ABSTRACT
The welfare debate of the 1960s, generated in part by the work of Daniel Moynihan, captures much of the racing-gendering process of welfare policy. It highlights how institutions, for example, can perpetuate and maintain race and gender categories and hierarchies. Daniel Moynihan is often cited as the researcher who asserted that there is a causal relationship between the behaviors of black women and the level of poverty experienced in their communities, in part, via the image of the black Matriarch (see Chapter 2, Table 2.1). As suggested in the Moynihan Report (Moynihan 1965), black women’s role reversal, as measured by them working outside of the home, is the root cause of black poverty, crime, school dropout rates and other social ills. It is argued that when black women work outside the home they assume the role designated for men. These masculinised women tend to perpetuate a culture of single (black) motherhood. Inequality experienced by blacks was explained using a particular gender ideology while ignoring that the intersection of class, race and gender results in differential experiences. The use of the Matriarch image served not only to mask, but to normalize, the inequitable position of the black woman.
