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Poverty and Culture
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Poverty and Culture
Why Is Gender Important For Understanding Poverty And Various Movements To Combat It? Refer To A Minimum Of Three Texts/Films. (You May Refer To Valk, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Linda Gordon, Orleck (Ed) Introduction To The War On Poverty At The Grassroots, And To The Film Given A Chance Or MADE IN LA.
The worldwide women’s movement has sparked an interest in analyzing poverty from a gender perspective because it recognizes that poverty touches men and women in distinct ways. Men and women have various features of poverty, which may be determined by looking at gender differences in poverty (Gray et al., 2019). Because it goes beyond a simple description of poverty, a gender perspective deepens the conception of poverty. Poverty is approached from a dynamic process rather than a static state of affairs. As a result, policies may be designed to target the poorest and most vulnerable communities with a gender perspective in mind.
Poverty is a gendered problem, and it is vital to examine it in terms of gender. Third-world feminists began studying poverty from a gendered viewpoint in the 1980s. They discovered a slew of phenomena within poverty that disproportionately harmed women, including that ladies were more probable compared to men to live in subsistence-level homes. Female poverty was more likely than male poverty to grow over time (Lyon et al., 2021). The “feminization of poverty” is used to describe these trends. There is some debate over whether or not the notion of poverty being “feminized” has merit. However, it has highlighted the need to acknowledge the diverse ways in which poverty affects men in addition to women, the role that gender plays in determining poverty, and how vulnerable women are. In other words, “the chance of poverty is not dispersed randomly throughout the population.”
There are “unequal chances for women as a gender to acquire access to material and social resources and participate in decision-making in the primary political, economic, and social policies” since the sexual division of labor assigns the home sphere to women. As a result, women face a greater peril of destitution due to their lower levels of financial resources as well as their lower levels of social and cultural capital. As a result of the fewer resources available to women due to the gendered partition of work and the social hierarchy established as a consequence of this division, females face discrimination in various social contexts, most notably in the workplace, the welfare system, and the home. Another sign of women’s deficiency of admittance to various assets is the high percentage of illiteracy (Gray et al., 2019). Despite historically lower female literacy rates and a narrowing gender gap, women still make up a larger share of the world’s illiterate population. In 1970, 22.3 percent of males and 30.3 percent of women over the age of 15 were illiterate, compared to 10.1 percent of men and 12.1 percent of women in 2000. Furthermore, the reasons for adolescent school dropout are gender-specific, as women quit school to take on household duties, whereas males do so to join the workforce.
A further sign of women’s oppression is their lack of access to monetary wealth. According to studies performed in Latin American families during the 1990s, the percentage of Latin American women participating in the workforce jumped from 37.9 percent to 42 percent. However, the unemployment rate for women is greater, and the gender wage gap has become broader over time. Women’s unemployment rose from 5.1 percent in 1990 to 11.2% in 1999, while men’s rose from 4.3 percent to 7.2 percent in the same period. Unemployment rates are still more significant for women, regardless of their educational attainment. Women are paid less than males on average for their work, with the disparity most pronounced among highly educated women. Across the 17 Latin American nations studied, females are more probable to work in lower-qualified professions that pay less, are less stable, and are more informal, while males are more probable to work in higher-skilled occupations that pay more and are more stable.
There is a tendency to overlook substantial disparities in the associability of men and women when assessing social capital. Although “it does not completely disregard the difference, it simply does not assign any analytical or explanatory value” of these differences, the whole theorization of social capital is censured from a gender perspective for being interpreted as if admittance to it “were similar; for men as for women.”
Poverty is not only about lack of monetary, social, and cultural resources; it is about the heterogeneity of poverty since men and women have various responsibilities and experiences, which means they have various interests and requirements. Female poverty is examined in terms of both the household as well as the social setting, based on the relational component of gender, which relates to the interaction between men and women (Bradshaw et al., 2017). To better understand how a family runs, the gender perspective sheds light on its hierarchies and the allocation of resources, raising questions about whether resources are allocated evenly and if the demands of its members are the same. “Descriptive concepts that indicate distance from an income or resource threshold, but also explain inequities in the power relations inside the home” are not sufficient to describe poverty. The many responsibilities that men and women perform in the home, the workplace, society, and aspects intertwined with genders, such as age and ethnicity, are all considered from a gender viewpoint.
