Saving Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty / Edition 1

by Jody Raphael

Overview

Skillfully interweaving Bernice's own eloquent words about her harrowing abuse with descriptions of other women's similar experiences and a rich synthesis of statistical findings, Jody Raphael demonstrates convincingly that domestic violence and dependence on public assistance are intricately linked. In a work that is sure to stir controversy, she challenges traditional views and stereotypes (conservative and liberal) about welfare recipients, arguing that many poor women are neither lazy nor paralyzed by a "culture of poverty," but instead are trapped by their batterers.

Bernice's ordeals at the hands of her abusive partner — brutal beatings, violent rapes, threats on her life, stalking, blocked access to birth control, and sabotage of efforts to find a job — resonate throughout the work. The experiences she relates provide crucial insights into the welfare system and illuminate its failures, successes, and potential in helping women like her.

This disquieting yet inspiring book puts a human face on the heated public policy debate over welfare reform. Above all, it is Bernice's life story and, through her voice, the story of countless other battered women who are isolated in poverty and welfare by the power and control of their abusers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555534387
Publisher:	University Press of New England
Publication date:	05/18/2000
Series:	Northeastern Series on Gender, Crime, and Law Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.45(d)

About the Author

JODY RAPHAEL is Senior Research Fellow, Schiller, DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center, DePaul University College of Law. Freeing Tammy is the final volume of Raphael’s trilogy about women, poverty, and violence in contemporary Chicago that includes Saving Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty (NUP, 2000) and Listening to Olivia: Violence, Poverty, and Prostitution (NUP, 2004).

What People are Saying About This

Patricia Ireland

“A must-read for everyone who wishes to end not just welfare, but poverty ‘as we know it.”

Ann Richards

“Saving Bernice illustrates very clearly how family violence keeps many women in poverty and dependent on welfare. Lessons learned from reading this book should guide the crafting of solutions to help women move from welfare to work without risking their safety.”

Editorial Reviews

In this harrowing account of one woman's experiences with poverty and domestic abuse, Raphael, who previously guest-edited Understanding Women's Poverty, follows the life of Bernice, a child of a dysfunctional family (her alcoholic father poured gasoline over her 13-year-old brother and threw a match at him, burning him to death). Raphael includes the grisly details of Bernice's life as a battered woman and welfare mother, her frustrations with working through various public agencies, and her eventual triumph over her circumstances. Unfortunately, the writing is uneven, and Raphael's use of quotes from Virginia Woolf's writings at the beginning of every chapter seems a stretch. And though she provides evidence supporting her contention that examining domestic abuse necessarily involves examining the welfare system as a whole, this is not a new idea. Linda G. Mills's The Heart of Intimate Abuse: New Interventions in Child Welfare, Criminal Justice, and Health Settings (Springer, 1998) and Ruth A. Brandwein's Battered Women, Children, and Welfare Reform: The Ties That Bind (Sage, 1998) are more scholarly and better written (albeit less personal) sources on the subject. Recommended for specialized collections only.--Ellen D. Gilbert, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

Saving Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, And Poverty is an outstanding sociological student that provides the reader with invaluable insights into the plight of millions of poor American women whose daily existence is marked and marred with poverty, fear, violence, and misguided social reforms. Meticulously research, scholarly, and enhanced with an extensive bibliography and index, Saving Bernice is a very highly recommended addition to the reading lists for women's studies, social disorganization studies, urban/rural poverty studies, and demographic case studies.