Long Live the Queen: Race, Gender and Perceptions of the Social Safety Net

• In Event: 30655 - Race, Class, and Gender

Abstract

Reforms to the U.S. welfare system have made the urban poor more dependent on the work of local social service providers to make ends meet. Yet, while ample research highlights how racial and gender stereotypes shape attitudes toward public assistance, we know comparatively little about how they shape views of the “private safety net.” Drawing on 60 interviews with social service providers and service recipients in majority Black neighborhoods in Houston, Texas, I highlight asymmetries by race and gender in the ways that people evaluate the sufficiency of social service providers to meet the needs of residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods. I find that most men—whether service providers or service recipients—see public assistance as fostering dependence and thus are optimistic about the potential of social service organizations to foster accountability and ensure resources get to those most in need. Conversely, women—particularly those identifying as Black or African American—often contested negative stereotypes about recipients of public assistance and saw private social service providers as limiting their ability to make ends meet, regardless of their organizational position or socioeconomic status. I argue that the results highlight how racialized and gendered “controlling images,” like the welfare queen, continue to shape perceptions of and access to an increasingly privatized social safety net.

Author

• Daniel Bolger, Southern Methodist University