Abstract
The task of interrogating the causes of poverty for women and their families falls squarely on the shoulders of social scientists. The ability to utilize data and research to measure and understand the ongoing social and psychological crisis of women living in poverty, as well as keeping this social issue in the political spotlight, is paramount in successfully addressing and alleviating the burden and daily hardships of poverty that women disproportionately experience (Entmacher, 2013; LeBaron & Roberts, 2010; Reingold & Smith, 2012). Heather Bullock, in her book Women and Poverty, has brought together an astounding amount of research findings on the rates of women and families in poverty; on the historical and current developments, successes, and failures of public policy; and on social, cultural theories and feminist praxis in understanding the root causes of economic hardship on women in the United States.
The breadth of current research reviewed and included in this work makes this compact book an excellent resource for scholars and students of social inequality and poverty. Bullock does an excellent job in reviewing welfare and welfare reform in the United States, as well as evaluating welfare reform from a social scientific perspective. Her chapter “Welfare Reform at 15 and Beyond” does much more than merely outline and highlight changes in welfare policy. She works to describe the sociocultural context (i.e., structural elements of class, race, ethnicity, and gender) to the politics of transforming welfare policies from a social entitlement program (where families in the United States were “guaranteed” cash aid to maintain a minimal level of subsistence and social decency) to a program that measured success in terms of reducing caseloads rather than alleviating poverty. Bullock’s critical evaluation of welfare reform is data-driven and highlights the social and psychological impacts of economic and social insecurity for women and their families (e.g., homelessness, violence, and labor and economic exploitation). She ends this chapter with a section that is misleadingly entitled, “Breaking the Cycle of Women and Children Last.” Although this section is merely a call to break the cycle, it offers very few concrete solutions beyond the vague call to “foster economic security and asset building” along with basic encouragement to change how individuals think about social and economic welfare. She does however helpfully suggest examining women’s lived experiences and finding out what recommendations women in poverty can offer in changing welfare.
The following chapter (written with other colleagues) describes a study that does exactly that by examining the lived experiences of women who are or were welfare recipients and eliciting their recommendations for change to welfare benefits. Bullock positions these findings under the umbrella of “Welfare Rights Activism” and revisits the ideological and structural foundations of stigmatizing and demeaning people living in poverty that were presented in her second chapter, “Individualism, Meritocracy, and the Protestant Work Ethic.” She highlights the awareness that women in her study encountered sociostructural barriers (e.g., unpaid labor, underemployment, prejudice, and discrimination) that limited their ability to change their socioeconomic status. She also documents the emotional and frustrating experiences these women endured in caring for their families and in seeking ways to better their lives. This chapter is feminism at its best, positioning women at the forefront of knowing about their own lives, their lived experiences, and the hopes and dreams they have for their families.
Bullock’s book, Women and Poverty, clearly calls on social scientists to continue the task of interrogating the causes of poverty for women and their families. It also recognizes “our interconnected and shared responsibility for each other” (p. 158) in developing and advancing justice-driven social policies that increase the ability of all people to live decently.