In “A Genealogy of Dependency”, written by Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon the author’s dissect the word dependency. Dependency is in relation to welfare and government assistance, and how this one meaning has changed throughout history. It is very important to note that although dependency has not always carried a negative mark, it has once upon a time and when it did it was comparable to native people, black people, and women in particular. In this essay I will discuss three main areas from this book that I considered important to me. These areas include industrial dependency, the rise of American welfare dependency 1890-1945, and lastly individual personality. This book begins by analyzing industrial dependency through the lens of the worker and his negatives. The authors discussed the Protestantism valued work of ethic because of discipline and labor. While reading this section of the book I realized that wage labor developed a progressively more …show more content…
According to Fraser and Gordon, “the genealogy of dependency also expresses the modern emphasis on individual personality. This is the deepest meaning of the spectacular rise of the moral/psychological register, which constructs yet another version of the independence/dependence dichotomy” (pg. 332). Every individual has their own individual personality in which the characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving are unalike. During the pose industrial society period they had confidence that equal opportunities were now available, and that all varieties of structural dependency was extinct and that dependency was a circumstance of individual personality. Ultimately discrimination had been reduced and became illegal. The situation became acknowledged that a male wage recipient was not sufficient and that women had to work as well. As a result, of doing so every person was now expected to work and support him or
Inter-reliant poverty comes with its own stresses- and certainly isn’t the American ideal- but it’s much closer to our evolutionary heritage than affluence.” (Junger 21)
May begins by exploring the origins of this "domestic containment" in the 30's and 40's. During the Depression, she argues, two different views of the family competed -- one with two breadwinners who shared tasks and the other with spouses whose roles were sharply differentiated. Yet, despite the many single women glamorized in popular culture of the 1930's, families ultimately came to choose the latter option. Why? For one, according to May, for all its affirmation of the emancipation of women, Hollywood fell short of pointing the way toward a restructured family that would incorporate independent women. (May p.42) Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, for example, are both forced to choose between independence and a happy domestic life - the two cannot be squared. For another, New Deal programs aimed to raise the male employment level, which often meant doing nothing for female employment. And, finally, as historian Ruth Milkman has also noted, the g...
Government assistance was designed to help those in need, yet if an individual works the system to their benefit, it is seen as taking advantage. However, the biggest question is, do governmental programs provide all of a family’s needs or are they given the bare minimum necessities? This movie helped achieve the course objective of taking a personal exploration of African American cultural experiences for several reasons. Becoming dependent on welfare is the reality of many African American families. The government has become the father of millions of children. If the father does not step up to take care of his responsibilities, welfare will. The relationship between welfare and employment is also significant because although Claudine is employed in addition to receiving help, she can barely make ends meet. Furthermore, the moment Rupert married Claudine, her welfare would be terminated, although it was no way he could take care of the large family on a garbage man salary. What would be the ethical decision, to choose love or welfare? With all of the outside forces, there was no way for Claudine to succeed in a system that was designed for her to
The coercion of the working class continued throughout the eighteenth century. Horrible working conditions, poverty, and hunger were blooming in the world of the industrial proletariat. The fruitless revolts did not change the situation and just when it seemed like the treatment of the waged people could not get any worse, the resolution appeared in all its glory. This historical period (1860-1914) could be best described using the Hegelian philosophy. The constant oppression of the working class will serve as thesis.
Imagine being a woman back in the 1800’s. Imagine being home all day, cleaning, cooking, sewing, and doing all the house duties alone without any man’s help. In today’s world, being home all day is what “lazy” people like. In the 1800’s, I’m pretty sure the word “lazy” was in no one’s vocabulary. All through history, cultures considered women to have detained a poorer status than men because of physical differences between the sexes. Men have a broader, more masculine figure compared to women, being less manly and more feminine-built. These physical disadvantages are the reason why women stayed home to care for their family because it was thought of being too dangerous to be doing the hard “men’s work.” Women were also considered to have been less intelligent, more emotional and less decisive than men. Women had low social statuses and fewer rights then the men. H...
