Skip to main content
Intended for healthcare professionals
Restricted access
Research article
First published online November 17, 2014

Negotiating “The Welfare Queen” and “The Strong Black Woman”: African American Middle-Class Mothers’ Work and Family Perspectives

Abstract

This research analyzes how African American middle- and upper-middle-class mothers understand their work and family decision making in relation to two controlling images—the Strong Black Woman (SBW) and the Welfare Queen—that they describe regularly confronting in their lives. In-depth interviews with 60 African American middle- and upper-middle-class mothers reveal the strategies these mothers use to overcome assumptions that they are poor, single mothers on welfare or, alternatively, are self-reliant and resilient caregivers who do not need help. Although most interviewees distanced themselves from the image of the Welfare Queen, they had a range of responses to the SBW: Some invested in it, some resisted it, and some rejected it. This study shows how the controlling images of the SBW and the Welfare Queen influence the meanings African American middle- and upper-middle-class mothers attach to their decisions related to work and family and create a sense of exclusion from white middle-class mothering communities.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

References

Abramovitz Mimi. 1996. Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. Rev. ed. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Angelou Maya. 1978. And Still I Rise. 1st ed. New York: Random House.
Barnes Riché Jeneen Daniel. 2008. “Black Women have Always Worked: Is There a Work-Family Conflict among the Black Middle Class?” Pp. 189–210 in The Changing Landscape of Work and Family in the American Middle Class: Reports from the Field, edited by Rudd Elizabeth, Descartes Lara. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Bay Area Census. 2010. San Francisco Bay Area. Retrieved October 18, 2014 (http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm).
Beauboeuf-Lafontant Tamara. 2003. “Strong and Large Black Women? Exploring Relationships between Deviant Womanhood and Weight.” Gender & Society 17(1):111–21.
Beauboeuf-Lafontant Tamara. 2009. Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman: Voice and the Embodiment of a Costly Performance. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Belkin Lisa. 2003. “The Opt-out Revolution.” New York Times Magazine, October 26, pp. 42–47.
Bennett Lerone. 1963. “The Negro Woman.” Ebony Magazine, September, pp. 86–94.
Blair-Loy Mary. 2003. Competing Devotions: Career and Family among Women Executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Blake John. 2012. “Return of the Welfare Queen.” CNN. Retrieved October 18, 2014 (http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/politics/weflare-queen/index.html).
Blum Linda M., Deussen Theresa. 1996. “Negotiating Independent Motherhood—Working-class African American Women Talk about Marriage and Motherhood.” Gender & Society 10(2):199–211.
Burawoy Michael. 1998. “The Extended Case Method.” Sociological Theory 16(1):4–33.
Christopher Karen. 2012. “Extensive Mothering: Employed Mothers’ Constructions of the Good Mother.” Gender & Society 26(1):73–96.
Christopher Karen. 2013. “African Americans’ and Latinas’ Mothering Scripts: An Intersectional Analysis.” Advances in Gender Research 17:187–208.
Collins Patricia Hill. 2009. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge Classics.
Coontz Stephanie. 1992. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books.
Coontz Stephanie. 1997. The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families. New York: Basic Books.
Damaske Sarah. 2011. For the Family?: How Class and Gender Shape Women’s Work. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dean Paul. 2013. “Cultural Contradiction or Integration? Work–Family Schemas of Black Middle Class Mothers.” Advances in Gender Research 17:137–58.
Edwards Audrey. 1998. Black and White Women: What Still Divides Us? Essence, March, pp. 77–80, 136–140.
Estes Sarah Beth. 2005. “Work–Family Arrangements and Parenting: Are ‘Family-Friendly’ Arrangements Related to Mothers’ Involvement in Children’s Lives?” Sociological Perspectives 48(3):293–317.
Frazier Edward Franklin. 1939. The Negro Family in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Garey Anita Ilta. 1999. Weaving Work & Motherhood (Women in the Political Economy). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Gerson Kathleen. 1985. Hard Choices: How Women Decide about Work, Career, and Motherhood, California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Gerson Kathleen. 2010. The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation Is Reshaping Family, Work, and Gender in America. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Gilliam Franklin D. Jr. 1999. “The ‘Welfare Queen’ Experiment.” Nieman Reports 53(2):49–52.
Glaser Barney G., Strauss Anselm L. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Observations. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Glenn Evelyn Nakano. 1992. “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor.” Signs 18(1):1–43.
Glenn Evelyn Nakano, Chang Grace, Forcey Linda Rennie. 1994. Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, Perspectives on Gender. New York: Routledge.
Gordon Linda. 1994. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, 1890-1935. New York: Free Press.
Hancock Ange-Marie. 2003. “Contemporary Welfare Reform and the Public Identity of the ‘Welfare Queen.’” Race, Gender & Class 10(1):31–59.
