Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-qfg88 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-09T13:55:03.037Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Austerity Talk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2021

Vicki Dabrowski
Affiliation:
University of York
Get access

Summary

Brits on low pay – and those out of work – are forced to compete with millions of people from abroad for jobs.

(Iain Duncan-Smith, Conservative MP, 2016, emphasis added)

Every time people look at White Dee … it will serve as a reminder to people of the mess the benefits system is in and how badly Iain Duncan Smith's reforms are needed. White Dee is bone idle and doesn't want to work another day in her life and has no intention of finding a job.

(Philip Davies, Conservative MP, 2014, emphasis added)

This chapter explores how women who are significantly affected by austerity and welfare reform and who are devalued and made abject by the symbolic and institutional violence of the austerity programme — single mothers, women reliant on welfare, migrant women and women with disabilities or health conditions — talk about the austerity agenda. Women's narratives are not straightforward, they dialogue with this discourse in contrasting and contradictory ways, simultaneously reproducing, reinforcing, questioning and talking back to moralistic narratives of hard work, fairness and responsibility. They experience a range of violent impacts, increased racism, fear, humiliation, high levels of anxiety and concerns about the growing mistreatment from both the public and institutions of the state. Despite such experiences, their discussions are narrated through paradoxical dialogues of negotiation and distancing towards and away from such negative stereotypes. Rather than assuming such distinctions reflect the prevalence and internalization of anti-welfare messages and austerity discourse, such distinctions are ‘a central feature of their own bid for recognition and legitimacy’ (Dhaliwal and Forkert, 2015: 49). The ways in which these women try to value themselves thus becomes dependent on, and specific to, the immediate context, as well as to the resources and capital that they have available to be mobilized.

Divided into three sections, the first part of this chapter examines how women who are deemed to be ‘hard-working citizens’ by the government speak about these abject figures. Invoking outrage and condemnation, it is within these narratives that the power and influence of ‘poverty propaganda’ (Shildrick, 2018) becomes visible. The second section of this chapter then explores how women who are devalued and made abject through dominant anti-welfare discourse talk back to and dialogue with these representations.

Type
Chapter
Information
Austerity, Women and the Role of the State
Lived Experiences of the Crisis
, pp. 89 - 112
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Austerity Talk
  • Vicki Dabrowski, University of York
  • Book: Austerity, Women and the Role of the State
  • Online publication: 12 March 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781529210538.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Austerity Talk
  • Vicki Dabrowski, University of York
  • Book: Austerity, Women and the Role of the State
  • Online publication: 12 March 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781529210538.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Austerity Talk
  • Vicki Dabrowski, University of York
  • Book: Austerity, Women and the Role of the State
  • Online publication: 12 March 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781529210538.006
Available formats
×