Class 11_12

Maria Cristina Rangel’s article, “Knowledge is Power” discusses her experience as a college student with children, and her experience with welfare. She details her constant fear meeting with the welfare representative and fearing that her benefits will be taken away. She says that if her benefits are taken away, her education is taken away, and her education is everything. This article is significant because of the welfare reforms that happened in 1996. Many single mothers are living across the country, all trying to live off of welfare, or even trying to just get on it. As Rangel writes about, she gets barely enough benefits to live. She expresses her frustration at the system and the reforms that took place. This is a complicated issue which women in our government helped to pass. It is a crazy law that a woman cannot pursue higher education and receive welfare at the same time. I also find it a little weird that this law was passed because the government felt that women on welfare were “gimme girls” who were taking advantage of the government. I do not know how the government could think that, when extremely poor women need welfare so badly.

The other article, “The Lady and the Tramp(II): Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice”, by Gwendolyn Mink is about her role in her most recent job, Women’s Committee of 100. Initially she struggled with her job because she felt like she was becoming like the women she criticized in her book. She talks about the war against poor women and discusses that poor women are, “the only people in America forced by law to work outside the home. They are the only people in America whose decisions to bear children are punished by government” (pg. 497). This is such a critical statement because the government and legislative authorities do not consider mothers as working people. They don’t compensate women for their work inside the home, but instead force them to work outside the home and shirk their responsibilities as mothers. She also brings up a good point that women aren’t awarded for their jobs as mothers, but CEO’s of companies who make outstanding salaries are praised extensively. The main point that stood out to me is that these working mothers are, “forced either by law or by economic circumstance to choose wages over children” (pg. 497). This is a crucial point, but one that I never would have thought of on my own. I never viewed it as a choice, wages or children, because my mom was able to stay home with me, as were other mothers. However, in many families across the country, women do have to make that choice, and since the natural choice for women is children, women end up in poverty and need to aid of welfare. This is a serious problem in our country, because of the welfare reform programs passed in 1996.