was w idely considered to have negated the force of that rule in the
states where it existed; and yet in 1967 Congress had required
states to make mothers on welfare report for work or work training— a law erratically enforced and therefore subject to the same abuses as the old “employable mother” regulation. The kind of
control welfare exercises over poor women does not change because
the population welfare is designed to control does not change:
female.
The question of suitable employment is raised persistently
within the welfare system: what is to be expected of women with
children? should they work or stay home? what kind of work are
they offered or forced to take? is that work entirely determined by
prejudgments as to their nature— what can and should be expected
of them because they are female, female and black, female and
white, female and poor, female and unmarried? In New York C ity,
women on welfare say that they have been strongly encouraged by
welfare workers to turn to prostitution, the threat being that the
individual woman may in the future be denied welfare benefits be
cause the caseworker knows the woman could be making big bucks
on the street; or in emergencies, women on welfare are told to raise
the money they need by turning a trick or two. In Nevada, where
prostitution is legal, women on welfare have been forced off welfare because they refused to accept the suitable employment of prostitution; once it is a legal, state-regulated job, there is no basis
for refusing it. Prostitution has long been considered suitable employment for poor women whether it is legal or not. This is particularly cynical in the welfare system, given the fact that women on welfare have been subjected to “fornication checks”—questioned about their sexual relations at length, questioned as to the identity of the fathers of so-called illegitimate children, questioned
as to their own sexual habits, activities, and partners—and have
been denied welfare if living with a man or if a man spends any
time in the domicile or if having a sexual relationship with a man.
Their homes could be inspected anytime: searches were common
after midnight, when the welfare workers expected to find the contraband man; the courts put a stop to late searches but daytime searches are still legal. Beds, closets, and clothes were inspected to
see if any remnant of a male presence could be found. Sometimes
criminal charges of fornication were actually brought against the
mothers of illegitimate children; the purpose was to keep them
from getting welfare. For instance, in one typical case, a New
Jersey woman was convicted of fornication and given a suspended
sentence; she was forced to name the father, who went to prison.
Welfare workers were allowed to interrogate children concerning
the social and sexual habits of their mothers. Women on welfare
have even been required to tell when they menstruate. Women on
welfare have had no rights to sexual privacy; and in this context,
turning them toward prostitution goes right along with refusing to
allow them private, intimate, self-determined sexual relations.
Prostitution is the ultimate loss of sexual privacy. Gains made in
the courts in the 1960s to restore rights of privacy to these women
are being nullified by new welfare policies and regulations designed
to control the same population in the same old w ays— practices
that reappear in new guises but are built on the same old attitudes
