Why every woman in America should beware of welfare
cuts.
Welfare is the ultimate security policy for every woman in
America. Like accident or life insurance, you hope you’ll never
need it. But for yourself and your family, sisters, daughters
and friends, you need to know it's there. Without it, we have
no real escape from brutal relationships or any protection in
a job market hostile to women with children. Why is Congress
trying to take it away?
Ten Facts most American
don’t know about welfare.
Only 6% of welfare mothers are teenagers. Less than
3% of poor families are headed by women younger than 19.
The typical welfare family includes a mother and two children,
about the same as the average American family.
Welfare mothers on average receive $367 a month, even with
food stamps worth $295, this is still 31% below the poverty
line for a family of three. Benefits have about about
a third of their value since 1979.
Welfare to single mothers makes up just 1% of the federal
budget--3% if food stamps are included,
Thirty-eight percent of AFDC parents are white, 37% are
African-American, and 18% are Latino.
Over 70% of women applying for welfare receive benefits
for less than two years; only 8% remain over eight years.
More than 60% of AFDC families have a child younger than
six. Forty percent have a child younger than two.
Full-time, year-round work at minimum wage puts a woman
and two children $3,000 below the poverty line-with no health
care coverage.
Unemployment hat steadily increased since World War II,
while unemployment benefits have decreased.
Carefully conducted research has found that AFDC benefits
do not influence a never-married mother's decision to have
a child; nor do they influence mothers already on welfare
to have additional children.
A war against poor women is a war against all women.
--from a paid advertisement in the New York Times, 8/8/95.
Cosponsored by 1199 National Health &
Human Service Employees Union, National Association of Social
Workers, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Catholics for a Free
Choice, American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, Office &
Professional Employees International Union AFL-CIO, Welfare
Reform Network of New York, Ms. Foundation for Women, Feminist
Majority, Wider Opportunities for Women, Women & Poverty
Project, Communications Workers of America, Democratic Socialists
of America, Women's Actions for New Directions, National Committee
on Pay Equity, United Farm workers of America AFL-CIO, Center
for Women Policy Studies, National Council for Research on Women,
National Jobs for All Coalition, National Coalition for the
Homeless, NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund.
Welfare concerns every
woman
Welfare is a feminist issue because:
a) it concerns primarily women and children
b) it is about the value of women’s work, about the dignity
of women
C) it says a lot about how we, as a country, care for children
d) it is not just about mothers and not just about poor people
e) it is about women as persons
The welfare debate incorporates many dominant cultural ideas
about women
Racist stereotype: a young black woman, never-married,
with six or more children.
Facts:
As many white women on welfare as black (not all from poor
backgrounds)
Average size of female headed family has been decreasing
since the 1960s and is now at 2.9 - one woman and 1.9 children
More than 40% of welfare mothers have only ONE child
Average length of time on welfare is two years
Until recently most welfare mothers were formerly married.
There has been an increase in never married. Is marriage really
the answer to the problems?
AFDC is only 1% of the national budget
Welfare payments are only a fraction of the nationally
established poverty level; the average payment is $367 per
month.
Compare:
Foster mothers are paid from 3 to 8 times what a woman
is given in AFDC benefits to care for her own child.
It costs taxpayers $200 per day (and anywhere from $27,000
to 75,000 per year) to keep a young criminal in jail.
It costs taxpayers anywhere from $38,000 to 60,000 per
year to keep a child in an orphanage.
Why, then, are we so unwilling to help women support their children?
A major reason women resort to welfare is non-payment of
child support by fathers. AFDC could be imagined as a subsidy
of fathers, not a hand-out to mothers. Why isn’t it?
Child care is expensive and often inadequate or non-existent.
Many women want to stay home with their infants and toddlers;
this option should be available to all--not just the rich
with husbands to support them,. It is important for children
and their mothers. Part time work options should be available
along with income supplements.
--original handout by Carol Delaney,
Professor of Anthropology, Stanford
Facts on Domestic Violence
Domestic violence is defined as abuse committed against an adult
or fully emancipated minor who is a spouse, former spouse, cohabitant,
former cohabitant, or a person with whom the suspect has had
a child or has or has had a dating or engagement relationship.
In 1990, 195,019 domestic violence cases were reported to
the police in California. Of these, 7,781 were reported in
Santa Clara County. (Bureau of Criminal Statistics,
Sacramento, CA, 1991.)
Domestic violence is the most prevalent violent crime in
California, with law enforcement agencies receiving 500 reports
every day. Yet, even the FBI estimates these reports underesti-mate
actual cases by one-tenth. (California Alliance Against
Domestic Violence, April, 1991.)
According to the FBI, as many as 6 million women are abused
by their partners each year. A woman is battered every 15
seconds. (The California NOW Activist. November, 1991.)
One out of every two Amen can women will be physically abused
at some time in her relationship lifetime. (The Battered
Woman's Survival Guide, 1990.)
Battering is the major cause of serious injury to women in
America, more than auto accidents, muggings and rapes combined.
(The Lipman Report, The American Epidemic of Violence: A Major
Security Concern and Public Health Care Problem, December
15, 1985.)
Among all female victims of murders that police reported
to the Uniform Crime Report in 1989, 28% were believed to
have been slain by husbands or boyfriends. (U.S. Dept.
of Justice, Female Victims of Violent Crime. January, 1991.)
Women were victims of violent intimates at a rate 3 times
that of men. Women were 6 times more likely than men to be
victimized by a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend.
(U.S. Dept. of Justice, Female Victims of Violence Crime.
January, 1991.)
A study by the March of Dimes reports that one of every twelve
women is battered while she is pregnant. Battered women are
four times more likely to have low birthweight babies and
twice as likely to miscarry compared with normal mothers.
