What Frances Fox Piven Can Teach Us All:

When I showed my father the Scripps college campus the fall of my senior year in high school, he was skeptical that it was the right college choice for me. “Doesn’t it seem a bit like a gilded convent to you?” He asked. “It’s pretty quiet…I want to see you somewhere with some political activism like Berkeley. And its awful small, you sure you’re not going to get bored?” Though he named risks Scripps—being a tiny community—must guard against, I can gratefully say that I have received a well-rounded education here thus far. I loved the Core program, and since then have had many opportunities for meaningful political engagement within the greater L.A area.

Sometimes the unabashedly elite feel of the campus (even with the Politics departments' leftward leaning perspectives to counter it all out) makes me reel. I squirm every Tuesday and Thursday when my Race, Gender and the Welfare State class discusses how policy favors certain groups—like widows and veterans--as unconditionally deserving of public support and other groups--like poor, black mothers--as those who must prove their worthiness. But I know that my discomfort is a good thing: it simply means Scripps is successfully fulfilling its mission to provide a thorough education which produces aware, engaged thinkers. 

Similarly, when I read Frances Fox Piven's article on the racism of the welfare system in my 3^rd floor dorm room (ivory tower?), I was acutely aware of my privilege. Pivens describes how our society enacts welfare laws which perpetuate a racist capitalist hierarchy. Over and over, the federal government has passed legislation (most recently in 1996) which allows states to decide who is eligible for social services. Historically, states have used their mandate to ensure a specific race and gender group will be marginalized enough to work under oppressive conditions (capitalism must always have its cheap labor supply). Louisiana was the first state to pass an “employable mothers” rule which denied welfare assistance when seasonal employment was deemed to be available. This flexibility not only perpetuates existing classism and racism, but it actually worsens societal stratifications by putting an official stamp of governmental disapproval on said group, be it single black mothers or Mexican immigrants (Pivens 327).

As a Politics major, I have come to realize how essential it is that I take classes which show how entirely new politicized groups are created within society when policies favor or marginalize certain groups by extending or withholding welfare benefits. The political prominence of Obama’s health care bill brings to the fore how “welfare” debates are often really human rights debates—does everyone deserve medical care? Even those that don’t work here legally? The answer to both those questions is, for me, a resounding yes.

My real question, however, concerns politics of a more local nature: will Scripps continue to educate women leaders who understand how policy can form identities and how a second dialog about the inferiorities of certain race, gender and class groups operates beneath the overt political discourse? Scripps was wise to hire Professor Dionne Bensonsmtih and it would be incredibly foolish to let her slip away because her contract is up at the end of the semester. I urge Scripps to act swiftly to retain the richness Bensonsmith's expertise adds to the intellectual culture offered to Scripps students. She promotes a thoughtfulness in her classes which will train students with unique insights into the world, who can follow in footsteps of politically active women like Gabby Giffords. This generation of Scripps women is capable of correcting many of the institutional failings my seventeen classmates and I have learned about this semester.  But we must first have teachers like Bensonsmith who teach us what we can’t always see from within Scripps’ beautiful walls.