Transcript Option in Inequality and Social Justice

Women's Leadership Conference:
Making Connections on Shared Priorities
October 2012
Celia Winkler, J.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Dept. of Sociology
The University of Montana
[email protected]
Social Citizenship
 T.H. Marshall (1893-1981) British sociologist
 Social Citizenship: “status bestowed on all those
who are full members of a community.”
Marshall’s Typology of Rights
 Civil Rights: right to participate in civil society
(negative)
 Freedom from assaults on physical and mental integrity
 Freedom from discrimination
 Political Rights: right to participate in polity
 Vote
 Speech
Typology of Rights, cont.
 Social Rights: right to share in the “social heritage”
(positive)
 Generally speaking, the resources necessary for physical and
mental health
 “live the life of a civilized being according to the standards
prevailing in society”
 Interdependency of Rights
 Each set of rights is dependent on the others
 Without political or civil rights, cannot gain social rights
 Without social rights, cannot exercise civil or political rights
Social Citizenship: Care
 Civil Rights:
 Right to own property; testify in court
 Right to divorce
 Right to control reproduction/family planning
 Political Rights:
 Women’s suffrage
 Bringing issues of care into the public debate
 Social Rights:
 Supporting care work and reproductive choice
 Issues:
 Women as workers (civil rights)
 Women as political actors (political rights)
 Women as caregivers (social rights)
 Time periods:
 Progressive Era (1900-1920s)
 Great Depression/New Deal (1930s)
 Post WWII (1940s-1960s)
 Civil Rights Era (1960s-1970s)
 Rise of Neoliberalism (1980s-1990s)
 Rise of Neoconservatism (1990s-present)
1900-1920s: First Wave of Feminism
Question: Equality or Difference?
Protective Legislation
Mothers’ Aid
Women’s Suffrage
Problems
 Legal to pay women and children less than men
 Normal work day 12 hours
 Families needed child wage
 Unsafe working conditions
 Few childcare options
 Birth control information illegal
 Women and most racial minorities barred from
vote
Lewis Hine, sociologist and photojournalist
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
Fire 1911
Bread & Roses Strike 1912
Difference or Equality?
 Protective legislation
 State limits on women’s work hours upheld
 State limits on child labor upheld
 Federal limits on child labor struck down
 Minimum wage laws struck down
 Scattered attempts to provide childcare
 Labor unions not protected by law
 Mothers Aid: limited assistance to “worthy” mothers,
administered by charitable organizations
 Women’s Suffrage gained by constitutional
amendment 1920
1930s: The New Deal
Issues:
High unemployment
Gendered solutions
Racial/ethnic discrimination
The Great Depression—
Social Issues
Unemployment increases: at its height, about 25%
Homelessness, poverty increase
Unrest increases--fear of Bolshevik type revolution
 Solutions for male unemployment
 Civilian Conservation Corp
 Solution primarily for male unemployment
 Work Projects Administration
Wagner Act
(National Labor Relations Act)
 1935
 Established right of private sector workers to
organize, bargain collectively with employers, and
strike
 Established National Labor Relations Board
 Promulgate rules
 Investigate and adjudicate charges of unfair labor
practices
 Conduct elections
Social Security Act, 1935
 Old Age Pensions and lump sum death benefits
 Provide security
 Remove elderly from labor market
 Unemployment compensation
 Provide security
 Raise wages
 Aid to Dependent Children
 Intended as temporary program
 For children supported by lone mothers (preferably
widows)
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
 Work week: pay overtime for work over 40 hours
 Minimum wage: for everyone
 Child Labor
 Upheld in U.S. v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941)
Two track welfare systems
 Race discrimination
 Excluded as the price of Southern support:
predominantly Black, Asian and Latino farmworkers and domestic
workers
 Gender expectations
 Unemployment compensation, Social Security intended for
male breadwinners
 ADC intended for women and children not supported by male
breadwinner
 Male track: based on employment
 Female track: characterized by dependency, intrusive
GI Bill
Housewife Era
Post-WWII: GI Bill
 Problem: returning unemployed GIs
 Solution: Educational Grants, Housing Loans
 Keynesian Economics:
 Reduced interest rates
 Government infrastructure investment