This essay will compare Marx’s understanding of the relationship between laborers and capitalists and Wollstonecraft’s understanding of the relationship between women and men. Both Marx and Wollstonecraft’s conception of these groups of people show a large gap between their treatment and status in society. Marx argues that capitalism is not created by nature and the unequal relationship between laborers and capitalists is not humane. In other words, it is actually the cause of social and economic problems during that time period. On a similar note, Wollstonecraft believes that the oppressive relationship between men and women is also unnatural. The standards for men and women are placed by society, not by biological facts. Society and how people
The major weaknesses of his book is the absence of contextual analysis. Since the principles he presents are fundamental for Protestantism, it could be necessaire to show in what context these principle were developed. The contextual analysis could help to understand the motivation of the leader of protestant movement and could allow to make a reel analysis of the impact of Protestantism ethic on the spirit of capitalism. Without the knowledge of the context it can be subjective to conclude that Protestantism influenced the capitalism. For example, in the United States, the spirit of self-confidence was necessary for the survival of the first immigrants. Since, they had not any protection, in order to survive, they should have a self-confidence. When the context in which each principle were developed are understanding, it become easy to appreciate their
In the book politics of power, Katznelson supports how welfare has shifted in the 1960’s where more families needed income assistance it grew about 10% per year. Welfare changed because more women and African Americans were in need of public assistance. This is what strained the US Welfare state because of job discrimination towards women and the restrain against black mobility. Women are having illeg...
The changes accompany the transition from one epoch to another. In the late nineteenth century labor has become a commodity to the merchants, and the formation of a new mode of production has risen which gave rise to a capitalist society. There is a new class distinction between the laborer and those who owned the means of production.
According to the humanities based themes, autonomy and responsibility are defined as “the individual person has the ability to make choices; with those choices comes a responsibility for the consequences of those choices.” [i] This can be related to the Communist Manifesto, which was written by Karl Marx in the 1800’s. Even deeper though, it correlates the class struggles that were apparent in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Marx knew there was a division of classes; the bourgeoisie was the wealthy upper class and they proletariats were the lower working classes of Europe. This is where the theme of autonomy and responsibility steps in and plays a role in the changes that were made in society. The proletariats recognized that they were treated unfairly, which led them to the decision of stepping up and taking a stand. Through the Communist Manifesto, they took responsibility and attained the equality they felt they deserved.
Today, many women choose their own lifestyle and have more freedom. They can choose if they want to get married and have kids or not. Coontz said “what’s new is not that women make half their families living, but that for the first time they have substantial control over their own income, along with the social freedom to remain single or to leave an unsatisfactory marriage” (98). When women couldn’t work, they had no options but to stay with their husband for financial support. Working is a new way of freedom because they can choose to stay or leave their husband and make their own decisions.
People are poor because there’s something lacking in them, and changing them is therefore the only effective remedy. From this he suggests doing away with public solutions such as affirmative action, welfare, and income support systems, including “AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance, and the rest. It would leave the working-aged person with no recourse whatsoever except the job market, family members, friends, and public or private locally funded services.” The result, he believes, would “make it possible to get as far as one can go on one’s merit.” With the 1996 welfare reform act, the United States took a giant step in Murray’s direction by reaffirming its long-standing cultural commitment to individualistic thinking and the mass of confusion around alternatives to
Before the second great awekening, and the market revolution, Family was a woman’s responsability. They were seen as child raisers, home carers, and were expected to do gods will in raising the children to become excellent citizens. These were the beliefs of the Cult of Domesticity. Women had always depended on someone. Wether if be a father, uncle, husband, or even brother. They were never independent. In fact, some marriages were arranged by parents. But because of the cult of domesticity, more and more women refrained from marrige. Yet still, women continued to have the role of having children and taking care of the house, and their husband. But, the amount of arranged marriages declined, because people especially men started to recognize
Based upon the situation some specific sectors where the practice of child labor is taking place. Depending upon the economic conditions of a country, and other external factors, some families could be faced with the prospect of starvation if their child is not earning some income to ensure the survival of the family. One question that is raised early in the analysis of child labor is, is child labor categorically wrong? The practice of child labor was a long standing institution in many western European countries, and had a general glint of acceptance. It was only in the nineteenth century that we find the rise of the contemporary ideal of childhood emerge, and the wave of anti child labor sentiment reach a stage where it faded away ...
arose in response to the changing role of women in society (Rich and Walker 1.)