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Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Wendy McKeen, Money in Their Own Name: The Feminist Voice in Poverty Debate in Canada, 1970–1995 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2004)

WENDY MCKEEN's book is a timely contribution to discussions of both feminism and social policy. There are two key underlying issues raised in the book: first, what model for social policy should feminists be putting forward? In other words, what constitutes a "women-friendly" social policy? Secondly, what strategies should feminists develop to advance such a model? In order to address these questions, McKeen examines Canadian feminists' efforts to influence federal child and family benefits in the period from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s.

There are six core chapters in the book. The first chapter considers what might constitute a women-friendly social policy, the second develops a framework to highlight the role of feminist strategies and voices in shaping social policy, and the remaining chapters focus on feminists' engagement with poverty debates in Canada, particularly as they relate to child and family benefits. This includes the emergence of a feminist perspective in the 1960s; the "writing women in" to poverty discourse in the 1970s; the place of feminism in the Tory child benefits debate of the 1980s; and finally the "writing women out" of the poverty discourse in the 1990s. The book thus provides a welcome opportunity to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of both the models put forward and the strategies advanced by feminists in this critical period.

In Chapter 1 McKeen asks "what should a woman-friendly, egalitarian form of citizenship and social policy look like?" Noting that much of social policy has been based on the assumption of women's dependent status, McKeen identifies certain core principles of a woman-friendly policy. This includes recognizing the importance of care in society, facilitating access to paid employment, and enhancing the ability to achieve "personal autonomy and independence for women." Drawing on Celia Winkler's writing about Sweden, McKeen argues for a social individual model. This is one based on the notion of individual, rather than family-based, entitlements, but which also recognizes "the social context of individual lives." Such an approach, she argues, would recognize both the importance of women's individual autonomy and the social democratic ideals of collective provision of benefits and universal entitlements. In the second chapter McKeen develops a framework focusing on the meso-level of political activity: the activities of a range of intermediary organizations and individuals concerned with particular policy areas. McKeen modifies and broadens the concept of the "policy community" to emphasize the discursive construction of key social policy issues, as well as the role that marginal political actors can play in the policy-making process. This approach effectively allows McKeen to highlight the way that certain concepts such as "poverty" are ideologically and discursively constructed, the role that feminists have played in the social policy debate, and the importance of key strategic decisions made by feminist and other organizations.

A key focus in the empirical chapters is the interaction within the social policy community between feminist organizations and the left-liberal groups that have been key to framing debates on poverty over the last 40 years. As McKeen describes, in the 1960s a number of left-liberal organizations became established as "insiders" to the poverty policy debates and became recognized as the voice of progressives within the social policy community. Key in this respect were the Canadian Welfare Council (which changed its name to the Canadian Council on Social Development in 1970), the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO), and the National Council of Welfare (NCW). By 1970 feminists began to have a voice in the social policy debate, but they did so by entering into this already established network. McKeen outlines two divergent feminist visions in this period: a liberal view which reflected an equal opportunity framework and a residual philosophy of targetting benefits to those who were needy, and a second perspective, calling for a more radical social policy transformation based on a "social individual" approach. The latter incorporated both the view that women should receive individual treatment and that universal benefits were important both for reasons of solidarity and because (in the area of family allowances) such benefits entailed a recognition that domestic work was not simply a private, but also a public and social concern.

A major argument that McKeen puts forward is that by the late 1970s the ability of feminists to advance this second option was constrained and ultimately diverted. The general shift in economic and political climate was a factor, but McKeen's major focus is on the key role played by the left-liberal organizations operating at the meso-level of the policy community in closing the space for a feminist alternative. A major concern of these organizations was the elimination of tax exemptions (which gave greater benefits to the rich and high-income earners) and the adoption of a system of refundable tax credits for poor and low-income families with children. The selective Child Tax Credit introduced in 1978 was viewed by these players as an important advance and as the most progressive measure that could be achieved given the prevailing political-economic climate. McKeen argues that this period was particularly significant because the women's movement, dominated by liberal-feminists, aligned with anti-poverty organizations and in the end supported the Child Tax Credit (CTC). This entailed support for a policy based on targetting rather than universal benefits, and on family income (something feminists had long opposed) rather than individual entitlements.

