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The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen

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When welfare was originally developed in the 1930's, the white women who were elgible for this government assistance (the rolls were racially segregated until the 1960's) were supposed to go on welfare and stay at home with their children to meet the 'ideal' WASP gender role of the homemaker.

Even if they lacked a male breadwinner (as was the social norm back then) these women were also supposed to remain at home with their children. The assumption was that the monthly welfare payment would provide another chance for these families to assimilate to 'proper' gender roles about women not working outside the home.

Yet, when those programs began intergrating in the 1960's, the nation subsequently began hearing about the alleged flaws of the 'welfare queen'. Now, women who wanted to stay at home with their children were reduced to parasites. Welfare reform attempts were not new (Nixon attempted them in the early 1970's) but the bipartisan support for 'ending welfare as we know it' was unprecedented.

The 'welfare reform' charge became so compelling that even 'new' Democrat Bill Clinton signed the 1996 overall, despite himself having grown up in poverty --- and thus being able to personally understand the reasons why women would need to use public assistance.

Because the actual payment levels had not kept up with minimum cost of living state estimates by the 1990's, it was actually impossible to become rich off of the monthly welfare check. Despite these compelling statistics, the government recognized that keeping other people in a frenzy about 'waste' in this most conservative of industrialized nations offered more political rewards.