In the War on Poverty Women's Bodies are a Battlefield

[McCamy Taylor]

In January, 1964, LBJ declared war on poverty. Over the next forty years, it looked like we were making progress. Total poverty rates fell by almost a half (though rates went up during the Reagan and then the first Bush presidency). Poverty among Black folks was slower to decline, but by the end of the Clinton era, that had fallen by almost a half, too.

One group which continued to experience more than its share of economic hardship was people living in families headed by women. Their poverty rate went from about 40% to 30% by the end of the Clinton era. The numbers were worse for those living in families headed by a single Black mother, 65% to 40%.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html


This is the face of poverty in the United States.



Though the rate of childhood poverty has been reduced thanks to the War on Poverty:

Poverty has significantly fallen among Americans under 18 years old from 23% in 1964 to 16.3% today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty#cite_note-4

Poverty rates continues to be higher for children than for any other group. And if you are a child of color, you are even more likely to be poor—even if your parents work. The effects of growing up poor can last a lifetime. From the National Center for Children in Poverty:

Over 13 million children in the United States—18% of all children—live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level—$22,050 a year for a family of four. Research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 39% of children live in low-income families.

Most of these children have parents who work, but low wages and unstable employment leave their families struggling to make ends meet. Poverty can impede children’s ability to learn and contribute to social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Poverty also can contribute to poor health and mental health. Risks are greatest for children who experience poverty when they are young and/or deep and persistent poverty.

http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html


Imagine growing up poor (through no fault of your own). You do not get necessary preventive health care. Your schools are under funded. Our Calvinist society, which values material wealth above almost all other things and considers riches a sign of God’s blessing, tells you that you are worth less than some other child with designer shoes and the latest video games. Society tells you that your parents love you less---for if they really cared about you, they would buy you those things that show the world that you are loved. You learn to be ashamed and resentful. Since wealth disparity increases problems like family violence, alcohol and drug abuse and depression, there is even more stress heaped upon you at home---



None of this is inevitable. There are ways to combat the epidemic of family and childhood poverty. One factor that lead to a significant decline during the Clinton era was increased availability (and use) of contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

Nationally, the teenage birth rate fell 30 percent from 1991 to 2002, the most recent year for which such statistics are available.

If the rate had not dropped during the decade, 1.2 million more children would have been born to teenage mothers in the United States. Of those, 460,000 would have been living in poverty and 700,000 would have grown up in a single-parent household, according to the analysis. The federal poverty level in 2002 was a $14,494 gross annual income for a parent and two children.

"The data show the power of prevention and how prevention can make a measurable contribution to reducing poverty in children," said Sarah S. Brown, director of the campaign, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51337-2005Apr13.html

These statistics are a little bit misleading. Affluent women who have access to birth control, saw a decrease in unplanned pregnancies. However, as the states and federal government began to restrict access to contraception for poor women in the 1990s, their rates of unplanned pregnancies increased. From the Guttmacher Institute

If the picture for American women overall is one of progress stalled, the picture for poor women is one of progress turned back. The newest data paint a disturbing picture of two very different Americas—one in which middle- and upper-class women are continuing decades of progress in reducing unplanned pregnancy and abortion, and the other in which poor women are facing more unplanned pregnancies and growing rates of abortion.

From 1982 to 1995, as contraceptive use increased among women of all income groups, historical disparities in contraceptive use patterns between richer and poorer Americans also narrowed considerably. Between 1995 and 2002, contraceptive use fell slightly among all women at risk of unintended pregnancy (i.e., women who are sexually active and able to become pregnant, but who are not seeking a pregnancy). But the drop among poor women was significantly larger, from 92% to 86%. And contraceptive use is critical to being able to avoid unplanned pregnancy: The 11% of at-risk women who do not use contraception account for half of all unplanned pregnancies.

With contraceptive use falling sharply among low-income women, it is no surprise that their rate of unplanned pregnancy has been rising. Between 1994 and 2001, the unintended pregnancy rate for poor women shot up by 29%, even as it fell 20% for more affluent women. A poor woman in the United States is now nearly four times as likely as a more affluent woman to have an unplanned pregnancy (see chart). As a result, un-planned pregnancy is becoming ever more concentrated among poor women: The 16% of women at risk of unplanned pregnancy who are poor account for 30% of all unplanned pregnancies.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/09/3/gpr090302.html


Part of the problem has been right wing ideologues who object to effective sex education in schools, on the grounds that teaching children to have “safe sex” will encourage sexual activity. Plenty of studies have shown that the money spent on “abstinence only” programs has been wasted. They might as well have flushed those millions down the toilet. Another right wing movement has been the attack on contraception. No, not abortion. Birth control. Here is just one example of the propaganda that is used to encourage restrictive laws.

