The family means-test undermined working-class men’s masculine status

Evidence

By treating the family as an economic unit for the purposes of determining eligibility, the means-test undermined unemployed men’s status in the family, forcing them to depend on the wages of their wives or, more commonly, their children. By putting white working-class men in a position of dependence long reserved for women and children, the family means-test was widely interpreted as a crisis of both masculinity and the working-class family. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 215

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s interest in how welfare policy structures family and gender relations; parallels contemporary arguments about dependency and masculinity. — connects to: Rural peasant families were more patriarchal than working-class families in the 1930s — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 560; Exaggerated masculinity compensates for disempowerment and symbolizes racial difference; Paternal authority within families diminishes with unemployment — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 690 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Paternal authority within families diminishes with unemployment #corroborates (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 690
• Exaggerated masculinity compensates for disempowerment and symbolizes racial difference #expands (0.75)