the apple.
I don’t see that ending anytime soon either.
“There are a lot of men from all walks of life who refuse to support their children whether the children were born in wedlock or not.”
Yes, and the lack of emotional support can be just as bad as the lack of financial support. Seriously, in some cases I wish vasectomies were mandatory. I had a male colleague who taught a parenting ed course in jail. One of the inmates claimed to have fathered 21 children and supported 1. My colleague went off on this guy and got into trouble for it with our supervisor.
To me, your post provides the reason I continue to work in adult education. I have to have faith in the idea that the women in my classes will lead the way for their families. Women are the unsung heroines in this murderous battle against poverty.
With some men they believe that being a man is fathering as many children as possible. I taught my sons that being a man means accepting responsibility for their actions rather its fathering a child or making a mistake and owning up to it. My sons know that real men don’t ever put their hands on a woman.
I think that is what is missing most in the hood and that is boys aren’t learning how to be real men. They have these misconceptions because they don’t have other men to show them the way.
The cause of poverty is the poor? LOL. Poverty has been around long before women could work and divorce. Discrimination has a large effect on who become poor. The poor of any society are the least priveleged, the least wanted, in terms of appearance, race, and sex. What is surprising is that women are the most educated, talented and skilled, yet they are the majority of the poor. Women are to blame for poverty? hahaha. I like this. Women are kept out of blue collar jobs, and discriminated against in any other. Mysteriously, the salary for jobs that women enter into diminishes over time. Face the facts men. You discriminate against women. Marriage was so intolerable, that we prefer the streets, and that is a choice you force upon us, because of your whole-sale discrimination against us, in jobs, salaries, and promotions. You discriminate against women, but we aren’t caving into you..any time soon, though you go ahead and ruin america’s economy by not rewarding those who invest in it through education or otherwise.
For poor women, it’s a no-win situation.
If you work to support your kids, then some people will say you’re doing your children irreparable harm by not staying home and baking cookies. (How are you supposed to bake cookies if you don’t have money to buy the ingredients? Or pay the gas bill so you can turn on the oven?)
If you’re on public assistance, then some people will say you’re a welfare queen who is leeching off the taxpayers’ money. Baking cookies with your kids is a no-no because these folks will yell at you for “wasting” your food stamps on non-essentials.
If you’re poor and you never had kids because you can’t afford them, then people act like there’s something wrong with you because all “normal” women have children.
Can’t win…
Jen you are so right. It is a no win situation. I don’t know what’s worse the people who call us welfare queens or the ones who want us to go back to the old welfare laws perhaps both groups should actually talk to the people who actually have to depend on welfare laws. The welfare law we have now is the result of BOTH political parties. That is why its so good its a little bit Democrat and a little bit Republican and its worse.
From Helen’s article,
The breakdown of our families and communities occurred because of the old welfare laws. You could not get cash assistance, food stamps, or Medicaid if you were married. This is what lead to the explosion of out of wedlock birth in all poor communities not just the minority communities.
Mike Huckabee just said exactly the same thing on Fox this morning. He prefaced it with something like “I’ll get in trouble for saying this because it isn’t politically correct but…”
It was so similar I wondered if he read your article Helen. The worst part was that he said the new health care reform has the same marriage penalty in it. You will be better off if you are NOT married with this new program as well.
Poverty is An Institutionalized Industry. Protect the Institution at any cost. Poverty is a much needed commodity to ensure War & Violence against nations. Poverty is ” The Cash Cow ” of The Rich & SuperRich. Poverty creates high salary jobs for administrations and those seeking to End All Poverty. The War against Poverty guarantees the victor the spoils plus a cheap labor force as an added bonus:
Poverty: A mandated colony and territorial labor resource; wherein slavery, as the inner-city community and governmental fundraiser is The Age-Old Feudal System under the auspices of Globilization; The Political Kings..Barons..Knights which form The Alexander The Great Corporate Rule that uses Adolf Hitler mentality to bring Democratic enslavement to The World…
BLAMING POVERTY ON THE POOR
Give us your deprived, your malleable muddled masses
hoping for a gentler taskmaster
Welcome to the multi-trillion dollar industry, Poverty
A.K.A, cheapest labor force
Poverty works, never ever unemployed
A much needed commodity to justify
White-collar crime classes
Teaching dastardly deeds—to procure monetary needs-
fostering avarice greed
Give us your deprived, your malleable muddled masses
hoping for a gentler taskmaster
Welcome to the multi-trillion dollar industry, Poverty
A.K.A., cheapest labor force
Poverty creates jobs for those financing the societal
Institution of ya godda pay more taxes
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Look! what Enron did to those less fortunate
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Did not corporations want a billion dollar welfare check
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Blaming Poverty on the poor
Give us your deprived, your malleable muddled masses
hoping for a gentler taskmaster
Welcome to the multi-trillion dollar industry, Poverty
A.K.A., cheapest labor force
No penance just punishment augmenting the pillar of economic pillaging
Poor people put in the pillory from the political pulpit
Poverty is prime property
Poverty pimps portrayed as political preachers purely punitive but polite
The pluralization of Poverty provides prestige of the patricians
Poverty, the promissory note from the bureaucratic infidel
The Truth will tell—the truth will tell
Poverty the patriotic prisoner on trial for TREASON
COPYRIGHT 2000 JOSEPHINE DIXON BANKS
THE NEW INNER CITY SLAVE-PLANTATION
The now-a-day slave or labor force
The ruling-class determines the course
The political master’s pastor contorts
Politics and policy aborts
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
Work like a blind jackass
Support and finance the ruling class
Being bi-partisan-just a mask
Cultured career criminals civilizing crass
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
The political engineers of The Greater Good own
The inner city war-zone
The psychotropic drug sets the tone
Slavery as the new world order is the throne
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
Multi-tasking a labor saving device
Freedom of movement has no right
Monopolized government enslaved all might
The inner city slave- plantation private and prime
Real estate blight
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
The thirteenth amendment of the constitution
On the inner city slave-plantation no social, no economical,
No educational, no political absolution
On the inner city slave-plantation, indentured servants,
Chattel slaves, still considered Black Gold
By the God Fearing slave codes used to control
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
On the new inner city slave-plantation
The American Flag cannot wave
Even Democracy is revered as a Black Slave
Copyright 2005
JOSEPHINE DIXON-BANKS
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