_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(First Steps) Welfare Queen Planned Edits (will be transferred to mainspace later):
Will be going in the impact section after I reformat and do some more edits to put them together -
Champlin, Emily R. "The myth of the “welfare queen”: reproductive oppression in the welfare system." (2016).
Champlin argues that the current welfare system punishes poor single mothers by not providing adequate access to contraceptives or abortions, if a woman does not wish to get pregnant, or having family caps that limit welfare benefits for women with children. It seems that regardless of whether a woman chooses to have children or not, her capabilities in achieving those desires are severely restricted by the policies and attitudes of the welfare system, which places the blame of poverty on the women and reinforces the cycle of poverty. Welfare benefits have been used as a tool for reproductive oppression and prevent their autonomy over their bodies.
Nadasen, Premilla. "From widow to “welfare queen”: Welfare and the politics of race." Black Women, Gender & Families 1, no. 2 (2007): 52-77.
Nadasen discusses the racial dimensions to poverty, focuses on the stigmatization of single poor Black women in the welfare system. She also highlights Black-led movements that fought against these harmful stereotypes. (Will build more on this idea. I want to create a new section in the article about how Black-led movements or Black individuals fought against the welfare queen stereotype or the injustices caused by racist, classist, sexist welfare policies)
Powell, Catherine, and Camille Gear Rich. "The'Welfare Queen'Goes to the Polls: Race-Based Fractures in Gender Politics and Opportunities for Intersectional Coalitions." Amendment Special Edition Geo. LJ 19 (2020): 105.
Powell centers their discussion on the intersectionality of race, class, and gender the issue of the welfare queen trope. (Will be reading through this to give a summary of Powell's analysis to put in the impacts section; currently debating whether or not to create a new section on the intersectionality of this issue).
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Proposal -
Need for revision: Overall, there needs to be an expansion of the article and an update in terms of adding information about the trope in the contemporary era. I want to focus on how this trope continues to affect attitudes against welfare, frame this issue through the intersectionality framework by Kimberlé Crenshaw, and add more information about its impact on current issues (such as reproductive justice and poverty).
Good article comparison: This article is currently a Start class article and is rated high importance for WikiProjects Social work. It has also been mentioned by multiple media organizations, so it is critical that the information is updated and made more comprehensive. Compared to articles that are labeled as Good Articles, I think that more sections should be added and existing sections should be updated to reflect the usage and impact of the stereotype today. Also, when looking at other related articles, I noticed that many of them are C-class or low ranking articles, which I found alarming considering the importance of factual and comprehensive importation in these topics, so while I do more research on the welfare queen stereotype, I may also want to add to the “Stereotypes of African Americans” page for example.
Planned Work:
In political discourse
This section is another short paragraph. It briefly discusses how this term was used in the late 1900s and early 2000s, but I want to add how the term is seen today and its current day relevance in U.S politics.
Sources that would fit under this section are:
- Hancock, Ange-Marie. The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. NYU Press, 2004.
- Nadasen, Premilla. "From widow to “welfare queen”: Welfare and the politics of race." Black Women, Gender & Families 1, no. 2 (2007): 52-77.
- Powell, Catherine, and Camille Gear Rich. "The'Welfare Queen'Goes to the Polls: Race-Based Fractures in Gender Politics and Opportunities for Intersectional Coalitions." Amendment Special Edition Geo. LJ 19 (2020): 105.
Impact of the stereotype section
This section only consists of a short paragraph. I hope to build on this section by adding more contemporary examples, especially on considering how the Donald Trump administration used the slur to undermine welfare. I found an article about how the welfare queen trope also affects reproductive justice, so I will look more into articles discussing that issue and include some of those details in this section. Also, there is a lot of information about how this trope affects policy, specifically poverty law, so I will either add more about that here or create another section if I find that there is a need to do that.
Sources that would fit under this section are:
- Champlin, Emily R. "The myth of the “welfare queen”: reproductive oppression in the welfare system." (2016).
- Cammett, Ann. "Deadbeat dads & welfare queens: How metaphor shapes poverty law." BCJL & Soc. Just. 34 (2014): 233.
