Oh, Yeah, I Want To Go On After That Act...

Wanting to ride the wave that is Ilyka’s rock star status , I find myself nervously debating what sort of topic I could discuss and sound even remotely intelligent. Of course the brain matter has frozen up in fear of toppling off the bar, it is set so far up there. But, prior to the elevation of this I Like It All Smallish and Cozy blog, I had wanted to further expand on this post.

Hugo mentioned, when he so graciously took up my post , that there’s much in there to unpack. So, lacking any original material, and by way of continuing my slow introduction of myself, the new woman prattling away on Ilyka Damen, I’ll try my hand at taking aspects of it a little further. To that end, I’ll start with the part about being a single, welfare mother.

I recall being maybe 8 years old and standing in line at the grocery store with my mother. A woman in front of us was paying for her groceries with a combination of personal check and food stamps. My mother hissed to me, “LOOK at that. She’s wearing a leather jacket and has PICTURES on her CHECKS! Maybe she could find some ways to save some money!” Even at that age, I remember thinking something like, “Well, maybe her husband got hurt or sick and can’t work.”

Setting aside the whole jackpot that was my assumption that the husband was the wage earner; I revisited that conversation every time I, as a food stamps and WIC recipient, felt the people in line behind me analyzing my every purchase and deciding if I was spending their tax dollars appropriately (I wasn’t). I was raised in the mid to upper-middle class by blue collar parents who both earned college degrees during the time I was in high school and college. I had no experience with poverty beyond the typical cultural indoctrination that poor people are poor because they deserve to be. Yet, at the age of 23, I often sat at my parents’ dinner parties, listening to their friends complain about how irresponsible the poor were in spending the tax dollars given them by the system. It was at that point that I learned that it is as difficult to be a “good” poor person as it is to be a “good” woman.

I learned that if poor kids were dirty and unkempt, they and their mother were contemptible. I learned that if poor kids were clean and well dressed (which mine always were), their mother was obviously cheating the system (hello, leather jacket and printed checks). I learned that if I took my kids to the doctor frequently, it was because I had Medicaid and was abusing the system. If I didn't take the kids to the doctor frequently, I was ignorant and a lousy parent. I learned that if poor women were minorities, they were lazy and stupid and opened their legs to any man who came by so they could get an extra $50 a month from the system. I learned that as a poor white woman, I was obviously a slut, and possibly a drug user who had thrown away her privilege and advantages. In other words, it was always the fault of the poor women that they were poor. The men were entirely invisible, as if maybe I and my gang of poor women had found the babies under rocks and just wouldn’t stop bringing them home.

The only reason that I am not still in the system was that I was not raised in the grinding desolation of generational poverty, so I had the tools to work my way out. I was well educated, and went back to school. Oh, and I got remarried, a solution not without pitfalls. This was not, however, because I was better than anyone else; it was because I had more information and privilege than my peers in poverty. But, my solutions came about because I was not typical of the welfare-mother population.

Those “friends” of my parents who complained so bitterly about the woman with X number of children (where X=more than some entitled white person thought they should have) who bought –gasp- a six pack of soda with her food stamps? The most vocal were white house wives, who were casually racist (“Darling, when I say Mexican whore, I don’t mean you, you’re not a Mexican Mexican--besides, you look very Spanish!”), against abortion, and hadn’t finished college before getting married, having babies and settling in with Betty Crocker and some Valium. It was the pinnacle of white privilege, and also that nastiness that women engage in, trying to be the top rat in the cage, instead of getting together to topple the cage and burn down the pet store.

The solution to female poverty lies in plain view; but it would require that women admit that we all live tenuously, where what we have is controlled by someone else, and could be neatly removed, leaving us with quite limited options. It would also involve acknowledging that poverty is not a choice that most women make (I am leaving room for the statistically insignificant few who are not honest, noting as well that we should not base public policy on the actions of the statistically insignificant*). The vicious cycle of poverty limits options, knowledge, and creates a world view entirely different (but no less valid) that the world view of more privileged women. But, as long as we rely on slut-shaming, woman-hating morality requirements and a need to blame others so that our own illusions about security remain in place, we’ll never be able to help ourselves out of the trap. We can stand behind someone in line at the store and shame them to make ourselves feel better, or we can recognize that the woman in front of us is our SISTER, and, a the barest of minimums, choose not to judge situations about which we don’t have the facts.

*The fact that you, personally, knew A WOMAN who was a liar, a cheat, etc, doesn't make that population any more statistically significant, so please, refrain.