I am looking for a research paper (journal article) on "The
feminization of Poverty" that includes the following statement: "As
the prevailing social norm, the family ethic articulates the terms of
a women's work and her prevailing social norm, the changes in the
definition of a women's economic role, the family ethic throughout
history, has placed woman in the home as the caretaker and dependent
on men as their principal source of monetary stability."  some sources
in this paper would be: H. Scott, A.M. Ambert, R.A. Zastrow

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Request for Question Clarification by mother-ga on 24 Jul 2002 14:31 PDT

Hello,

I've searched some full-text journal databases and have come up with a
paragraph that matches very closely the quote you gave in your
question. Are you looking for this article in full-text format online
or do you just need the citation?

The quote that I found is originally attributed to Mimi Abramovitz. I
found it in a review of her book (cited below). Abramovitz has written
several articles on the feminization of poverty, so this quote could
have been paraphrased by her or others several times and ended up in
any number of articles. I've not found anything that matches exactly
your references or the phrasing (in online full-text journal
articles). Finding the exact article will take some digging at the
library. Here's a list to start with (scroll down to Abramovitz):

http://www.womenandsociety.buffalo.edu/bibliog/articles/bib/a.htm

Original quote:

Abramovitz, Mimi. 1988. Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare
Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. Boston, MA: South End
Press.

"As a dominant social norm, the family ethic articulates the terms of
women's work and family roles. According to its rules, proper women
marry and have children while being supported by . . . [and]
subordinated to a male breadwinner. Even through major changes in the
political economy, the family ethic has persisted.... Since colonial
times, social welfare policies have treated women differently based on
the extent to which their lives conformed to the terms of the family
ethic."

which I found in:

Ritzdorf, Marsha. Whose American dream? The Euclid legacy and cultural
change. Journal of the American Planning Association, Summer90, Vol.
56 Issue 3, p386-389.

Let us know how much further assistance you need.

Thanks,
-- mother-ga