With the economic downturn and an $800 billion stimulus and recovery package going through the Hill, it’s no surprise that welfare, or the “W” word as the New York Times termed it in an article yesterday, is making the rounds once again. If ever there were a need for an influx of research into the journalist’s notebook and the politician’s rationale, it is now when the word “welfare” will be sure to once again pervade popular lingo with all the attendant stereotypes.

The Times article cites Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation’s taking a traditional, conservative, Reaganesque stance on welfare:

“I find it offensive that they’re trying to sneak things in there,” Mr. Rector said of the bill’s supporters. “None of these programs deals with the fundamental causes of poverty, which are low levels of work and lower levels of marriage. They just say, ‘Give me more.’ ”

With 524,000 jobs lost in December and joblessness at 7.2%, a 16-year high, I wonder what Rector and other conservatives expect those who just can’t find work to do in the years ahead while the economy, as Obama has emphasized, will very slowly repower itself (hopefully). For many, jobs will be hard to come by.

But most offensive is the myth of the “welfare queen” that Rector invokes with references to “lower levels of marriage” and welfare as a direct underminer of marriage. Rector is well aware that such language is meant to image up racialized and gendered ideas of the innercity single mother who ostensibly gets herself pregnant and remains unmarried to bring in optimal welfare income.

To give credit to the Times, on the same day, it published an editorial entitled “No Welfare, No Work” defending welfare programs:

The truth is, there will always be people who need to rely on welfare, especially when the economy takes a grim turn. Civilized societies make sure that when people are in desperate need of help, the money is there to take care of them.

Yet the article on the W-word relies on more of a he-said, she-said back-and-forth, playing into people’s preconceived stereotypes, referencing no studies on the actual benefits and repercussions of welfare as studied by sociologists and economists. I’ve recently begun to read works on urban poverty, including William Julius Wilson’s When Work Disappears: The New World of the New Urban Poor. Published in 1997, just after Congress did away with Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the study reveals the conundrum of a new urban poor defined primarily by the lack of jobs available to them.

Importantly, Wilson stridently emphasizes the lack of evidence for the idea that “a direct causal connection exists between the level of welfare benefits and the likelihood that a young woman will bear a child outside marriage,” as pundits and politicians often claim when criticizing welfare.

Wilson writes:

The scientific evidence offers little support for the claim that AFDC benefits play a significant role in promoting out-of-wedlock births. Research examining the association between the generosity fo welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock childbearing and teen pregnancy indicates that benefit levels have no significant effect on the likelihood that African-American girls and women will have children outside marriage; likewise, welfare rates have either no significant effect or only a small effect on the likelihood that whites will have children outside marriage. There is no evidence to suggest that welfare is a major factor in the rise of childbearing outside marriage.

As a discussion on welfare once again becomes part of the national dialogue, I hope that it doesn’t fall into the typical stereotypes it did back in the ‘90s. Growing up in a predominantly white, middle-to-upper middle class suburb in Connecticut, I have multiple memories of adults and news programs discussing the “Puerto Rican, welfare queens” in neighboring Hartford. Let’s hope that discussions today will be more nuanced, infused with better research and with a deeper understanding of those very real problems that face all who are affected in this downturn, but particularly the urban poor.

Following on the heels of Stephanie Coontz’s awesome op-ed last week in the NYT (“Til Children Do Us Part”), notwithstanding the creepy illustration (left), my colleagues at the Council on Contemporary Families has released a research update on the subject, asking: Are Babies Bad For Marriage?

Man, I hope not.

But here’s the breakdown, cleverly bulleted below:

* Old News: Having a Baby Will Save Your Marriage
* New News: No, After Having a Baby, Satisfaction With Marriage Goes Down for Most Couple
* New New News: Having a Baby Won’t Improve a Poor Marriage, but Couples Who Plan the Conception Jointly Are Much Less Likely to Experience a Serious Marital Decline
* And Really Good News: Couples Who Establish a Collaborative Parenting Relationship After the Child Is Born not Only Have Happier Marriages but Better-Adjusted Children

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Dear Barack and Michelle,

I’m writing to you as the parents of beautiful girls, and as people who hold the future of this country in your hands for the next four years. I know that you both take seriously your job as parents as well as the way you can shape public policy to improve your daughters’ lives. Michelle has talked about supporting working parents and Barack has talked about fighting workplace discrimination so Sasha and Malia will not have to experience it as adults.

George W. Bush was a father to daughters, and so was Bill Clinton. But your perspective seems fresh, new, and dare I say the “f” word? Feminist. I think our friends at Ms. Magazine got it right:

Hallelujah. You recognize that the personal is political, and vice versa. Parenting daughters has clearly made you think about how you lead, and about how your political choices and policy decisions will shape your daughters’ lives.

Our country needs this framework, and your “to do” list is long. For example, I’ve blogged about my wish for some federal leadership on curricular reform, and I hope you’ll take a look.