Poverty as a procedure instead of symptom is critical to understanding, according to the gender perspective, in order to evade the stationary discernment of “poverty as a snapshot” that “naturalizes and freeze social relations, scarcely acknowledge gender and generational relationships, and does not assist in understanding prior processes or potentialities, nor poverty in its historical macro-social and micro-household diasporic context (Bradshaw et al., 2017).” Examining poverty through gender perspective research helps in understanding various gender factors that cause poverty, like exposing prejudice in the public realm and at home and the power dynamics and uneven allocation of resources in both situations. In this way, general and particular viewpoints may be linked, and economic and social growth can be linked to people’s everyday lives, highlighting the relationships between the two levels and aiding in understanding the complexity of the processes created by the poverty problem.
Because it examines the notion of poverty from a holistic and dynamic viewpoint, the gender perspective dramatically helps our understanding of the phenomena (Elum, 2021). Any description of poverty grounded solely on income is challenged by the gender approach, which emphasizes that poverty encompasses material and non-material as well as symbolic, cultural aspects. It is essentially impacted by the supremacy associations or social pyramids determining whether individuals have superior or less access to social, cultural, and material resources due to their gender. As a result, gender may impact the severity of poverty and the likelihood of becoming impoverished.
Discuss The Origins And Consequences Of The Concept Of “Maximum Feasible Participation” As It Was Used During The War On Poverty. Evaluate The Utility Of This Concept And Explain If It Matters Whether Or Not It Is Included In Anti Poverty Programs Today. Refer To Orleck, Harrington And One Other Author Or Film.
Even though there had not been any public deliberations over whether or not to include the participation provision, this was the outcome of President Johnson’s March 16, 1964 “address on poverty,” when he lauded the legislation to Congress. Despite a great lot of discussion focusing on the broad requirements of Title II, the committee hearings show that there is no mention of the item by any administration official in many pages of testimony (Heise, 2019). Even after the testimony of Kennedy emphasizing the significance of involvement in healing a society’s diseases, not one lawmaker interrogated its connotation or aim. The legislative discussions are also absent of “Maximum feasible participation.”
Civic Action was a risky notion for the national administration to take on. Programs were explicitly tailored to the demands of the target demographic due to this shift of power. “Maximum feasible involvement” was a new model in administration, and many segments were apprehensive about its novel ideas. When President Johnson created the “Office of Economic Opportunity,” he chose a member of President Kennedy’s closest circle, Sargent Shriver.
Eunice Kennedy’s sister, Eunice Shriver, was married to Shriver, the Peace Corps director during the Kennedy administration. With his proven leadership skills, President Johnson was confident in his ability to succeed. Known for his ability to attract critical individuals, President Johnson offered Shriver the role. On October 11, 1964, Shriver was sworn in as the first director of the OEO and immediately went to work (Heise, 2019). Unfortunately, Shriver was unable to begin the process of tackling national poverty concerns due to a lack of resources. However, he formed a fantastic team of experts, including Michael Harrington.
It was inspired by the Ford Foundation’s urban revitalization initiative and the Enlistment for Youth, a platform targeted at decreasing juvenile criminality. Inspired by Saul Alinsky’s Back of the Yards initiative in Chicago, the “father” of “community development” was also significant. Alinsky had a lot to say about the OEO as it progressed, and it is worth noting. “Maximum possible participation” was a crucial component in designing and implementing the program for low-income residents (Heise, 2019). As part of a 1967 amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act (which was referred to as Green Amendment), low-income participation was mandated for community action organizations’ board structure. This requirement supplemented the prior need for tripartite representation (the Quie Amendment).