(The Battered Woman's Survival Guide, 1990.)
Mid-Peninsula Support Network for Battered Women (415) 940-7855 24-hr. hotline
Women & Art
51.2%
of all artists in the U.S. are women [1]
30.7% of all photographers are women [1]
90% of all artist's models are women [4]
67% of bachelor degrees in Fine Arts go to women [3]
46% of bachelor degrees in Photography go to women [3]
65% of bachelor degrees in Painting go to women [3]
60% of MFAs in Fine Arts go to women [3]
55% of MFAs in Painting go to women [3]
47% of MFAs in Photography go to women [3]
59% of Ph.D.s in Fine Arts go to women.[3]
66.5% of Ph.D.s in Art History go to women.[2]
59% of trained artists and art historians are women.[2]
33% of art faculty are women.[2]
5% of works in museums are by women.[6]
17% of works in galleries are by women.[2]
26% of artists reviewed in art periodicals are women.[4]
Women artists' income is 30% that of male artists'.[4]
30% of Guggenheim grants go to women.[7]
42% of $5,000 NEA grants go to women.[7]
33% of $10,000 NEA grants go to women.[7]
29% of $15,000 NEA grants go to women.[7]
25% of $25,000 NEA grants go to women.[7]
Of the art commissioned by the Department of Cultural Affairs
Percent for Art Program in New York City, 70% have been artists
of color, 41% women, 39% of the 41% women of color.[9]
Of the 1992 New York Foundation for the Arts awards given,
women received 53.4%, men received 46.6%.[10]
Of the world's top 200 collectors, approximately 128 are
male, 52 are male-female couples, and 20 are female.[8]
7 of 36 one-person museum exhibitions in the 1991-92 New
York season were by women.[5]
SOURCES
[1] 1990 Statistical Abstract of the United States.
[2] Eleanor Dickenson, "Gender Discrimination in the Art
World," paper prepared for the College Art Association, Coalition
of Women, Februarv 15,1990, New York.
[3] U.S. Department of Education, National Center for
Education Statistics, 1989-90.
[4] Devorab L Knoff, unpublished manuscript.
[5] Art in America1991-92.
[6] Guerrilla Girls poster, New York, 1991.
[7] Women's Caucus for Art, Moore College of Art Fact
Sheet, citing Rosentt Browes, 1989.
[8] Artnews, cover article, Januarv 1992, pp.79-91.
[9] Department of Cultural Affairs, Percent for Art, 1992.
[10] New York Foundation for the Arts. 1992.
Women & Prison
In the past decade, the female prison population has grown
by 202%, the male by 112%.[1]
There are 17 times more men than women in prison.[3]
73% of women in prison are under 30 years of age.[2]
66% of women in prison were unemployed before incarceration.[2]
92% of women in prison had less than a $10,000 yearly income.[2]
58% of women in prison have less than a 12th-grade education.[2]
54% of women in prison are women of color.[2]
Over 80% of women in prison are mothers.[2]
1 in 4 women entering prison is pregnant or has recently
given birth.[3]
The percentage of women who give birth while in prison
has been estimated at 9%. However, the thousands of statistics
published by the U.S. Department of Justice include no information
on prison births.[9]
New York is the only state that allows infants to stay
in a prison nursery with their mothers.[9]
In the U.S. there are 48,000 women in state and federal
prisons and another 42,000 in city and county jails, totaling
90,000 women in prison.[8]
The imprisonment of women has left an estimated 167,000
children without mothers.[8]
Women in prisons and jails are diagnosed with HIV infection
at twice the rate of their male counterparts.[10]
Of the women incarcerated in New York, 80% are mothers,
80% have substance abuse problems, 30% are homeless, and over
25% are HIV positive.[10]
Doctors are available to women in prison 2 days a week
versus 5 days a week for men.[2]
5-10% of women in prison have VD or gynecological problems,
though there are no gynecologists available for female inmates.[2]
The federal prison system's only hospital for women, in
Lexington, Kentucky, does not employ a full-time obstetrician-gynecologist.[3]
Mood-altering drugs are prescribed 2-3 times more often
for women in prison than for men.[2]
Prison terms for killing husbands is twice as long as for
killing wives.[6]
60% of all women in federal prisons have been convicted
of drug-related offenses. Estimates of the number that are
indirectly drug related are 95%.[3]
64% of women in prison are drug users, and 68% of these
used drugs daily before incarceration.[2]
One study found that 93% of the women who had killed their
mates had been battered by them; 67% indicated the homicide
resulted from an attempt to protect themselves and their children.[2]
Of 2,589 death-row inmates in the U.S., 41 are women, and
over a third of the women are lesbians.[7]
10% of street gangs are girls; there are an estimated 7,000
girl gang members in the U.S.[5]
SOURCES
[1] "An Unequal Justice," New York Times, July
10, 1992
[2] National Coalition for Jail Reform, Washington D.C.
[3] "Women: The Road Ahead," Time, Special
Issue, Fall 1990
[4] U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Statistics, 1988
[5] Anne Campbe3ll, "The Girl in the Gang," cited in June
Stephenson, Men Are Not Cost Effective: Male Crime in America,
Diemer Smith Publishing, 1991
[6] "20/20," ABC-TV, August 4, 1992
[7] "Dykes on Death Row," Village Voice, October
5, 1992
[8] "U.S. Prisons Challenged by women behind Bars," New
York Times, November 30, 1992
[9] Jean Harris, "The Babies of Bedford," New York
Times Magazine, March 28, 1993
[10] "Hoppier Home," Women's Prison Association, New York,
1992.