Joan Acker - Böcker

Class is a particularly troublesome issue in the United States and other rich capitalist societies. In this feminist analysis of class, noted sociologist Joan Acker examines and assesses feminist attempts to include white women and people of color in discussions of class. She argues that class processes are shaped through gender, race, and other forms of domination and inequality. Class Questions: Feminist Answers outlines a theory of class as a set of gendered and racialized processes in which people have unequal control over and access to the necessities of life-processes including production, distribution, and paid and unpaid labor. Historically, gender and race-based inequalities were integral to capitalism and they are still fundamental aspects of the class system. Acker argues that capitalist organizations create gendered and racialized class inequalities and outlines a conceptual scheme for analyzing 'inequality regimes' in organizations. Finally, the book examines contemporary changes in work and employment and in economic/political processes, including current events like deregulation, downsizing, and off-shoring, that increase inequalities and alter racialized and gendered class relations. This book will appeal to readers interested in a feminist discussion of class as a racialized and gendered process intimately tied to the capitalist economic system.

Class is a particularly troublesome issue in the United States and other rich capitalist societies. In this feminist analysis of class, noted sociologist Joan Acker examines and assesses feminist attempts to include white women and people of color in discussions of class. She argues that class processes are shaped through gender, race, and other forms of domination and inequality. Class Questions: Feminist Answers outlines a theory of class as a set of gendered and racialized processes in which people have unequal control over and access to the necessities of life-processes including production, distribution, and paid and unpaid labor. Historically, gender and race-based inequalities were integral to capitalism and they are still fundamental aspects of the class system. Acker argues that capitalist organizations create gendered and racialized class inequalities and outlines a conceptual scheme for analyzing 'inequality regimes' in organizations. Finally, the book examines contemporary changes in work and employment and in economic/political processes, including current events like deregulation, downsizing, and off-shoring, that increase inequalities and alter racialized and gendered class relations. This book will appeal to readers interested in a feminist discussion of class as a racialized and gendered process intimately tied to the capitalist economic system.

When the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act became law in 1996, the architects of welfare reform celebrated what they called the new "consensus" on welfare: that cash assistance should be temporary and contingent on recipients' seeking and finding employment. However, assessments about the assumptions and consequences of this radical change to the nation's social safety net were actually far more varied and disputed than the label "consensus" suggests. By examining the varied realities and accountings of welfare restructuring, Stretched Thin looks back at a critical moment of policy change and suggests how welfare policy in the United States can be changed to better address the needs of poor families and the nation. Using ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews with poor families and welfare workers, survey data tracking more than 750 families over two years, and documentary evidence, Sandra Morgen, Joan Acker, and Jill Weigt question the validity of claims that welfare reform has been a success. They show how poor families, welfare workers, and welfare administrators experienced and assessed welfare reform differently based on gender, race, class, and their varying positions of power and control within the welfare state. The authors document the ways that, despite the dramatic drop in welfare rolls, low-wage jobs and inadequate social supports left many families struggling in poverty. Revealing how the neoliberal principles of a drastically downsized welfare state and individual responsibility for economic survival were implemented through policies and practices of welfare provision and nonprovision, the authors conclude with new recommendations for reforming welfare policy to reduce poverty, promote economic security, and foster shared prosperity.