During Reagan’s presidency in 1981, he introduced the Block Grant, a new method of distributing government funds. For example, the National Agency of Communal Action/Services would now support and oversee Community Action initiatives. In order to administer the Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) and create a strong relationship to deliver comprehensive services to low-income Illinois citizens, Illinois Community Action collaborated more thoroughly in partnership with the Illinois Subdivision of Business as well as Economic Opportunity.
Many low-income people and families still rely on Community Action as a safety net. Community Action has been using the Results Oriented Management and Accountability (ROMA) framework to improve its reporting since 2001, and they’re continually looking for new methods to expand its reach and provide better services (Heise, 2019). To enhance and empower their operations, the State Civic Action Partnership urges all Community Action Agencies to adopt the National Standards of Excellence. In Community Action, the guiding idea of maximal involvement remains in place. Tripartite Community Action Boards are made up of people from many walks of life, including low-income citizens.
Impacts of Maximum Feasible Participation
As envisioned by the Kennedy administration, the “war on poverty” was coordinated with petitioning efforts by Civil Rights supporters, who “mingled” the two connected objectives of voting privileges and the financial side (Hamilton & Hamilton, 1997). Between 1964 and 1966, the anti-destitution movement flourished in black circles, including organizations such as the State Urban League, the NAACP, and CORE, and the Southern Christian Coalition, or SNCC. They experienced poverty’s disenfranchisement impact, with political involvement contingent on meeting basic requirements. From 1964 through 1966, civil rights activists’ advocacy for the impoverished was a fundamental aspect of their efforts. Some, such as the NUL, “felt it their obligation to execute the War on Poverty Programs” (Heise, 2019). Numerous groups benefited from an almost symbiotic partnership with Johnson’s community action activities.
Maximum Feasible Participation had a catalytic impact on the black community’s organization. Because it was so closely aligned with the spirit of enablement shown in the period’s tremendous deployment, the Economic Opportunity Act’s “maximum possible participation” idea quickly favored policymakers and the public alike (Burger, A. 2019). For this reason, over a thousand Community Action Agencies (CAAs) were formed to guarantee that African-Americans could take part. African-Americans were increasingly involved in politics as they became more well-educated and aware of their rights. The fight against poverty sparked a wave of democratic action among the poor, African-Americans and Latinos, and Appalachian whites. George Wiley, a former member of CORE, founded the National Welfare Rights Organization in 1966 to demonstrate this occurrence. As the primary recruiters of community service programs, middle-class whites, especially women, formed grassroots multiracial alliances to express their concerns (Naples, 2018). Although whites were sometimes hesitant to be connected with what they viewed as initiatives meant for blacks, such a community of purpose is worth noting. A large part of the struggle against racism and segregation in the South was implementing federal anti-poverty policies. For example, Head Start programs in the Louisiana Delta or Concentrated Employment Programs in Texas sparked fierce local opposition and racial resentment. The fight against poverty became a fight for the rights of African-Americans to absolute equality.
References
Bradshaw, S., Chant, S., & Linneker, B. (2017). Gender and poverty: what we know, don’t know, and need to know for Agenda 2030. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(12), 1667-1688.
Burger, A. (2019). Maximum Feasible Participation: American Literature and the War on Poverty. By Stephen Schryer.
Elum, Z. A. (2021). Gender and Poverty: Its Influence on Household Food Security in Africa. Gender Equality, 399-411.
Gray, L., Boyle, A., Francks, E., & Yu, V. (2019). The power of small-scale solar: gender, energy poverty, and entrepreneurship in Tanzania. Development in Practice, 29(1), 26-39.
Heise, T. (2019). Maximum Feasible Participation: American Literature and the War on Poverty by Stephen Schryer. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 65(3), 551-554.
Lyon, M. E., Cheng, Y. I., Needle, J., Friebert, S., Baker, J. N., Jiang, J., & Wang, J. (2021). The intersectionality of gender and poverty on symptom suffering among adolescents with cancer. Pediatric Blood & Cancer, e29144.
Naples, N. A. (2018). 3. From Maximum Feasible Participation to Disenfranchisement. In Whose Welfare? (pp. 56-80). Cornell University Press.
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