But for now I’m content to wait and see what unfolds under your leadership and your parenting. I’m also raising an 8-year-old daughter, and I know that we probably share some of the same hopes and ambitions for our girls. I know for sure that I’m hoping to create a more equitable world for her, and yes, a more feminist one, too.

Sincerely,
Allison Kimmich
Executive Director, National Women’s Studies Association

This post is part of a forum.

This post was first posted on February 6, 2009 at NCRW’s The Real Deal.

-Allison Kimmich

Writer’s block can strike any of us and at any time. Much has been written about this mysterious malady that haunts so many of the authorialy-inclined.  Less attention has been paid, however, to a similar equally serious condition that has originated with the advent of the internet age – blogger’s burnout.

This debilitating condition presents in a wide variety of ways; symptoms may include anything from navel-gazing posts to stagnant blog homepages to full-blown blog abandonment. This exhausting disease threatens the very existence of the blogosphere itself.  Luckily, many of the cures that have proven to be successful for writer’s block also apply to blogger’s burnout.  In this two-part series, we will explore strategies for avoiding and treating blogger’s burn-out.

Make a Routine, Break a Routine

Having a blogging routine has its benefits – you will blog regularly, meet deadlines, be accountable to your readers, etc.  On a daily/weekly/monthly basis, you commit headspace to blogging.  You sit down and get to it.  You get your blogging done.

But when you start dreading the quality time you’ve devoted to your blog?  Houston, you’ve got a problem!  Nothing is more tiresome – or more likely to inspire procrastination – than a chore.
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In a happy arrangement with our friends over at the blog and editorial collective Feminist Review, GWP is pleased to start offering MORE feminist reviews, courtesy of crosspost!  Here is the first, a review of Letters from Black America (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), edited by Pamela Newkirk.  The review is penned by Brittany Shoot. Here we go…And a big fat shout out to Feminist Review!  –Deborah

While it would help to appreciate and admire the historical importance of preserved letters, you don’t have to be history buff or correspondence enthusiast to delight in Letters from Black America.  In a time of quickly typed emails and SMS, tangible letters hold weight for many who value thoughtful, deliberate communication. In this compendium, Pamela Newkirk skillfully compiles an assortment of missives from the past three centuries that shine a light on the humanity and continued struggles of ordinary and exceptional African American men and women.

Divided into seven sections, the collection of 200-plus letters examines family dynamics during and after slavery, education as a locus for social activism, and Black military service from the Civil War to Iraq. In everyday yet often poetic language, details are revealed about married couples separated by the slave trade and babies born without the presence of their fathers. Open letters previously published in newspapers are included to showcase a wide range of letter writing and how it can be used as a tool to promote public discourse. Prominent Black artists and academics correspond and share visions of hope. One man proposes marriage and later asks to set a date, confirming his lady’s affirmative answer, though the reader never knows what else was actually said.

While the collection does include an interesting cross-section of letter writers and receivers, many are notable figures in Black history, and many—like W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Derrick Bell Jr., and Booker T. Washington—have letters included in several sections. This is not without merit, but letters to and from prominent, highly educated Black leaders are more common than those passed between ordinary citizens. This does not diminish the significance of the selections. At times, it is rather helpful—if not necessary. The often-lengthy writings of Frederick Douglass, for example, comprise a significant part of the letters about politics and social justice. This is not a burden, but an opportunity. Many of these letters are not easily found, even in a time of ubiquitous technology and information. Each letter is introduced with background about the writer and recipient, and these small but critical details make Letters from Black America an incredible reference guide.

While many of the book’s sections are enthralling—love letters from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Coretta Scott (King) and a coming out letter from Joseph Beam to his parents are particularly noteworthy—the climax of the compilation is the third section, “Politics and Social Change.” Some of the most formative communication of our time is found here, including letters between Shirley Du Bois and Langston Hughes, Bayard Rustin and Eldridge Cleaver, and Toni Morrison to then-Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama.

To address the changes in communication over time, the book ends with letters from “Across the Diaspora.” Communiqués between Pan-African leaders of the last hundred years, across oceans and decades, remind us that even as we move into a time when travel and the Internet make our work easier, we have come very far and yet have so very far to go.

–Brittany Shoot

(Crossposted at Feminist Review)

NYTimes Business section, today: A Site Chronicles Ways to Adapt in the Downturn.

If I look half as good in a little black dress as my Reccessionwire.com editor (Laura Rich, center) and her partners do, I’d be a slightly happier recessionista these days.  In the meantime, new installment (“Love in the Time of Layoff”) from me over there coming on Thursday!

And a hearty thanks to PursePundit, Bob, and Jen for their comments on my last one.  You keep me going; you really do.

Ken Starr (the lovely man who brought us the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton) filed a legal brief last month — on behalf of the “Yes on 8” campaign — that would forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year before the passage of Prop 8.

Watch “Fidelity”, a brilliant and moving response brought to us by The Courage Campaign:

“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

The Courage Campaign is asking for signatures on a letter to the state Supreme Court. Tell the Supreme Court to invalidate Prop 8, reject Ken Starr’s case, and let loving, committed couples marry. DEADLINE: Valentine’s Day.