- Gilman, Michele Estrin. "The return of the welfare queen." Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 22 (2013): 247.
Gender and racial stereotypes
I also want to touch on the issue of intersectionality. It is alluded to in an existing quote under this section, but I think it would be helpful to define this idea through the idea and impact of the welfare queen slur. This section also lacks updated information on how this phrase is used today and relates to stereotypes, so I will be adding more current information.
Sources for this section include:
- Foster, Carly Hayden. "The welfare queen: Race, gender, class, and public opinion." Race, Gender & Class (2008): 162-179.
- Hancock, Ange-Marie. The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. NYU Press, 2004.
New sections/ information I am thinking of adding
- This page lacks information on the stereotype from the view of African American women and largely feels like an approach to an issue from an outsider’s perspective. Dow’s article, "Negotiating “the welfare queen” and “the strong Black woman” African American middle-class mothers’ work and family perspectives," provides details on how these women deal with and resist this trope. I will continue to look into more sources for this topic, but I think this would be good as its own section, labeled as “Resistance to the stereotype”. A second source that would be good for this section is the piece by Rich: “Reclaiming the Welfare Queen.”
- I also found information linking the “welfare queen” stereotype to criminal justice and mass incarceration in Hancock’s article. I am currently leaning towards adding this into the “Impacts of the stereotype section,” but I may create a section for it about welfare fraud, criminalization and how those tie into the welfare queen trope.
Links:
- Intersectionality
- I would link this page on the Welfare Queen wiki page as well as the Welfare Queen page on the Intersectionality page, since they both tie in together.
- Feminization of poverty
- The Welfare Queen page already has a link to this page, but not the other way around. I may add a few details about the welfare queen trope in this article so that I can then link the Welfare Queen page to it to get more traffic.
- Reproductive justice
- In the scholarly sources I have looked at, there is considerable academic discourse linking the welfare queen trope to reproductive oppression. I would add information about reproductive justice on my page to provide a link to the reproductive justice page and visa versa so that I can link these pages to each other.
- Incarceration in the United States
- I found an article linking the welfare queen trope to welfare fraud and incarceration, so a link between these two articles could add more traffic.
References:
Kelly, Maura. "Regulating the reproduction and mothering of poor women: The controlling image of the welfare mother in television news coverage of welfare reform." Journal of Poverty 14, no. 1 (2010): 76-96.
Gilliam Jr, Franklin D. "The'welfare queen'experiment." Nieman Reports 53, no. 2 (1999): 49.
Gilman, Michele Estrin. "The return of the welfare queen." Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 22 (2013): 247.
Hancock, Ange-Marie. The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. NYU Press, 2004.
Foster, Carly Hayden. "The welfare queen: Race, gender, class, and public opinion." Race, Gender & Class (2008): 162-179.
Nadasen, Premilla. "From widow to “welfare queen”: Welfare and the politics of race." Black Women, Gender & Families 1, no. 2 (2007): 52-77.
Powell, Catherine, and Camille Gear Rich. "The'Welfare Queen'Goes to the Polls: Race-Based Fractures in Gender Politics and Opportunities for Intersectional Coalitions." Amendment Special Edition Geo. LJ 19 (2020): 105.
Dow, Dawn Marie. "Negotiating “the welfare queen” and “the strong Black woman” African American middle-class mothers’ work and family perspectives." Sociological Perspectives 58, no. 1 (2015): 36-55.
Rich, Camille Gear. "Reclaiming the Welfare Queen: Feminist and Critical Race Theory Alternatives to Existing Anti-Povert Discourse." S. Cal. Interdisc. LJ 25 (2016): 257.
Cammett, Ann. "Deadbeat dads & welfare queens: How metaphor shapes poverty law." BCJL & Soc. Just. 34 (2014): 233.
Champlin, Emily R. "The myth of the “welfare queen”: reproductive oppression in the welfare system." (2016).
 | This is a user sandbox of
Heatherkong. You can use it for testing or practicing edits. This is not the sandbox where you should draft your assigned article for a dashboard.wikiedu.org course. To find the right sandbox for your assignment, visit your Dashboard course page and follow the Sandbox Draft link for your assigned article in the My Articles section. |
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(First Steps) Welfare Queen Planned Edits (will be transferred to mainspace later):
Will be going in the impact section after I reformat and do some more edits to put them together -
Champlin, Emily R. "The myth of the “welfare queen”: reproductive oppression in the welfare system." (2016).
