White Women Of Poverty : Are They Dying Younger?

IExperiencing gender inequality at CU reflected an ugly truth: The United States has not moved past discrimination! In uncovering, the country’s gruesome treatment of black women, I found that gender and racial discrimination overlap because they are simultaneously experienced. The United States has a long history of treating women unequally, especially black women. Before the enactment of the 19th Amendment, white women did not allow black women to join the Woman’s Suffrage Movement because of racial prejudice, and they feared that the government might dismantle the organization (Dumenil 2007). Fortunately, in 1920, women gained the right to vote through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. However, because most states in the country

The essay,” What’s Killing Poor White Women” by Monica Potts is found on pages 591 to 609 in “They Say I Say” by Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. The author of this essay Monica Potts is a writer for The American Prospect and also has work featured on The Connecticut Post, Stamford Advocate, and The New York Times. This essay however was featured on The American Prospect on September 3, 2013 and she discusses the story of a 38 year old women named Crystal strange death. Crystal had dropped out of high school in the ninth grade, got married to a man 12 years older than her and had a child who she named Megan. The author believes Crystal and many other poor white women like her die because they cannot get good jobs because

In the article, The Original Underclass Alec Mcgillis discusses how after the Trump election, people began to place blame on low-class Americans for his successful election. In the article, Mcgillis explains why Donald Trump would appeal to this many Americans. Mcgullis starts his point by stating, “low-income whites were starting to mimic trends that had begun decades earlier among African Americans” (Mcgillis par. 2). Mcgillis explains that even though “blacks and Hispanics” were not flourishing this helped create the narrative of “white woe”. He sues these points to connect low income people across the board throughout time. Mcgillis uses two novels White Trash: 400-year Untold History of Class in America and Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir

Peggy McIntosh concludes white privilege is, “an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious.” The writer came to this conclusion when observing male privilege initially in America. McIntosh discusses the lack of acknowledgement of men when it came to addressing their own advantages over women even if they could admit the position of disadvantage of women. This shed light on how white privilege is curtailed; In the United States, foundations of our society are interlaced with institutionalized privilege creates unethical levels of dominance; dominance of males over females, whites over people of color,

Peddy McIntosh highlighted various unearned white privileges in her autobiographical article “White Privilege, Color and Crime: A Personal Account.” She illustrated the white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that one white person could count on cashing in each day. White people have these privileges given to them by the society in which they live in. The same society taught them to be ignorant and unawareness of these privileges. This system of unearned privileges established by white individuals made people of color feel oppressed. In this system being white is a norm and dominant power. Caucasians, who benefit most from the white privilege system in the United States, are more likely to

This week, the readings touched on issues relating to resistance and social change. Martinez explains how the U.S. has struggled to see issues of race beyond just Black and white. She also stresses the importance of including other races when speaking on these issues. Hernandez argues that the mainstream feminist movement fails to include minority and low-income women and the issues they face. She states that the movement only benefits white middle class women. Collins explains how people’s ideas and behaviors actualize other people’s inequalities. She says comparing levels of oppression is a competition for attention and instead we should use a new mentality that interlocks these inequalities. Harris

In her article, author Leslie Mann uses a study conducted by Paula England, a professor of sociology at New York University. In England’ study, she followed educated and uneducated women that were born between 1958 to 1964. The study included black, Hispanic, and Asian women, but most of the women studied were white women. These women were interviewed and asked questions based on their education history, career, relationships, and marriages. In her article, Mann included an interview with a woman named Vicki Rautiokoski, as well as statements from England and another professor named Barbara Risman. Because England and Riseman were both professors of sociology and Rautiokoski had the experience of an educated married woman, Mann used their knowledge in her article to support her analysis.

