13. mars flytur Jill Weigt, aðstoðarprófessor í félagsfræði við San Marcos háskóla í Kaliforníu, fyrirlesturinn Neo-liberalism, American Style: Gender and Life in the Low-wage Labor Market.

Summary

In 1996, under neo-liberal pressures to scale back public spending, the U.S. government dismantled a significant income support program that had been available to poor American families for 60 years. Under the new regulations of what is commonly referred to as “welfare reform,” poor mothers are now pushed into low-wage jobs which rarely offer supports such as health care, paid leave, or sick leave (none of which are universally guaranteed by the government). How have these dramatic changes shaped families? What can they tell us about race, class, and gender? Using quantitative and qualitative data from longitudinal study of women who left welfare for the low-wage labor force, Professor Weigt argues that welfare reform represents a coercive reorganization of poor mothers’ relationship to the state, to the labor market, and to their own families in ways which aggravate race, class, and gender inequalities.