Champlin argues that the current welfare system punishes poor single mothers by not providing adequate access to contraceptives or abortions, if a woman does not wish to get pregnant, or having family caps that limit welfare benefits for women with children. It seems that regardless of whether a woman chooses to have children or not, her capabilities in achieving those desires are severely restricted by the policies and attitudes of the welfare system, which places the blame of poverty on the women and reinforces the cycle of poverty. Welfare benefits have been used as a tool for reproductive oppression and prevent their autonomy over their bodies.
Nadasen, Premilla. "From widow to “welfare queen”: Welfare and the politics of race." Black Women, Gender & Families 1, no. 2 (2007): 52-77.
Nadasen discusses the racial dimensions to poverty, focuses on the stigmatization of single poor Black women in the welfare system. She also highlights Black-led movements that fought against these harmful stereotypes. (Will build more on this idea. I want to create a new section in the article about how Black-led movements or Black individuals fought against the welfare queen stereotype or the injustices caused by racist, classist, sexist welfare policies)
Powell, Catherine, and Camille Gear Rich. "The'Welfare Queen'Goes to the Polls: Race-Based Fractures in Gender Politics and Opportunities for Intersectional Coalitions." Amendment Special Edition Geo. LJ 19 (2020): 105.
Powell centers their discussion on the intersectionality of race, class, and gender the issue of the welfare queen trope. (Will be reading through this to give a summary of Powell's analysis to put in the impacts section; currently debating whether or not to create a new section on the intersectionality of this issue).
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Proposal -
Need for revision: Overall, there needs to be an expansion of the article and an update in terms of adding information about the trope in the contemporary era. I want to focus on how this trope continues to affect attitudes against welfare, frame this issue through the intersectionality framework by Kimberlé Crenshaw, and add more information about its impact on current issues (such as reproductive justice and poverty).
Good article comparison: This article is currently a Start class article and is rated high importance for WikiProjects Social work. It has also been mentioned by multiple media organizations, so it is critical that the information is updated and made more comprehensive. Compared to articles that are labeled as Good Articles, I think that more sections should be added and existing sections should be updated to reflect the usage and impact of the stereotype today. Also, when looking at other related articles, I noticed that many of them are C-class or low ranking articles, which I found alarming considering the importance of factual and comprehensive importation in these topics, so while I do more research on the welfare queen stereotype, I may also want to add to the “Stereotypes of African Americans” page for example.
Planned Work:
In political discourse
This section is another short paragraph. It briefly discusses how this term was used in the late 1900s and early 2000s, but I want to add how the term is seen today and its current day relevance in U.S politics.
Sources that would fit under this section are:
- Hancock, Ange-Marie. The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. NYU Press, 2004.
- Nadasen, Premilla. "From widow to “welfare queen”: Welfare and the politics of race." Black Women, Gender & Families 1, no. 2 (2007): 52-77.
- Powell, Catherine, and Camille Gear Rich. "The'Welfare Queen'Goes to the Polls: Race-Based Fractures in Gender Politics and Opportunities for Intersectional Coalitions." Amendment Special Edition Geo. LJ 19 (2020): 105.
Impact of the stereotype section
This section only consists of a short paragraph. I hope to build on this section by adding more contemporary examples, especially on considering how the Donald Trump administration used the slur to undermine welfare. I found an article about how the welfare queen trope also affects reproductive justice, so I will look more into articles discussing that issue and include some of those details in this section. Also, there is a lot of information about how this trope affects policy, specifically poverty law, so I will either add more about that here or create another section if I find that there is a need to do that.
Sources that would fit under this section are:
- Champlin, Emily R. "The myth of the “welfare queen”: reproductive oppression in the welfare system." (2016).
- Cammett, Ann. "Deadbeat dads & welfare queens: How metaphor shapes poverty law." BCJL & Soc. Just. 34 (2014): 233.
- Gilman, Michele Estrin. "The return of the welfare queen." Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 22 (2013): 247.
