Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.
Book Reviews 455 Common Sense’’ narratives propose that the receipt of welfare is an issue of a poor work ethic and poor decision making, especially concerning moral choices. Women who receive welfare have had children they cannot support, and the solution to this problem is to promote paid work, marriage, and sexual restraint. Brush argues that these explanations make intuitive sense, as all taken-for-granted ideas do, until they are deconstructed and their contradictions are made clear. For example, she demonstrates how women’s employment options are affected when their batterers harass them at work, physically prevent them from working or sabotage their job search. Similarly, women can receive welfare for a limited time and are required to seek work, even though they will never be able to leave an impoverished status with low wage and often part-time employment. For both these situations, work is presented as a moral imperative even though it is not truly a solution to the problem of women’s poverty and need to depend on potentially abusive partners. For Brush, a feminist structural analysis leads to solutions that begin with viewing battering and poverty through the lenses of social justice and human rights. She advocates for developing
Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work – SAGE
Published: Nov 1, 2012
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.