Each of these substantive policy measures should be understood within the context of the Capabilities Approach. Again, Nussbaum argues that certain capabilities must be fulfilled prior to an expectation for successful functionings. Nowhere is this more relevant or necessary than in regard to welfare policy. Expecting women to build assets and maintain savings in five years without skills trainings or education exemplifies a failure to fulfill capabilities. As a
“functioning,” employment requires that those foundational steps are first met. For women in poverty -- those in particular without considerable education or skills -- the state fails them by limiting their ability to receive state support without providing substantive measures by which they can improve their labor force eligibility.
Some might argue that if the PRA has been successful in reducing the number of people on welfare and even increasing rates of employment, then its patriarchal undertones have a valid place in policy. First, welfare rates have not change significantly. In 2000, the national average was 2.6 percent; in 2012, the average was 2.9 percent (Irving 5, 2012). In 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau showed that poverty rates are still higher for women, and have been consistently since 1965; as of 2015, the poverty rate for women in the 18-64 age range reached 14.2, compared to 10.5 for men. Additionally, in comparing family types, single mother households are still the poorest, with 28.2 percent of households headed by single women in poverty. This is compared to 14.9 percent of households headed by single men (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015). These statistics are in direct opposition to the idea that heterosexual marriage provide financial security; clearly, differential gender treatment is relevant and attributable to these differences.
However, even if this patriarchal law had been successful in reducing poverty rates in a substantive in meaningful way, arguments against the PRA would be equally valid. This policy is based on an idea that women must be bound to men in order to be economically stable. It also targets women of color, using Jim Crow-era stipulations to attack their childbearing and rearing capabilities. This sends a message to women in poverty that they are valued in society only insofar as they are bound to men and provides little substantive support for any independent economic self-sufficiency. The right to dignity has been, from the onset, failed by the PRA and its authors. Considering Soss (2005), a “policy that successfully enforces civic expectations may, nevertheless, fail democracy in a variety of other ways” (292).
This thesis has outlined the significant ways that patriarchal norms limit women’s opportunity for substantive self-sufficiency. Focusing on marriage is patriarchal and harmful. Requiring state expenditure on abstinence education reduces women to their biological qualities and narrows their purpose to motherhood. As Roberts notes, true efforts to alleviate women from poverty must include measures to eradicate patriarchal and racist norms that pervade current policy. Stopgap measures such as job training and childcare are necessary and important, and their benefits might serve to diminish stigma among recipients of welfare. It is, however, the broader American social framework that must be altered in order to use welfare as an effective tool for economic empowerment among women, and particularly women of color.
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