Gender and racial stereotypes
I also want to touch on the issue of intersectionality. It is alluded to in an existing quote under this section, but I think it would be helpful to define this idea through the idea and impact of the welfare queen slur. This section also lacks updated information on how this phrase is used today and relates to stereotypes, so I will be adding more current information.
Sources for this section include:
- Foster, Carly Hayden. "The welfare queen: Race, gender, class, and public opinion." Race, Gender & Class (2008): 162-179.
- Hancock, Ange-Marie. The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. NYU Press, 2004.
New sections/ information I am thinking of adding
- This page lacks information on the stereotype from the view of African American women and largely feels like an approach to an issue from an outsider’s perspective. Dow’s article, "Negotiating “the welfare queen” and “the strong Black woman” African American middle-class mothers’ work and family perspectives," provides details on how these women deal with and resist this trope. I will continue to look into more sources for this topic, but I think this would be good as its own section, labeled as “Resistance to the stereotype”. A second source that would be good for this section is the piece by Rich: “Reclaiming the Welfare Queen.”
- I also found information linking the “welfare queen” stereotype to criminal justice and mass incarceration in Hancock’s article. I am currently leaning towards adding this into the “Impacts of the stereotype section,” but I may create a section for it about welfare fraud, criminalization and how those tie into the welfare queen trope.
Links:
- Intersectionality
- I would link this page on the Welfare Queen wiki page as well as the Welfare Queen page on the Intersectionality page, since they both tie in together.
- Feminization of poverty
- The Welfare Queen page already has a link to this page, but not the other way around. I may add a few details about the welfare queen trope in this article so that I can then link the Welfare Queen page to it to get more traffic.
- Reproductive justice
- In the scholarly sources I have looked at, there is considerable academic discourse linking the welfare queen trope to reproductive oppression. I would add information about reproductive justice on my page to provide a link to the reproductive justice page and visa versa so that I can link these pages to each other.
- Incarceration in the United States
- I found an article linking the welfare queen trope to welfare fraud and incarceration, so a link between these two articles could add more traffic.
References:
Kelly, Maura. "Regulating the reproduction and mothering of poor women: The controlling image of the welfare mother in television news coverage of welfare reform." Journal of Poverty 14, no. 1 (2010): 76-96.
Gilliam Jr, Franklin D. "The'welfare queen'experiment." Nieman Reports 53, no. 2 (1999): 49.
Gilman, Michele Estrin. "The return of the welfare queen." Am. UJ Gender Soc. Pol'y & L. 22 (2013): 247.
Hancock, Ange-Marie. The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. NYU Press, 2004.
Foster, Carly Hayden. "The welfare queen: Race, gender, class, and public opinion." Race, Gender & Class (2008): 162-179.
Nadasen, Premilla. "From widow to “welfare queen”: Welfare and the politics of race." Black Women, Gender & Families 1, no. 2 (2007): 52-77.
Powell, Catherine, and Camille Gear Rich. "The'Welfare Queen'Goes to the Polls: Race-Based Fractures in Gender Politics and Opportunities for Intersectional Coalitions." Amendment Special Edition Geo. LJ 19 (2020): 105.
Dow, Dawn Marie. "Negotiating “the welfare queen” and “the strong Black woman” African American middle-class mothers’ work and family perspectives." Sociological Perspectives 58, no. 1 (2015): 36-55.
Rich, Camille Gear. "Reclaiming the Welfare Queen: Feminist and Critical Race Theory Alternatives to Existing Anti-Povert Discourse." S. Cal. Interdisc. LJ 25 (2016): 257.
Cammett, Ann. "Deadbeat dads & welfare queens: How metaphor shapes poverty law." BCJL & Soc. Just. 34 (2014): 233.
Champlin, Emily R. "The myth of the “welfare queen”: reproductive oppression in the welfare system." (2016).
| This is a user sandbox of
Heatherkong. You can use it for testing or practicing edits. This is not the sandbox where you should draft your assigned article for a dashboard.wikiedu.org course. To find the right sandbox for your assignment, visit your Dashboard course page and follow the Sandbox Draft link for your assigned article in the My Articles section. |