The American Life League blames birth control -- all birth control, conflating the pill with less time-tested contraceptives -- for abortions and a wide variety of deadly health problems. The group's Web site also helpfully provides a nationwide map to facilities and protests. More ominously in the wake of George Tiller's murder, it includes some ambiguous language about who should use it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/05/right-wing-protestors-bir_n_212030.html

Think about it a moment. If you want to cut down on the number of abortions, then reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies is the key. But here is this site which tells you that birth control pills and DepoProvera and IUDs are all the same as abortion, because they occasional prevent implantation of a fertilized egg (they call it a “baby” though science will tell you that it is an undifferentiated ball of cells).

http://www.prolife.com/BIRTHCNT.html

Is not this counterproductive? By seeking to restrict or ban birth control, aren't these folks really trying to increase the number of unwanted pregnancies? And, if abortion is no longer an option, doesn't that mean that they want to see more babies born into poverty? We all know how callous these groups become once the child is delivered. Suddenly, the precious embryo becomes a "welfare baby" to be scorned, segregated and finally incarcerated.

Now, consider for a moment the many different groups which are joined together under the umbrella of the Republican Party and especially the right wing of that party. You get folks who hate welfare with a passion—they should endorse anything that cuts down on poverty rates, but for some reason they always seem most angry at programs like Head Start which actually do something to ameliorate the effects of growing up poor so that children of poverty do not become adults of poverty. Under the same umbrella you find Right to Life whose raison d’etre is to prevent abortions---and yet, they attack the birth control and sex education which cuts down on the rate of unplanned pregnancy which cuts down on the rate of abortion with the same fervor that they go after partial birth abortions.

You also find business interests such as the nation’s Chambers of Commerce. Indeed, the business groups dominate the GOP, even its right wing. Note how the uber-reactionary Bush administration always came out in favor of business, when it was a matter of money versus morality. Business should want to see its taxes go down. They should want to see a productive work force. They should voluntarily cover contraceptive services for their employees under their health insurance plans rather than forcing the federal government to force them to do it. What are they doing in bed with the folks who are attempting to increase rates of unplanned pregnancy, childhood poverty and the ills which accompany it?

Business in this country has some very good reasons to want to see things continue as they are. First, they rely upon women for cheap labor in a variety of jobs. Unequal salaries (and promotions) for women are justified on the grounds that female employees just are not reliable. At any moment they could get pregnant and quit. Or their kids could get sick. Never mind that they may be the most dependable of workers, since they have kids to feed. The business community stigmatizes them as second class workers, and so they get a full day’s work out of them for a reduced wage.

Second, the underpaid, poorly educated politically passive workers of tomorrow come from the deprived children of today. Send a kid to bad schools, toss him in jail for some minor violation (his folks could not afford a lawyer), give him health problems (remember that illness is one of the major reasons people slip into poverty), and one day he will work in your chicken plucking factory for minimum wage without benefits. And the presence of a subclass of workers who have always lived in poverty and expect to die in poverty can be used to keep wages down for everyone. If workers do not toe the line, they know that there are desperate people out there who will do the job for less.

There is plenty of woman-hating involved in the battle to deprive women of contraceptive choice, but prejudice against women is not the primary problem. In most cases, we do not grow up hating our mothers and sisters. The economic forces which exploit women---and force them to give birth to the next generation of poor workers---creates a climate in which women are reviled so that no one will listen to their concerns or attempt to improve their status. For the same reason, they have encouraged racial bigotry, prejudice against immigrants and even religious hostility. Anything to keep workers from showing solidarity with each other.

So, when you hear some right winger object to public funding for birth control on the grounds that the same provider also does abortion, consider that they are doing the bidding of the local Wal-Mart or Motel 6, which relies upon poor women raising poor children to keep their costs low and their profits up.

This is family values for a lot of right wingers in America. Making money off the suffering of children.

[DAMANgoldberg]

1. K&R

Thanks Mr. Taylor, for opening my eyes to a situation I haven't given much thought to. All I can say is "What Goes Around Comes Around." It may be beyond our generation, but "God Don't Like Ugly." and will fix this mess. Business can only have profits when they have a market to buy their goods, keeping 1/3 or more of your base down is long-term destructive and hopefully short-term as well. I don't hate Wal-Mart (I shop there and have delivered there) but there will come a point when it's in their interest to do the right thing by women.

[imdjh]

2. One of the more surprising things to look at is the "free or reduced price lunch" in schools

Pick an area that you think is kind of well off. Pick a county, since school systems are done by county. Then pick a school in a nice neighborhood. Then go to the school ratings websites and see what the demographics for that school are. You will probably be surprised. Even in some really nice places, an inordinate number of kids are eligible for free or reduced price lunch.

Now, of course we have to take into account that these numbers are corrupt. Schools get more of certain kinds of money and other resources if they have high numbers of kids in poverty. So the definition of poverty and the qualification for that prestigious designation are probably a little off what you or I might consider "real poverty". But even if the numbers are off, they are still higher than one would think, and they tell us that one of the key indicators of poverty is having or being a child.

[Triana]

3. K & R and bookmarking. ..

I really like your posts McCamy Taylor. You do a great job putting all the relevant pieces together and obviously put a lot of work into them. Thanks for all your efforts.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Incomes of men without college degrees also went down in this time period. It all sucks. nt

[juno jones]

5. Well said, K&R! n/t

[ensho]

6. K&R

nt

[Laelth]

7. Brilliant. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[handmade34]

8. excellent!

as long as money is the driving force, imposed ignorance persists and women are not respected, there continues to be suffering.

[Quantess]

9. Excellent. But only 8 posts?

It's funny how the best OPs have the fewest responses. I think it's because nobody can find anything to criticize or argue about.