Margarita Smith, Ethnic Studies/Honors College

Martin Summers, Mentor

Ideology and Policy: Public Discourse and the Birth of The Welfare Queen

In political as well as cultural discourses, perceptions of welfare recipients are heavily imbued with specific assumptions based on gender, race and sexuality. The emergence in the mid-1970s of "The Welfare Queen" archetype was a significant discursive gesture in shifting sentiments regarding American welfare policy and foreshadowed subsequent welfare reform policy. Simultaneously, opposing political discourses and film representations sought to challenge both the meaning of the traditional family unit, as well as the government’s responsibility to the poor. The Welfare queen myth constructs poor racialized women as internal enemies of the state and creates the justification to disavow the poor within the ideological borders of the nation. Thus, not only are the poor unworthy of support, but they are also a threat to national integrity.