ABSTRACT
Changes in the protection the welfare state provides to low-income women, together with the bottom-of-the-labour-market positions open to welfare recipients, have reduced women’s ability to rely on the state for economic survival. Such women not only deploy material survival strategies involving social networks of support and agency-based support but may also rely on material support from men, which studies have framed under the broader strategy of interpersonal social support. However, understanding the receipt of material resources from men as a type of social support is problematic. Support from men usually involves sexual exchange and thus is significantly different from other kinds of support. Moreover, such framing disregards the link between macro-level structural constraints and women’s daily struggles on the micro-level. Understanding this link is crucial in light of findings that welfare reforms encourage women’s reliance on partnerships with men. The chapter draws on 75 in-depth interviews with Israeli mothers who live in poverty. The author suggests framing the exchange of sex for material resources as an oppressive survival strategy that stems from power inequality and includes the activation of institutional/hegemonic power, resulting in vulnerability that takes the form of decreased power of the women involved.
