Blaming Working Women for Poverty
January 8, 2010
by Helen McCombs
Working women are being blamed for a lot of things one of which is poverty. They look at the fact that the majority of poor people are women, and so it is assumed that working women are either the cause of poverty or that they contribute to it. The fact is that most poor adults are women has nothing to do with either the breakdown of our families and communities or of the poverty in these communities.
The breakdown of our families and communities occurred because of the old welfare laws. You could not get cash assistance, food stamps, or Medicaid if you were married. This is what lead to the explosion of out of wedlock birth in all poor communities not just the minority communities. This law has changed and there is an increase in marriages among poor people.
Working women in the poor communities keep their families afloat because public assistance keeps you locked in extreme poverty. It is the women in poor communities who are going back to school and who are also supporting their families.
Yes the majority of people in the hood are women but that has nothing to do with women working or otherwise. The problem is that the men in our communities are on the verge of becoming extinct. The violence in our communities the result of 24 years of drug wars and street gangs. A poor mother must deal with these issues and especially mothers of sons. Statistically the males here do not often make their 21st birthday. Working mothers who work shift work, like I do, must often make decisions between working full time and losing their sons to the streets. Or they can cut back their hours and try to save their sons. I work mainly shift work which means I cannot be home when my kids are for most of the day. I had to cut back my hours so that I could be home to make sure my sons stayed away from the streets.
Here making money is not difficult: all you need is to sell crack cocaine. To a young man this is a powerful temptation. The gangs are also a concern. Working women did not bring drugs or gangs into our neighborhoods but they make an easy group to blame.
How about the men who will not support their children regardless if the mother is poor. There are a lot of men from all walks of life who refuse to support their children whether the children were born in wedlock or not. Men must be held accountable for the children they create. Things in this area have improved but there is still far to many men out there not taking care of their responsibilities. How about we put the blame on these men.
Poverty has been around forever and it isn’t going anywhere. Working women are not the blame for poverty nor is poverty their fault. This is just another way to make women feel guilty. These folks publish statistics but yet never visit or even see an inner city neighborhood where poverty lives. They just look at the numbers of women and somehow it must be their fault. Women want this war to end and we want our men back but that isn’t likely to happen as long as unjust prison sentences and the crack wars continue. The woman blaming days need to end. It’s been going on since Adam blamed Eve for eating the apple.
I don’t see that ending anytime soon either.
