• ISBN13: 9780521820950
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: Sociology and Anthropology
• Publisher: Cambridge UP
• Publisher Imprint: Cambridge
• Publication Date: January 1, 2007
• Pages: 310
• Original Price: USD 100.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 558 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Public Policy / Social Services & Welfare and American Government / General

Inspired by the political and philosophical interventions of feminist women of color and Foucauldian social theory, Anna Marie Smith explores the scope and structure of the child support enforcement, family cap, marriage promotion, and abstinence education measures that are embedded within contemporary United States welfare policy. Presenting original legal research and drawing from historical sources, social theory, and normative frameworks, the author argues that these measures violate the rights of poor mothers. The author shows that welfare policy has consistently constructed the sexual conduct of the racialized poor mother as one of its primary disciplinary targets. The book concludes with a vigorous and detailed critique of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's support for welfare reform law and an outline of a progressive feminist approach to poverty policy.

Smith, Anna Marie: - Anna Marie Smith is an associate professor of government at Cornell University. She is the author of New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: Britain, 1968-1990 (Cambridge, 1994), and Laclau and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary (1998). She has also written numerous articles published in New Formations, Feminist Review, Diacritics, Radical Philosophy, Social Text, Constellations, and Michigan Journal of Gender and Law, and she is the author of chapters published in numerous cultural studies and social and political theory anthologies.