Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 14 Questions/Comments"
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First, let me just say that I love Mrs. Tillmon. Second, I would hate to be on welfare and I hope I will never have to deal with it and by reading this piece I really felt for Mrs. Tillmon. It really helped me to see a different side of being on welfare. I see that we as a society have always looked down on those who resort to the use of welfare because we tend to think of them as inhuman. “In this country, if your any one of those things-poor, black, fat, female, middle-aged, on welfare-you count less as a human being,” (268). We see such people as taking our money because they are too lazy to work, but who are we to place such stereotypes upon these people? We just assume things having never experienced them and I see that we tend to believe what the politicians say as welfare being a “cancer eating at our vitals,” (287). We never see the people as mothers or children, just poor people taking away more of our money, aliens to the little world we live in. I’ll admit that I thought that same before because I’ve never had to deal with it. I like that Mrs. Tillmon comes up with a solution though and a smart one at that: “I’d start paying women a living wage for doing the work we are already doing-child-raising and housekeeping,” (289). This way the welfare crisis would be over and housewives wouldn’t be looked down upon either. We’ve spoken of working women as being more outgoing and not seen as “true women” either. Wouldn’t that all fix itself as women got paid for their domestic work in their house? I think we would be respected more and have more opportunities. I would definitely be rich by now. =) -Morgan | First, let me just say that I love Mrs. Tillmon. Second, I would hate to be on welfare and I hope I will never have to deal with it and by reading this piece I really felt for Mrs. Tillmon. It really helped me to see a different side of being on welfare. I see that we as a society have always looked down on those who resort to the use of welfare because we tend to think of them as inhuman. “In this country, if your any one of those things-poor, black, fat, female, middle-aged, on welfare-you count less as a human being,” (268). We see such people as taking our money because they are too lazy to work, but who are we to place such stereotypes upon these people? We just assume things having never experienced them and I see that we tend to believe what the politicians say as welfare being a “cancer eating at our vitals,” (287). We never see the people as mothers or children, just poor people taking away more of our money, aliens to the little world we live in. I’ll admit that I thought that same before because I’ve never had to deal with it. I like that Mrs. Tillmon comes up with a solution though and a smart one at that: “I’d start paying women a living wage for doing the work we are already doing-child-raising and housekeeping,” (289). This way the welfare crisis would be over and housewives wouldn’t be looked down upon either. We’ve spoken of working women as being more outgoing and not seen as “true women” either. Wouldn’t that all fix itself as women got paid for their domestic work in their house? I think we would be respected more and have more opportunities. I would definitely be rich by now. =) -Morgan | ||
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| + | I agree with what Morgan has stated. It is clear from this piece that being on welfare automatically labels a person with a negative stereotype. I think that this piece shows the difficulty that women have raising a family as a single mother, especially since the A.F.D.C, in most cases, prohibited a male in the household in order to qualify. The part that stuck out to me was Tillmon's distinction between ''a'' man and ''the'' man. She showed how the government was, in essence, controlling women who accepted this welfare. Her line, "The truth is that A.F.D.C is like a supersexist marriage. You trade in ''a'' man for ''the'' man" (287). It seems like these women who have no other options, but to be on welfare because they do not make enough money to support themselves and their children, have to loose a part of their sexuality as a consequence. This statement really grabbed me when Tillmon states, "There's one good thing about welfare. It kills your illusions about yourself, and about where this society is really at...You have to learn to fight, to be aggressive, or you just don't make it. If you can survive being on welfare, you can survive anything" (289). If this doesn't read like empowerment, I'm not sure what else does. -abratchi | ||
==The Voice of the an Anorexic, Abra Fortune Chernik, 1995== | ==The Voice of the an Anorexic, Abra Fortune Chernik, 1995== | ||
