Welfare is a Womenâs Issue (1972) by Johnnie Tillmon
Iâm a woman. Iâm a black woman. Iâm a poor woman. Iâm a fat woman. Iâm a middle-aged woman. And Iâm on welfare.
In this country, if youâre any one of those things you count less as a human being. If youâre all those things, you donât count at all. Except as a statistic.
I am 45 years old. I have raised six children. There are millions of statistics like me. Some on welfare. Some not. And some, really poor, who donât even know theyâre entitled to welfare. Not all of them are black. Not at all. In fact, the majority-about two-thirds-of all the poor families in the country are white.
Welfareâs like a traffic accident. It can happen to anybody, but especially it happens to women.
And thatâs why welfare is a womenâs issue. For a lot of middle-class women in this country, Womenâs Liberation is a matter of concern. For women on welfare itâs a matter of survival.
Survival. Thatâs why we had to go on welfare. And thatâs why we canât get off welfare now. Not us women. Not until we do something about liberating poor women in this country.
Because up until now weâve been raised to expect to work, all our lives, for nothing. Because we are the worst educated, the least-skilled, and the lowest-paid people there are. Because we have to be almost totally responsible for our children. Because we are regarded by everybody as dependents. Thatâs why we are on welfare. And thatâs why we stay on it.
Welfare is the most prejudiced institution in this country, even more than marriage, which it tries to imitate. Let me explain that a little.
Ninety-nine percent of welfare families are headed by women. There is no man around. In half the states there canât be men around because A.F.D.C. (Aid to Families With Dependent Children) says if there is an âable-bodiedâ man around, then you canât be on welfare. If the kids are going to eat, and the man canât get a job, then heâs got to go.
Welfare is like a super-sexist marriage. You trade in a man for the man. But you canât divorce him if he treats you bad. He can divorce you, of course, cut you off anytime he wants. But in that case, he keeps the kids, not you.The man runs everything. In ordinary marriage, sex is supposed to be for your husband. On A.F.D.C., youâre not supposed to have any sex at all. You give up control of your own body. Itâs a condition of aid. You may even have to agree to get your tubes tied so you can never have more children just to avoid being cut off welfare.
The man, the welfare system, controls your money. He tells you what to buy, what not to buy, where to buy it, and how much things cost. If things-rent, for instance-really cost more than he says they do, itâs just too bad for you. Heâs always right.
Thatâs why Governor [Ronald] Reagan can get away with slandering welfare recipients, calling them âlazy parasites,â âpigs at the trough,â and such. Weâve been trained to believe that the only reason people are on welfare is because thereâs something wrong with their character. If people have âmotivation,â if people only want to work, they can, and they will be able to support themselves and their kids in decency.
The truth is a job doesnât necessarily mean an adequate income. There are some ten million jobs that now pay less than the minimum wage, and if youâre a woman, youâve got the best chance of getting one. Why would a 45-year-old woman work all day in a laundry ironing shirts at 90-some cents an hour? Because she knows thereâs some place lower she could be. She could be on welfare. Society needs women on welfare as âexamplesâ to let every woman, factory workers and housewife workers alike, know what will happen if she lets up, if sheâs laid off, if she tries to go it alone without a man. So these ladies stay on their feet or on their knees all their lives instead of asking why theyâre only getting 90-some cents an hour, instead of daring to fight and complain.
Maybe we poor welfare women will really liberate women in this country. Weâve already started on our own welfare plan. Along with other welfare recipients, we have organized so we can have some voice. Our group is called the National Welfare Rights Organization (N.W.R.O.). We put together our own welfare plan, called Guaranteed Adequate Income (G.A.I.), which would eliminate sexism from welfare. There would be no âcategoriesâ-men, women, children, single, married, kids, no kids-just poor people who need aid. Youâd get paid according to need and family size only and that would be upped as the cost of living goes up.
As far as Iâm concerned, the ladies of N.W.R.O. are the front-line troops of womenâs freedom. Both because we have so few illusions and because our issues are so important to all women-the right to a living wage for womenâs work, the right to life itself.
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