Creates demand
Demand drives production
Production provides jobs/income
Jobs/income drives production
GI Bill Features
 Educational grants
 Removes pressure from labor market
 Intellectual infrastructure development

Schools, academic staff, support for students
 Provides educated workforce
 Housing Loans
 Provided much needed housing
 Provided infrastructure development; jobs
GI Bill Problems
Male dominated
only about 18% of female GIs took advantage of their GI Bill
education eligibility
Discrimination and lack of childcare
White dominated
Discrimination within armed forces
Education: segregated schools
Threats of violence
Poverty of families
Housing : legal discrimination by lenders and communities
Only for GIs—“selectivity”
1960s-1970s
Civil Rights Legislation
Supreme Court cases
Vietnam War
Liberation Movements
Second Wave Feminism
Civil Rights Movement
True compassion is more than flinging a
coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and
superficial. It comes to see that an edifice
which produces beggars needs
restructuring.
-- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Welfare Rights and the War on Poverty
The Era of Welfare Rights
 Welfare Rights Movement linked to Civil Rights
Movement
 Discrimination in local offices and by private
agencies


Racial discrimination
Morality requirements (single mothers)
The Era of Welfare Rights
 LBJ and the War on Poverty (1964-1968)
 Head Start (preschool for poor children)
 Legal Services
 Community Action advocacy offices
 Civil Rights Legislation
 Equal Pay Act of 1963
 Civil Rights Act of 1964
 Voting Rights Act of 1965
Supreme Court Cases
 Establishes notion of “entitlement”
 Right to pretermination hearing : Goldberg v. Kelly
 Question: must one give up one’s
constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to
receive assistance?
 Right to travel: Shapiro v. Thompson
 Right to privacy:



Griswold v. Connecticut (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)
Roe v. Wade (1973)
cf: Wyman v. James (1971)
1980s-1990s
“Reagan Revolution”
The Decline of the Welfare State and Social Citizenship
Neoliberalism under Reagan
Administration
 Free market
 End of “nanny state”
 “Truly Needy”
 Welfare Queens
in Cadillacs
Welfare Reform in the 1980s
 Replaced work incentives (carrots) with sticks in
AFDC
 Terminated thousands of “heads, hearts, backs”
from Social Security Disability and Supplemental
Security Income
 Eliminated food stamp eligibility for students,
immigrants, strikers
Neoliberal policies
 Deregulation
 Housing market
 Financial institutions
 Health and safety
 Attacking labor unions
 Legislation and board composition
 Tighten eligibility for disability and parental
benefits
 “Tough on Crime”
1980s politics
 Backlash against feminism
 Second wave feminism loses its voice
 Backlash against racial/ethnic liberation
movements
 “Moral panics”
 Child abuse
 Crime
Impact of Neoliberal Policies
 Increased poverty rate
 Increased inequality
 Increased homelessness
 “gentrification”—reduced housing stock
 Disabled individuals
 Families
 Increased incarceration
 Increased dichotomization between legitimate and
illegitimate dependency
 Increased “personal responsibility” for care of family
members
1990s-2000s
“Ending Welfare as We know It”
“Personal Responsibility”
Third Wave Feminism
Ending Welfare as We Know It
 Contract With America 1994:
Personal Responsibility Act
 Punish illegitimacy
 Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996
 Enforce work; encourage marriage
 Eliminate notion of “entitlement”
Cumulative Change in Real After-Tax
Average Income
Source: CBO http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/graphics.cfm
Politics in the 1990s/2000s
 Third Wave Feminism
 Antiwar
 Women’s care work disappears as legitimate issue
of discussion
Blame the poor
99%/Occupy Movements
Conservative backlash
Economic Insecurity and the
Great Recession
findings from the economic security index
November 2011
Women and Men Living on the Edge:
Economic Insecurity After the Great
Recession
by Jeff Hayes, Ph.D., Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D.
(September 2011)