Harris-Perry Melissa V. 2011. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Hays Sharon. 1996. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Hays Sharon. 2003. Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Higginbotham Elizabeth. 2001. Too Much to Ask: Black Women in the Era of Integration (Gender and American Culture). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Hirschmann Nancy J., Liebert Ulrike. 2001. Women and Welfare: Theory and Practice in the United States and Europe. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Hooks Bell. 1984. Feminist Theory from Margin to Center. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Johnson Karen. 1995. “Myth of the Welfare Queen.” Essence, April, p. 42.
Jones Jacqueline. 2010. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present. New York: Basic Books.
Landry Bart. 2000. Black Working Wives: Pioneers of the American Family Revolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Lareau Annette. 2011. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Laslett Barbara, Brenner Johanna. 1989. “Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives.” Annual Review of Sociology 15:381–404.
Littlefield Marci Bounds. 2008. “The Media as a System of Racialization: Exploring Images of African American Women and the New Racism.” American Behavioral Scientist 51(5):675–685.
Lorde Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press Feminist Series). Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press.
Macdonald Cameron Lynne. 2011. Shadow Mothers: Nannies, Au Pairs, and the Micropolitics of Mothering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Massey Douglas S., Sampson Robert J., Kaniss Phyllis C., and American Academy of Political and Social Science. 2009. The Moynihan Report Revisited: Lessons and Reflections after Four Decades. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
McDonald Katrina Bell. 1997. “Black Activist Mothering—A Historical Intersection of Race, Gender, and Class.” Gender & Society 11(6):773–95.
McDonald Katrina Bell. 2007. Embracing Sisterhood: Class, Identity, and Contemporary Black Women. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Mink Gwendolyn, Solinger Rickie. 2003. Welfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics. New York: New York University Press.
Morrison Toni. 1970. The Bluest Eye: A Novel. 1st ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Nadasen Premilla. 2007. “From Widow to ‘Welfare Queen.’” Black Women, Gender & Families 1(2):52–77.
Naylor Gloria. 1983. The Women of Brewster Place. New York: Penguin Books.
Pyke Karen D. 2010. “What Is Internalized Racial Oppression and Why Don’t We Study It? Acknowledging Racism’s Hidden Injuries.” Sociological Perspectives 53(4):551–572.
Quadagno Jill S. 1994. The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press.
Randolph Laura B. 1997. “Strong Black Woman Syndrome.” Ebony, July, p. 24.
Randolph Laura B. 1999. “Strong Black Woman Blues.” Ebony, July, p. 24.
Rollins Judith. 1985. Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers (Labor and Social Change). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Roschelle Anne R. 2013. “Why Do You Think We Don’t Get Married? Homeless Mothers in San Francisco Speak Out about Having children Outside of Marriage.” Advances in Gender Research 17:89–111.
Sarkisian Natalia, Gerena Mariana, Gerstel Naomi. 2007. “Extended Family Integration among Euro and Mexican Americans: Ethnicity, Gender, and Class.” Journal of Marriage and Family 69(1):40–54.
Slaughter Anne-Marie. 2012. “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” The Atlantic Monthly, July–August, pp. 85–90, 92–94, 96–98, 100–102.
Smith Dorothy E. 1993. “The Standard North-American Family: SNAF as an Ideological Code.” Journal of Family Issues 14(1):50–65.
Stein Gary. 2013. Where Are All the Couch Potatoes and Welfare Queens? Huffpost Live: The Huffington Post. Retrieved October 30, 2014 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-stein/where-are-all-the-couch-p_b_4085773.html).
Sullivan Teresa A., Warren Elizabeth, Westbrook Jay Lawrence. 2000. The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Policy Planning and Research. 1965. The Negro Family: The Case for National Action. Washington, DC: The Superintendent of Documents.
Uttal Lynet. 1996. “Custodial Care, Surrogate Care, and Coordinated Care—Employed Mothers and the Meaning of Child Care.” Gender & Society 10(3):291–311.
Wagmiller Robert L. 2006. “Causes and Consequences of ‘Welfare Reform.’” Contexts (Spring) 5:64–66.
Walker Alice. 1982. The Color Purple: A Novel. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Washington Star. 1976. “‘Welfare Queen’ Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign.” February 15. Retrieved October 30, 2014. (http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archivefree/pdf?res=950CE5DA123DE532A25756C1A9649C946790D6CF).
Weber Max. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribner.
Welter Barbara. 1966. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly 18(2):151–74.
Williams Joan. 2000. Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to do About It. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Wingfield Adia Harvey. 2007. “The Modern Mammy and the Angry Black Man: African American Professionals’ Experiences with Gendered Racism in the Workplace.” Race, Gender & Class 14(1–2):196–212.
Wingfield Adia Harvey. 2009. “Racializing the Glass Escalator: Reconsidering Men’s Experiences with Women’s Work.” Gender & Society 23(1):5–26.