A similar scenario played out in the mid-1980s in response to Mulroney's proposal to partially de-index family allowances and to introduce a new plan for child benefits. Again McKeen argues that the left-liberal anti-poverty organizations (organized at this time in the Social Policy Reform Group) effectively narrowed the debate and created barriers to feminists advancing the notion of individual rights. SPRG had a largely defensive response to the Conservatives, endorsing the direction of their child benefit proposal as the best that could be expected given the political and economic climate. Representatives of the women's movement within SPRG (NAC and CACSW) chose to go along with this and to endorse the targetted family-income-based CTC as the primary mechanism for family income support.

By the mid-1990s the policy environment emphasized neo-liberalism, targetting, employability, adaptability, and self-reliance. In this context, child benefit programs were the one policy area left open for possible enhancement. Again, McKeen is sharply critical of the left-liberal organizations which took up the "child poverty" slogan and were willing to work closely with the federal Liberals in designing the new Child Tax Credit. As McKeen points out, the vision and language of child poverty created problems for feminists. The main focus is on families and children, while the role of gender as a structural variable contributing to poverty is ignored, providing little visibility to women as such. The reframing of the problem of poverty around this theme, McKeen argues, represented a further closure of a feminist politics of autonomy and contributed to writing women out of the poverty issue.

McKeen's book makes an important contribution in a number of respects. First, the focus on meso-level actors and struggles within particular policy communities significantly advances our understanding of the concrete processes through which policy is made. McKeen is able to effectively document how, over a twenty year period, there was a progressive shift away from a universal to a targetted approach, from individual to family income-based entitlement and from adults (women in the case of family allowances) to children as the beneficiaries of social policy. Particularly useful is her ability to demonstrate how progressive and feminist groups were drawn into such policy-making processes, and how, at times unwittingly, they became participants in a process that ultimately led in a neo-liberal direction.

Secondly, the book is useful because it opens up for debate again the question of what type of social policy feminists want to see and how it should be achieved. In terms of social policy models, the notion of individual autonomy and individual rights combined with notions of collective solidarity is important. This implies the importance for women, certainly, of having "money in their own name," but also of going beyond that to consider how we advance notions of social solidarity and collective responsibility based on multiple networks and connections. The book, in many respects, raises as many questions as it answers. Is it better, for example, to disengage and organize autonomously, with the risk of remaining marginal, or to engage, but end up participating in debates and policy formulation in directions not of one's own choosing? How should feminists negotiate the often difficult strategic choices facing them at particular conjunctures? To begin to consider those questions requires delving in greater depth into what alternative models there are, not only to the feminist vision put forward, but also to the organizing that took place. More consideration could be given, for example, to the agendas and strategies of groups that McKeen notes were not willing to engage with the terms set by the Tories (the labour movement and the popular sector as represented by the Action Canada Network). Similarly, it would be helpful to consider further the politics of the women's movement itself, and how, here too, the development of significant alternatives might become possible. These are questions which, in the current era of defensive politics, are posed all too seldom, but which are critical to consider. In April 2004 two reports were released in Ontario: one pointed to the difficulties women leaving abusive relationships faced in accessing adequate welfare support and the other revealed that homeless women in Toronto were dying at ten times the rate of other women. In this context it is critical indeed to raise the question of what has happened to the feminist voice within the social policy debate and to reconsider the parameters of a "woman- friendly" social policy. McKeen's book is most welcome because it challenges us to reflect on such questions and to re-open the debate on critical issues of both alternative models and strategies.


Ann Porter York University

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