Throughout history, women have faced with a plethora of challenges that called for them to transcend society’s limitations. One of these situations was the challenges presented by the terrible living and factory conditions in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire took the lives of 146 immigrant women and devastated New York; and due to the theft-preventative measures of locking the doors to the factory, owner, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck led to even more lives being lost. This situation, although terrible, was not that uncommon. As these immigrant women arrived in the United States, there would be a typical and similar experience among many; one that started with the problems offered upon arrival,

     It is claimed in the Backwoods Home Magazine that because of welfare checks given to the blacks, which eliminates the head of the household, lead to an increase in crime. The politicians now try not to admit that they were wrong, and made a mistake, but rather place the blame on guns for the high crime rate in America. The writer of this article also seems to be racist. He writes things like “particularly the black poor,” “the latter half of the plan worked fine: most poor now vote Democratic and 95% of blacks to” (Silveira, Gun Control, race, and rotten politicians, 1). My understanding is that the writer singles blacks out as being poor.

Poverty and homelessness are serious issues in the U.S. today, especially because of the current recession, with levels of poverty and unemployment higher than at any time since the 1930s. Blacks and Hispanics are being affected disproportionately by homelessness, as well as poverty and unemployment in American society. This is just another example of the racial caste system and institutional racism that goes far beyond that of social class, and has always been the case in recessions and indeed with every other social and economic problem in American history. Even though the country elected a black president in 2008, wealth and incomes for minority groups, which were already far lower than whites, have been in severe decline for the past few years (Baumann 2001). Compared to the trillions of dollars in federal assistance that has been extended to the large financial institutions from TARP and the Federal Reserve, programs to aid the poor and homeless have been very inadequate, and are even being cut back on the local, state and federal levels.

As the book progresses through the years, Blevins begins to introduce several famous faces that call Arkansas their home, in what he calls the Heyday of the Hillbilly. He mentions everyone from musicians to actors, athletes to novelists, and intellects to political figures. For each one mentioned, Blevins describes their experience with the Arkansas image, whether they found a way to embrace it or let it bring them down. It's

Although Carol Anderson talks about how police brutality was most likely led by racial prejudice, she also talks about how that shooting was about more than skin color. She states that some of these shootings and attacks may have been led by salary and income. Anderson says, “So when you think of Ferguson, don’t just think of black resentment in the criminal justice system that allows a white police officer to put six bullets into an unarmed black teen. Consider the economic dislocation of black America.” (87). She talks about how, on average, white Americans tend to make more than black Americans and how this may actually play a big factor in these shootings across the world. She also talks about how before the recession of 2008 whites made about four times as much as blacks and that rose to six times their income by 2010. This economic divide could explain some of these unlawful killings that are shown in the media. Carol Anderson refers to idea that if people start to look past the obvious racism led shootings and look more into other causes and biases, then there may be hope for a more peaceful society.

Rich maintains that white feminism begins with the faulty US education system, or for this paper’s purposes, the North American education system. Rich (1984) contends that “Any United States citizen alive today has been saturated with…the warning that any collective restructuring of society spells the end of personal freedom.…But we are not invited to consider the butcheries…of white supremacism” (p. 220). The lack of perspective for North Americans

Crystal lost her only outlet when softball died. However, would this affect women who had a job or more education than Crystal? Education is said to prolong life by many years, but unfortunately for Crystal, she never finished high school. She never even thought about college, seeing that she dropped out of high school in the tenth grade to get married.

Poverty has increasingly become a noticeable issue worldwide over the past couple of decades. With the middle class steadily decreasing, considerable amounts of people are becoming part of the lower class, and even more of our world’s population are beginning to live in poverty. It is important to understand there are different definitions of poverty, and that is largely determined by what each country’s government determines as the cut off of poverty, otherwise known as the ‘poverty line’. Although some people could live above the poverty line, and still be struggling financially, it goes unrecognized by most research collection. However, what was initially noticed around the 1970’s is that there was a significant rise in women’s poverty statistics. More female-headed households were living in poverty, and a majority of those women belonged to a minority. This recognizable trend has been deemed the ‘feminization of poverty’, which according research is not only a growing problem in North America, but several other countries around the world. Information gathered about this issue in the United States shows that female-headed households is by far the fastest growing type of family structure, and due to the fact there is a growing poverty level amongst this group, it now means that approximately half of the all the poor in the United States live in a women-headed family and household. (Gimenez, 1999, p. 336) The biggest question when is comes to this particular topic is why?