Biographies

Dawn Marie Dow is an Assistant Professor in the sociology department of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and is also a faculty fellow in the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics and the Media. Prior to joining the faculty of Syracuse University, she earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from Columbia University, School of Law. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, race, and class within the context of the family, the workplace and the law.

Cite article

Cite article

Cite article

OR

Download to reference manager

If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice

Share options

Share

Share this article

Share with email
EMAIL ARTICLE LINK
Share on social media

Share access to this article

Sharing links are not relevant where the article is open access and not available if you do not have a subscription.

For more information view the Sage Journals article sharing page.

Information, rights and permissions

Information

Published In

Article first published online: November 17, 2014
Issue published: March 2015

Keywords

  1. race
  2. class and gender
  3. family and work
  4. culture
  5. middle-class mothers
  6. African American mothers

Rights and permissions

© The Author(s) 2014.
Request permissions for this article.

Authors

Affiliations

Dawn Marie Dow
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA

Notes

Dawn Marie Dow, Department of Sociology, Syracuse University, 319 Maxwell Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244-1090, USA. Email: [email protected]

Metrics and citations

Metrics

Journals metrics

This article was published in Sociological Perspectives.

VIEW ALL JOURNAL METRICS

Article usage*

Total views and downloads: 5997

*Article usage tracking started in December 2016


Articles citing this one

Receive email alerts when this article is cited

Web of Science: 57 view articles Opens in new tab

Crossref: 58

  1. “If I got it, she got it”: Black mothers' food provision and symbiotic...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  2. Racial Inequality in Organizations: A Systems Psychodynamic Perspectiv...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  3. Superwoman Schema and self-rated health in black women: Is socioeconom...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  4. Can’t Just Send Our Children Out: Intensive Motherwork and Experiences...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  5. The origins of U.S. mass‐market category romance novels: Black editors...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  6. Feasting on Blackness: educational parasitism, necropolicy, and Black ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  7. Decentering intensive mothering: More fully accounting for race and cl...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  8. Burdens of the what‐if: Vicarious anti‐ Black ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  9. Household Composition, Income, and Fast-Food Consumption among Black W...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  10. “I was called everything but a student”: Blackness and the Social Deat...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  11. The carceral logic of parental responsibility
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  12. Black feminist theory in maternal health research: A review of concept...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  13. Law’s Normative Influence on Gender Schemas: An Experimental Study on ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  14. Parent–adult child estrangement in the United States by gender, race/e...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  15. Use of the Strong Black Woman Construct in Research
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  16. Breadwinning, Occupational Sex Composition, and Stress: Examining Psyc...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  17. Disrupting Monolithic Thinking about Black Women and Their Mental Heal...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  18. New geography for resistance: the engagement of diversity in Doc McStu...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  19. Unhoused and unhireable? Examining employment biases in service contex...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  20. 25 years of psychology research on the “strong black woman”
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  21. Rape on a Subway Train: Reflections on the Politics of Sexual Miscondu...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  22. Voting Intersections: Race, Class, and Participation in Presidential E...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  23. Do the Marriageable Men want to Protect and Provide? The Expectation o...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  24. Online breastfeeding publics: Sociality, support and selfies
