White Working-Class Women and the Race Question

1998 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 80-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Frank
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
White Men ◽  
The Other ◽  
White Trash ◽  
White Writers ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Working Class Women

In Towards the Abolition of Whiteness David Roediger tells the story of Covington Hall, the editor of a newsletter published by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers in Louisiana in 1913 and 1914. Roediger deftly analyzes efforts by Hall and other white writers in the brotherhood to construct cross-racial unity within an otherwise racially torn working class. He shows how Hall redrew the lines of solidarity: On one side were the degraded, of any race.On the other were enlightened workers who eschewed racial divisions, racist language, and stereotypes. “There are white men, Negro men, and Mexican men in this union, but no niggers, greasers or white trash,” proclaimed Ed Lehman, a soapbox speaker for the Brotherhood. A headline in the newsletter similarly asked readers to choose, “SLAVES OR MEN, WHICH?” Still more graphically, a cartoon commanded, “Let all white MEN and Negro MEN get on the same side of this rotten log.”

From the Suwanee to Egypt, There's No Place like Home

PMLA ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-88
Author(s):  
Cynthia Ward
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Class Hierarchies ◽  
Seraph On The Suwanee ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Working Class Women

Zora Neale Hurston's Seraph on the Suwanee (1948) and Carolyn Chute's The Beans of Egypt, Maine (1985) feature white working-class women negotiating class hierarchies in rural communities. Despite present-day critics' putative concern with class and demonstrated interest in Hurston's other works, particularly Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), both novels have been largely ignored by the critical establishment, in part because readers lind it difficult to identify with the main characters. Comparing the critical receptions of Seraph, The Beans, and Their Eyes reveals that the mechanism by which readers identify with imaginary characters is constituted by middle-class reading practices. While a sympathetic audience emerged for Their Eyes, one is not likely to appear for the other two novels, which expose the class-bound roots of the literary construction of identity, meaning, and reality. In addition, Seraph and The Beans point, however obliquely, toward a vernacular notion of home that resists middle-class commodification.

Resisting Despair: Narratives of Disruption and Transformation Among White Working-Class Women in a Declining Coal-Mining Community

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 736-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kait Smeraldo Schell ◽  
Jennifer M. Silva
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Coal Mining ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
White Men ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Mining Community ◽  
The Face ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
Wage Earning

In this article, we examine how white working-class women reimagine gender in the face of social and economic changes that have undermined their ability to perform normative femininity. As blue-collar jobs have disappeared, scholars have posited that white working-class men and women have become increasingly isolated, disconnected from institutions, and hopeless about the future, leading to a culture of despair. Although past literature has examined how working-class white men cope with the inability to perform masculinity through wage-earning and family authority, gender has been undertheorized in these discussions, treating working-class women’s and men’s despair interchangeably. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews conducted in a former coal-mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania, we identify three overarching strategies that women deploy in their life histories to cope with disruption: embracing pain as an opportunity for self-growth; dispelling shame and striving for equality; and enduring suffering. These strategies allow women to feel hopeful and worthy as they confront enormous challenges, whether starting over following relationship dissolution, learning to be independent from men, or simply surviving hardship for the sake of their children. We explore the implications for recreating gender identity in each strategy and question how different strategies might serve to protect women from, or alternatively solidify, sentiments of despair.

White Working-Class Support for Trump

Contexts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Cherlin
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
The Other ◽  
Community Study ◽  
Reverse Discrimination ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White Working Class

Why do working-class Whites support Donald Trump? The accepted explanation points to racial and ethnic resentment and anxiety about immigration, with economic factors secondary. Based on a community study, the author argues that feelings of reverse discrimination and anti-immigrant sentiment reflect both racial and economic factors. This article explains why it is difficult to conclude that either factor was more important than the other.

Misfortune and resilience: a community study of women

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. E. Bebbington ◽  
E. Sturt ◽  
C. Tennant ◽  
J. Hurry
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Psychiatric Disorder ◽  
Community Survey ◽  
The Other ◽  
Community Study ◽  
Vulnerability Factors ◽  
Vulnerability Model ◽  
Working Class Women

SynopsisA community survey of psychiatric disorder carried out in South London enabled the authors to investigate the ‘vulnerability model’ proposed by Brown & Harris (1978). In the current study none of the ‘vulnerability factors’ proposed by Brown & Harris fulfilled the requirements of the model. It was, however, found that working class women with children seemed particularly prone to develop minor psychiatric disorder in response to adversity. A similar result is apparent in the analyses of the earlier authors. A number of studies now published give some support to the vulnerability model using what are broadly measures of social support, but there is little corroboration using the other variables proposed by Brown & Harris.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Harris Beider ◽  
Kusminder Chahal
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The World ◽  
And Behaviors ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Mainstream Society

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how the term “white working class” became weaponized and used as a vessel to describe people who were seen to be “deplorable.” The national narrative appears to credit (or blame) white working-class mobilization across the country for the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections. Those who take this position see the white working class as being problematic in different ways: grounded in norms and behaviors that seem out of step with mainstream society; at odds with the reality of increased ethnic diversity across the country and especially in cities; blaming others for their economic plight; and disengaged from politics. While the conventional narrative about Trump, and his relation to the white working class, has the benefit of being presented as a straightforward connection to a forgotten majority, the experiences and conversations collected in this book offer more nuanced and challenging findings about the other America. Indeed, the rise of Trump and the association with the white working class needs to be placed in the wider context of a surge in support for populism in many parts of the world. Ultimately, the book explores how white working-class Americans view race, change, and immigration.

If All We Did Was to Weep at Home: A History of White Working-Class Women in America

1980 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 653
Author(s):  
Alice Kessler-Harris ◽  
Susan Estabrook Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
History Of ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
At Home

Job Opportunities of Black and White Working-Class Women

1975 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 510-533
Author(s):  
Sally Hillsman Baker ◽  
Bernard Levenson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Working Class Women
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