| Inclusion
of Class and Poverty in Women's Studies Suzanne C. Griffith and Hal S. Bertilson 26th Annual University of Wisconsin-System Women's Studies Conference November 3, 2001 at UW-Waukesha |
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| 1. | Abstract--This session focused on engaging students in issues of class and brining voices of women in poverty into the discussion. | ||
| 2. | Welcomer--Renee Gralewicz, UW Colleges | ||
| 3. | Introductions | ||
| 4. | Purpose--Discussion
of our collaboration over the years from the study of
class and our intent6ions in this panel. |
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| 5. | Background | ||
| a. | S. Griffith discussed the background and conclusions involved in the the review of race, sex, and class at U.W. Superior in Belkhir, J., Griffith, S., Beam, R., Carroll, D., Garsombke, D., & Pulford, M. Multidisciplinary Reviews of Race, Sex & Class. Race, Sex & Class: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 7-30. | ||
| b. | H. Bertilson reviewed the evolution of his pedagogy in teaching of Psychology of Women 358. [Discussion will be added here including the citation for Barbara Walvoord's UTIC workshop at Faculty College. | ||
| c. | S. Griffith and H. Bertilson briefly reviewed their findings in Griffith, S. C., & Bertilson, H. S. (1998). Where is the voice of women in poverty in the psychology classroom? In K. A. Rhoades & A. Statham (Eds.). Speaking Out: Women, Poverty, and Public Policy: Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Women's Studies Conference, 183-190. | ||
| d. | The APA Resolution on
Poverty and Socioeconomic Status, Adopted by the American
Psychological Association, August 6, 2000 at http://www.apa.org/pi/urban/povres.html
was discussed. S. Griffith and H. Bertilson argue that
poverty and socioeconomic status needs also to be an
significant part of undergraduate curriculum, an area not
included in the APA resolution. |
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| 6. | S. Griffith presented her analysis of "But how do we teach it?" | ||
| a. | Present endeavors. | ||
| b. | Models from multicultural inclusion. | ||
| c. | Ideas from 1994 article. | ||
| d. | Getting comfortable
ourselves with teaching. |
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| 7. | H. Bertilson described the ways in which the experience of poverty has been included in Psychology of Women 358 through four stages of course development. | ||
| a. | Reading about women in poverty as objects. | ||
| 1. | Several readings will be inserted here. | ||
| b. | Reading about women in poverty as personal. | ||
| 1. | Dorothy Allison, author of the acclaimed novel Bastard Out of Carolina, writes about "the greatest, yet least recognized, dividing line in American society: social class. As a lesbian feminist who comes from an impoverished working-class family, she insists that these multiple identities must be claimed. Allison describes how she learned to hide and run away from her family background and her history of sexual and physical abuse. As a writer, however, she learned to give voice to the contradictions of her multiple identities" (Crawford & Unger, 2001, p. 58). | ||
| "The first time I heard, 'They're different than us, don't value human life the way we do,' I was in high school in Central Florida. The man speaking was an army recruiter talking to a bunch of boys, telling them what the army was really like, what they could expect overseas. A cold angry feeling swept over me. I had heard the word they pronounced in the same callous tone before. They, those people over there, those people who are not us, they die so easily, kill each other so casually. They are different. We, I thought. Me. | |||
| "When I was six or eight back in Greenville, South Carolina, I had heard that same matter-of-fact tone of dismissal applied to me. 'Don't you play with her. I don't want you talking to them.' Me and my family, we had always been they. Who am I? I wondered, listening to that recruiter. Who are my people? We die so easily, disappear so completely--we/they, the poor and the queer. I pressed my bony white trash fists to my stubborn lesbian mouth. The rage was a good feeling, stronger and purer than the shame that followed it, the fear and the sudden urge to run and hide, to deny, pretend who I was and what the world would do to me" (Allison, 2001, 58-59). | |||
| "I have known I was a lesbian since I was a teenager, and I have spent a good twenty years making peace with the effects of incest and physical abuse. But what may be the central fact of my life is that I was born in 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina, the bastard daughter of a white woman from a desperately poor family, a girl who had left the seventh grade the year before, worked as a waitress, and was just a month past fifteen when she had me. That fact, the inescapable impact of being born in a condition of poverty that this society finds shameful, contemptible, and somehow deserved, has had dominion over me to such an extent that I have spent my life trying to overcome or deny it. I have learned with great difficulty that the vast majority of people believe that poverty is a voluntary condition" (Allison, 2001, 59). | |||
| c. | Voices and experience in the classroom. | ||
| Spring semester a woman from transitional housing spoke to the Psychology of Women class. She had been on welfare herself and brought two friends who had been on welfare. As they began to discuss their experience on welfare, three students in the class shared their experience on welfare. The class of 30 students heard the experiences of 6 women who had been on welfare. They were moved by the stories of hardship and unreasonable rules. For example, all the students remember yet that when the agency learned that a daughter was saving money for college the daughter was forced to spend the money on clothes, bicelyes, etc. or the family would lose benefts. Savings are not permitted. | |||
| d. | Community work. A volunteer option has been added as an option to the term paper. A social work faculty member at UW-Superior made the initial contacts and informed H. Bertilson that the following agenices would be willing to work with his students. The requirement was 20 hours of volunteering. | ||
| Aging Resource Center of Douglas County W2 Program for Douglas County Salvation Army Family Services Wrap Around Program |
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| e. | A statement will be added here about students working on independent study women and poverty projects. | ||
| f. | A statement will be added here about
adapting the readers theatre approach of Katherine
Rhoades, etc. Panel B2 at this conference to sharing the
Liebow book. |
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| e. | References of readings on
women in poverty currently used in Psychology of women
358 at UW-Superior Allison, D. (2001). A question of class. In M. Crawford & R. Unger (Eds.). In our own words: Writings from Women's Lives. Boston: McGraw-Hill. 2nd Edition. Colen,
S. (2001). "With respect and feelings": Voices
of West Indian child care and domestic workers in New
York City. In M. Crawford & R. Unger (Eds.). In
our own words: Writings from Women's Lives. Boston:
McGraw-Hill. 2nd Edition. Williams, M.. (2001). Ladies on the line: Punjabi cannery workers in Central California. In M. Crawford & R. Unger (Eds.). In our own words: Writings from Women's Lives. Boston: McGraw-Hill. 2nd Edition. |
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| 8. | S. Griffith briefly reviewed
data from student surveys and exams in Psychology of
Women 358 which reflect student perceptions of their
understanding of the lives of women in poverty. |
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| 9. | Books and journal articles recommended for use in the undergraduate classroom from the current review by Bertilson, H. S., Griffith, S. C., Gunderson, J, & Cassiman, S. Voices of poor women: Opportunities for undergraduate education (Manuscript in preparation. Copies may be obtain from Hal Bertilson at hbertils@facstaff.uwsuper.edu). | ||
Dujon, D., & Withorn, A. (1996). For crying out loud: Women's poverty in the United States. Boston: South End Press.
Holloway, S. D., Fuller, B., Rambaud, M. F., & Eggers-Pierola, C. (1997). Through my own eyes: Single mothers and the cultures of poverty. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Polakow, V. (1993). Lives on the Edge: Single mothers and their children in teh other America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schein, V. E. (1995). Working from the Margins: Voices of mothers in poverty. Cornell University Press.
Seccombe, K. (1999). "So you think I drive a Cadillac?": Welfare recipients' perspectives on the system and its reform. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Approximately 50 similar resources have been identified and will be added to this list. The manuscript that is in preparation will review these resources and include brief samples of the narratives.
This page was last updated 11-4-01. Additional references will be added by 11-20-01