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  25. The Strong Black Woman: Insights and Implications for Nursing
    Go to citation Crossref Google ScholarPub Med
  26. “Intensity, anxiety … but also, hope?” Reflections on care, whiteness,...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  27. Work–family decisions: exploring the role of racial variation
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  28. Beyond the Welfare Queen: Black Motherhood, Epigenetics, and Individua...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  29. To Code-Switch or Not to Code-Switch: The Psychosocial Ramifications o...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  30. Black Girls and the Talk? Policing, Parenting, and the Politics of Pro...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  31. ‘I’m good’: Examining the internalization of the strong Black woman ar...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  32. African American Single Mothers Thriving Despite Society's Obstacles
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  33. Marriage matters for Black middle‐class women: A review of Black Ameri...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  34. ‘You’re not Serving Time, You’re Serving Christ’: Protestant Religion ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  35. Experiences of white‐collar job loss and job‐searching in the United S...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  36. Social Class and Parenting in Mexican American Families
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  37. The Dark Side of Construct Convergence: Navigating Consensus, Evolutio...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  38. The structural roots of food insecurity: How racism is a fundamental c...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  39. Multidimensional family development theory: A reconceptualization of f...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  40. Finding middle ground: the relationship between cultural schemas and w...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  41. Work, race and breastfeeding outcomes for mothers in the United States
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  42. In Their Own Words: The Meaning of the Strong Black Woman Schema among...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  43. Redemption and reproach: Religion and carceral control in action among...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  44. Signaling Parenthood: Managing the Motherhood Penalty and Fatherhood P...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  45. The Misunderstood Schema of the Strong Black Woman: Exploring Its Ment...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  46. Pathways to Parenthood in Social and Family Contexts: Decade in Review...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  47. Crack Mother Myths
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  48. A Literature Review of Cultural Stereotypes Associated with Motherhood...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  49. Low-Income Black Mothers Parenting Adolescents in the Mass Incarcerati...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  50. Pregnant with possibility: The importance of visual data in (re)presen...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  51. Black Adolescents’ Television Usage and Endorsement of Mainstream Gend...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  52. Killing My Spirit, Renewing My Soul: Black Female Professors’ Critical...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  53. African American Families: Historical and Contemporary Forces Shaping ...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  54. The Deadly Challenges of Raising African American Boys...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar
  55. Applying Structural Family Therapy in the Changing Context of the Mode...
    Go to citation Crossref Google Scholar

Figures and tables

Figures & Media

Tables

View Options

Get access

Access options

If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:

PSA members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.

PSA members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.


Alternatively, view purchase options below:

Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.

Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.

View options

PDF/ePub

View PDF/ePub

Full Text

View Full Text