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“Welfare Mother” Activism, Mainstream Feminism, and the Cunning of History in Ontario’s 1970s Welfare Debate

ABSTRACT This article examines the voice of mobilized welfare mothers and the mainstream women’s movement in the welfare debate of the 1970s in Ontario. A question debated was whether welfare mothers had a right to “stay home” while receiving welfare. The article shows that a radical strain of welfare mother activists at this time demanded recognition of women’s unpaid work. While mainstream women’s groups were generally sympathetic to welfare mothers, their overriding focus on employability as the solution to their poverty served to derail the radical possibilities of welfare mother politics and solidify a policy agenda that undermined the deserving status of welfare mothers.