Canada's Gendered Welfare State

Paper Summary:

This paper examines a series of articles which all criticize the current push towards a neo-liberal interpretation of social welfare policy - both in Canada and in a number of other western nations. The paper suggests that the articles' central theme remains the same - that women are unjustly victimized by the prevailing social welfare network. The paper examines the argument made that women are falling behind in some regards vis-a-vis social welfare after some moderate advances in previous decades and concludes that the articles' authors are not necessarily wrong in their views, but occasionally over-state their cases - in large measure because their work is informed by ideological commitments as well as by scholarly concerns.

From the Paper:

"In her work, Ann Porter seeks to advance a "feminist economy" that illustrates how women are - and have been - oppressed by the capitalist system and by the patriarchal order. Specifically, Porter devotes a great deal of her time to looking at the historically strained relationship between the state and women and draws approvingly from socialist (or Marxist) feminists who critique how the traditional capitalist order supported a traditional "dual" arrangement whereby the man served as breadwinner and the woman served as a dependent subordinate in charge of the household. However, the advent of women entering the paid workforce in great numbers changed this arrangement and therefore blunted the inherently exploitative features of the patriarchal capitalist order as it pertained to women."

Sample of Sources Used:

• McKeen, Wendy. "Feminism and Child Poverty Discourse in the 1990s: Writing Women Out." Money in their Own Name: the feminist voice in the poverty debate in Canada, 1970-1995. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. 89-107.
• McKeen, Wendy. "The Mainstream Poverty Debate in the 1960s and the Emergence of the Feminist Alternative." Money in their Own Name: the feminist voice in the poverty debate in Canada, 1970-1995. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. 30-50
• O'Connor, Julia, et al. "Gendering Theories and Comparisons of Welfare States." States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the US. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 1-42
• O'Connor, Julia, et al. "States, Markets, Families." States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the US. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 223-237.
• Porter, Ann. "Consolidating Neo-Liberal Reforms: Globalization, Multi-Earner Families, and the Erosion of State Support for the Unemployed." Gendered States: Women, Unemployment Insurance and the Political Economy of the Welfare State in Canada, 1945-1997. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. 211-230.

More papers on Canada's Gendered Welfare State:

• Analytical Essay # 130879 : "Canada's Gendered Welfare State"
• Argumentative Essay # 32367 : "Canada's Welfare State vs. Its Neo-Liberal Economics"
• Persuasive Essay # 102839 : "The Institutionalization of Inequality"

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