Manufacturing Mammies: The Impact of Welfare Reform on African-American Women
In the article “Manufacturing Mammies: The Burdens of Service Work and Welfare Reform among Battered Black Women” Dana-Ain Davis discusses the impact of welfare reform and economic restructuring on well-being of African-American women in the USA. The author argues that contemporary welfare reform is supported by conservative policy and it aims at helping the poor and reducing the number of people who receive unemployment benefits or public assistance. Instead, people in need are encouraged to focus on work, not on welfare.
Thus, the targeted audience is policymakers as they are interested in working out strategies to Help African-Americans to cope with discrimination and to provide them with equal job and education opportunities; and African-American women as their well-being is directly affected by the US welfare reform. The article is very important for the discipline of anthropology as the author examines the associations between welfare reform policy
...and battered African-American women. In particular, Davis underlines historical construction of Black women images.
Historical development of African-American women contributes to further development of cultural anthropological studies. Davis argues that for many years battered African-American women were simply forced to take an active part in dead-end work-related programs which didn’t enable them to move out. Thus, poverty, violence, low incomes and low-status were the key determinants of historical development of African-American women. Actually, they were provided with no opportunities to achieve independence and economic security from their abusive partners.
Davis argues social labor market is affected by interrelation of negative racial images, effects of de-industrialization and neo-liberal social policies. Thus, the key argument of the paper is that the US welfare reform has resuscitated one particular image of African-American women – the
image of ‘Mammy’. Davis argues the image was mapped on African-American women. Poverty and welfare utilization have reinforced the lack of debate about the welfare reform policy. The negative moment is that welfare reforms referred to cultural representations in which African-American women were positioned as illegitimate interlopers.
Actually, I agree with the author that the image of African-American women should be transformed into presenting them as industrious, dignified and reliable women. Thus, welfare reform has nothing to do with well-being of battered African-American women as its key failure is treating African-American women as Mammies. Nevertheless, the article has positively contributed anthropological studies making them to re-interpret and re-construct imposed images of African-American women.
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