Reply #90: 'most married women in the US are 1 paycheck away from poverty'

[bobbieinok]

(I think this was the quote.)

This was emphasized over and over and over again in the late 60s and the 70s during the second wave of the women's rights movement (the first was the one that started in Seneca Falls and ended in 1920 when women got the right to vote.)

The point was that if a woman (especially one with children) got divorced, she was VERY likely to fall significantly down the economic ladder. This was, of course, when most married women still quit working to raise children.

The women's liberation movement, MS magazine, NOW, and the other women-centered movements of the time publicized the threat of poverty that stood/stands close behind women with children.

But it seems like for most of the US today the reality of poverty is 'missing.' Just like the poor are 'missing,' except when something like Katrina happens. And the RW talk hosts blame the poor for 'being lazy and shiftless and expecting the govt to help them,' as these talk hosts did again when the 1st anniversary rolled around.

I suspect many in the US think the only sufferers from Katrina 'still demanding help' are black; the devastation and the lack of help for the whites in MS, for example, are just not on the radar for the media and the politicians.

BTW, what is the reaction to the TV show The Wire about Baltimore? After all the shows and research about the poor, often black, in the inner cities and especially in the schools, one is left with the STRONG feeling that the desperation and despair is being/has been deliberately planned. There is simply NO EXCUSE for such conditions to exist or to be tolerated in what is (supposedly) the richest country in the world