Is welfare reform killing women? Felicia Kornbluh on the female face of poverty
Has welfare reform, passed in 1996 with bipartisan consensus between Pres. Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress, been an attack on women? That is the argument made by Dr. Felicia Kornbluh in her new book, with Gwendolyn Mink, Ensuring Poverty: Welfare Reform in Feminist Perspective (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Kornbluh is Associate Professor of History and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Vermont. She is a member of the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and has served as a member of the Vermont Commission on Women. Kornbluh argues that welfare reform has actually shortened women’s lives, and that its new incarnation under Pres. Donald Trump will make matters worse. She discusses her role as a scholar-activist and the new book that she is writing about her mother’s efforts to win abortion rights in the 1970s. (November 28, 2018 broadcast)
Dr. Felicia Kornbluh, professor, University of Vermont, author, Ensuring Poverty
