Focusing on the welfare rights movement, this book explores the activism of poor women on AFDC from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. These women fought for welfare reform, dignity, and financial support to care for their children, advocating for the right to welfare. The movement transcended political boundaries, intertwining women's rights, economic justice, and empowerment for black women. Members actively challenged stereotypes, engaged in Congressional discussions, and developed a nuanced political framework that combined race, class, gender, and culture.
Focusing on the welfare rights movement, the book explores a unique form of feminism that developed in the 1960s. Premilla Nadasen examines the historical context and evolution of this movement, highlighting its significance and impact on women's rights. Through her analysis, she reveals the intersection of social welfare and feminist activism, shedding light on the contributions of marginalized women to the broader feminist discourse.
"Premilla Nadasen recounts in this powerful book a little-known history of organizing among African American household workers. She uses the stories of a handful of women to illuminate the broader politics of labor, organizing, race, and gender in late 20th-century America. At the crossroads of the emerging civil rights movement, a deindustrializing economy, a burgeoning women's movement, and increasing immigration, household worker activists, who were excluded from both labor rights and mainstream labor organizing, developed distinctive strategies for political mobilization and social change. We learn about their complicated relationship with their employers, who were a source of much of their anguish, but, also, potentially important allies. And equally important they articulated a profound challenge to unequal state policy. Household Workers Unite offers a window into this occupation from a perspective that is rarely seen. At a moment when the labor movement is in decline; as capital increasingly treats workers as interchangeable or indispensible; as the number of manufacturing jobs continues to dwindle and the number of service sector jobs expands; as workers in industrialized countries find themselves in an precarious situation and struggle hard to make ends meet without state support or protection--the lessons of domestic worker organizing recounted here might prove to be more important than just a correction of the historical record. The women in this book, as Nadasen demonstrates, were innovative labor organizers. As a history of poor women workers, it shatters countless myths and assumptions about the labor movement and proposes a very different vision"
A powerful critique of the care economy, from its roots in racial capitalism to its explosion during the neoliberal era--and a call for alternative visions for a caring society. Since the earliest days of the pandemic, care work has been thrust into the national spotlight. But as Premilla Nadasen argues in Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, we have only begun to understand the massive role the labor of social reproduction plays in our lives and our economy. Drawing on the stories of domestic workers, nurses, and other care workers past and present, Nadasen traces the rise of the care economy, from its roots in slavery, where there was no clear division between production and social reproduction for Black and brown people, to the present care crisis, experienced acutely by more and more Americans. In the neoliberal era, Nadasen shows, we've seen the expansion of a new stage of capitalism. Today's care economy is an institutionalized, hierarchical system in which some people's pain translates into other people's profit. But this is also a story of resistance. Low-wage workers and women of color in movements from Wages for Housework and Welfare Rights to the Movement for Black Lives have continued to fight for and practice collective care. These groups help us envision how, given the challenges before us, we can create a caring world as part of a radical future.