55,536 people have signed the letter (as of Sunday, February 8). I just added my name, so make that 55,537. Will you add yours?

(Thank you thank you thank you, Virginia – I’m still weepy from watching this.)

So, on the way to helping colleagues at the Council on Contemporary Families get out an awesome Valentine’s Day Fact Sheet on Sexual Health by GWP contributor Adina Nack, I learned something new: the difference between a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

“Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are infections that result from the transmission of certain bacteria or viruses during physically intimate acts. An STI may or may not result in a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that has noticeable symptoms,” according to the CCF Fact Sheet.

The importance of this distinction was made clear in a cool May 2008 article by Neil Munro. The article, Birth of a Number, is only available to online subscribers to National Journal. But you just might want to check it out because he highlights how some casual headline writing can influence the way numbers end up as a squishy political football (like a nerf football), excessively dramatizing an already serious problem. The numbers are not inherently squishy, but sometimes their use is squishy. In particular, in this case, the number he was reporting about was the number that “1 in 4 American teenagers has an STD.” When it came out that number was “infectious,” and popped up in a lot of headlines. But that number really referred to STInfection, not STDisease. AS Munro pointed out, it became a handy number for hand-wringing about teen sluttishness, but it didn’t become a handy moment to communicate on any kind of practical level about what to do about sexually transmitted infections–or diseases.

Nack’s CCF fact sheet includes a lot of very good sources on STIs, STDs, and advice about how to communicate with your partner about them. It turns out it will help you address the issues, but it will also help you address the numbers we use to represent the issues.

–Virginia Rutter

And according to a cover story in today’s NYTimes,“As Layoffs Surge, Women May Surpass Men in Job Force”. Writes reporter Catherine Rampell:

“A deep and prolonged recession, therefore, may change not only household budgets and habits: it may also challenge longstanding gender roles.”

I have so much to say about this I can’t contain it in a post! More soon though, I promise, as the gender&recession story continues.

Meeting Notorious on the Big Screen

I’m happy to introduce Ebony Utley who contributes this kick-ass guest post to The Man Files. Ebony cleverly writes about her “date” with rap star B.I.G. — a posthumous movie night watching B.I.G. on the big screen in the recently released biopic, Notorious. What follows is Ebony’s sharp call about the demands and expectations of masculinity.

Me and B.I.G. just went out on our first date. I’d heard about him around the way, but he seemed like such a bad boy. I was content to watch him from my stoop.  Then some friends were like, “Girl, I heard he done changed. He told us to tell you to meet him at the Pike at eight for this movie.”  And thought, “If dude wanna take me out; he should take me some place where I can look him in the eye and see if he lyin’ when he talk.”

But you know, he’s B.I.G., so I went.

It wasn’t a typical movie date. He told me lots of stuff about his life.  It was juicy.  I was surprised at how open he was about his past. He had been a hustla, but got his money legal.  He loved his mama. He loved his kids. He admitted to being a playa, but he told me I was special. I knew stuff that nobody knew.  Said he’d had suicidal thoughts but now he was ready to live. I myself was mesmerized by his charisma and swagger.  I soaked up every second of his life.  Before we left the movie, he asked if he could be a friend of mine, and then just like that, he was gone.

I’m not going to lie. I miss B.I.G.  Who doesn’t?  But I’m trying to be real about the things he told me on our first and only date together.  I mean, it was still dark in that movie, and I couldn’t look him in the eye good.  What if he told all the ladies that they were special and knew things nobody knew?  He kept saying that he’d changed.  I’m hearing him say that he’d become a man.  I admired B.I.G., but what made him a man? He told me real men make money, have kids, and lots of women, get respect, and die too young.  Hmm.  Even the list is suspect.

B.I.G. made money, yes, but Diddy was in charge of his destiny. Without Diddy telling my girls to tell me to go see B.I.G. we would have never even hooked up.  I can’t imagine that B.I.G. didn’t love his kids, but they didn’t really know him; he didn’t seem to know them.  Sure, he was sometimes at peace with his women but what about the lies, the deception, and the manipulation?  Everybody was celebrating B.I.G. when they killed him. So much for respect. If this is what a man is, I’m glad that we decided to be just friends.

All I can say ladies is don’t let them hypnotize you.  No disrespect to the person who was the Notorious B.I.G., but those traditional celebrations of manhood as the fearless protector, provider, babymaker get old after a while.  Better to watch them from the stoop than get caught up in some mess.  If B.I.G. had tried something different, maybe he’d still be here, but his story is still powerful. I’m glad he shared it with me.  Gives me a point a reference for what else manhood should be—entrepreneurship, present fatherhood, honest, healthy relationships, and caution over reputation.  Thanks for the teaching moment. I’ve still got mad love for you, B.I.G.

Ebony A. Utley, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Long Beach and author of  The Gangsta’s God: The Quest for Respectability in Hip Hop (Praeger, forthcoming).