What is a welfare queen?
When I think about unit three on theorizing at the intersections and everything that we talked about, the word that stands out to me the most is “welfare queen.” This course is the first that I have ever heard about welfare queens, so the new term is something I chose to remember from this unit.
The term “welfare queen” was mentioned in Cathy Cohen’s article, Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics? (2007). Although Cohen does not give a direct definition of what a welfare queen is, she hints at it when she says “lazy, Cadillac-driving, steak-eating welfare queens” (p. 457). A welfare queen is a woman who takes advantage of the system by taking too many welfare payments or misusing welfare money. It’s considered a derogatory term towards women who do this.
An example of a welfare queen would be a woman who takes her food stamps and goes out to buy steaks and higher priced groceries. That same woman (or even a completely different woman) also drives a luxury car because she takes in foster kids for the extra money, but doesn’t use that extra money towards the kids but to buy her luxury car.
The thing that I find most disturbing about this term is that it only targets women. Not only is it women, but it’s usually women of color. The thing is though, it’s not only women who do this. It’s not only women of color who do this. Men do this. White women do this. Anyone who is desperate enough to live a luxurious life by abusing the welfare system do this.
I don’t think we talked enough about this term in class. It’s obvious it deals with intersectionality (women + people of color + people on welfare), but it is also used wrongly most times. A lot of people are called welfare queens mistakenly. They went out and bought that steak and higher priced groceries because they wanted to make a nice meal for the kids. They went out and bought a luxury car, because she got a great deal on it and it can carry all the kids at once. Not everyone knows the whole story of “welfare queens” can call them a “welfare queen” without knowing all the information.
Word Count: 380
Citations:
Cohen, C.J. (1997) Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics? GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 3, 437-465.
