Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation

Anna Marie Smith is an associate professor of government at Cornell University. She is the author of New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: Britain, 1968–1990 (Cambridge, 1994), and Laclau and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary (1998). She has also written numerous articles published in New Formations, Feminist Review, Diacritics, Radical Philosophy, Social Text, Constellations, and Michigan Journal of Gender and Law, and she is the author of chapters published in numerous cultural studies and social and political theory anthologies.

“Smith’s book is grand in scope. Not only does it explore the nuances of paternafare policy and ideology, it also engages social theory and offers suggestions for future policy changes. Welfare Reform and Sexual Regulation presents a challenge, then, to welfare reformers and feminists alike, particularly those who may have supported the reform or see elements of a feminist politics within it. Smith reminds us that while it is not enough for poverty activists to focus on welfare’s failure to end poverty without attending to issues of sexual regulation, it is also not enough for feminists to fight for reproductive rights without attending to issues of poverty.” Karen Zivi, University of Richmond, Politics and Gender

• Introduction; 1. From paternafare to marriage promotion: sexual regulation and welfare reform; 2. Biopower and sexual regulation; 3. Post-Foucauldian sexual regulation theory; 4. The ideological construction of paternafare; 5. Paternafare law today; 6. Welfare reform, reproductive heterosexuality, and marriage; 7. The normative assessment of paternafare: an ideal type analysis; 8. Feminist visions; Appendices; Index.