Welfare: the Fragmented Self

Angela Bonnefoy

Social work has developed into a bureaucratic agency. I believe its motivating force has become a livelihood for the people who exercise its policies. Without pitifully dysfunctional people in need of resocialization, there would be no jobs for the navigators of the welfare network. Thus, I am convinced that the financially desperate person engaged in a survival strategy through welfare has to develop a kind of false consciousness to be eligible for assistance.

When a single woman makes the decision to apply for assistance and becomes regularly dependent on this service, she begins to develop the attributes of an underfunctioning child in the care on an overfunctioning adult. I believe there is a subtle expectation to deliver a role of acquiescent thankfulness. In regards to my situation, I noted the necessity to portray optimism and to have an obvious career orientation. If I didn't exude the required amount of general happiness, there would be reason for evaluation. If my life wasn't perceived as wholesome or hopeful then perhaps I was in danger of becoming morose or slipping into an isolated depression.

Welfare recipients are a lot like guinea pigs. We are the experimental products of whatever mode of social integration that may be occurring. If you deviate from this “temporary,” idealistic norm, then you as an individual are liable for anything. For a single person this liability creates a mentally tiring existence. Motherhood on welfare is to be in a constant state of fatigue. The very image of a single parent surviving on social assistance conveys for me a picture of intellectual tragedy and social alienation.

Definitely the hardest thing about being on welfare was the loneliness and isolation. The social conception of poverty is still that a person must in some way be lacking if that person is asking for charity. Being on welfare is exposing your needs publicly and as there is still a stigma attached, the experience was for me very dehumanizing. While I was receiving assistance I was treated with much condescension. I had to deal with many women who were eager to reorganize or critique my life. I thought I had escaped the bondage of mental control after making the choice to leave my male partner. This wasn't so. I had encountered, with my stifling experience, a large degree of female hostility towards independence in women like myself. This attitude was also prevalent throughout the general social strata.

I recall one afternoon searching for a reprieve and ending up at a local women's centre. My visit was short and disappointing. I left the building feeling very disillusioned about the whole concept of the feminist movement. I had associated so much unity with the idea of female liberation and discovered to my dismay a room thick with arrogance. The faces that greeted me were impartial, though a superficial effort was extended in an attempt to welcome me. I felt like I was intruding or invading some private party. I thought as I walked out the door ... “why are they here?”

So, what is the purpose of anything I have mentioned so far? I guess, in the hope of perhaps shedding a new light on the indifference that is so prevalent amongst all facets of the transitional or welfare system.

Being in financial need is not being without a stable mental constitution. I did not live on my knees for several years because I was in any way inept or in need of a social guru. I lived on welfare to feed my children and to give them a sense of morality and family bonding that I still don't believe occurs outside my home. And when I hear about any form of planning or organizing on behalf of our less fortunate sisters I feel a deep revulsion in my heart.

Not because of the idea, but because of the intent. I have had my life affected and have observed others of the same disposition being subject to the biased notions of moralists and social workers who need to manifest their ideals in the lives of the less fortunate. It is almost as if wealth is the barometer we have accustomed ourselves to using when distinguishing a person's intelligence or worth.

Today I close my eyes and shudder with relief. I am no longer an instrument for this oppressive tea session of busybodies. And if I could impart something to the bleeding hearts and know-it-alls of social organization, it would simply be that women on welfare come for financial aid, not resocialization.
Friendship and acceptance are all that is necessary.

From The OptiMSt: A Voice for Yukon Women, Mar 1991, Vol.17, Issue 1

(CX5088)

Subject Headings

• Poverty
• Social Welfare

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