ABSTRACT
Current poverty scholarship has turned against “poverty culture” arguments and is now focused on institutional factors contributing to women’s poverty. These include issues of in-employment poverty (particularly in caring and service occupations) and access to appropriate housing, pensions and basic health services. Likewise, the media publishes the odd piece that introduces institutional aspects of women’s poverty, discussing the gap that people experience between their income and expenses. Because of a range of critical campaigns, the general public in Israel is aware of poverty created by the contracting out of cleaning work and by the scarcity of public housing solutions. However, the only issue that is explicitly associated with women’s poverty is pension — the outcome of a recent debate over increasing retirement age. A discourse analysis of 20 items dealing with poverty in Israeli newspapers shows how depoliticization of women’s poverty operates. The analysis elicits a justification structure that is based on necessity, as well as on criticizing state bureaucracy; this structure silences the discussion of the connection among gender, poverty and exclusion as a political process. The oppositional storyline always references the hegemonic storyline, which is attributed rationality; thus, its presence cannot practically challenge the silencing of poverty as gendered.
