How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump

2017 | Gender Studies

Since the early 1980s, neoliberalism-the political work of shrinking the state, shredding the social safety net, and increasing wealth disparities-has transformed our lives in the United States. Looking at families and households-the places where we live our economic situation-How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics argues that the politics of reproduction and reproductive labor-the work we do to keep our selves and families alive-are the arena in which we have fought over neoliberalism's shocks and disruptions. Debates about welfare reform, immigration, IVF, and gay marriage have produced a particularly racialized airing of these conflicts. Wall Street, Republicans, and neoliberal Democrats could not have effected changes in government and the economy without designating certain households-impoverished, African American, immigrant-as unworthy of public benefits and social support. From long work hours to intensifying inequalities in infant mortality and housing, How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics measures what we have lost and asks what we must do to get it back.

Laura Briggs (Author)