Margaret Mary Downey, Clare Daniel, Anne McGlynn-Wright, Karissa Haugeberg
{"title":"Protect and Control: Coverture's Logics Across Welfare Policy and Abortion Law.","authors":"Margaret Mary Downey, Clare Daniel, Anne McGlynn-Wright, Karissa Haugeberg","doi":"10.1177/03616843231186320","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the aftermath of <i>Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization</i>, which overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion, states have begun to recriminalize the procedure. These abortion bans raise important questions about the political and social status of women and pregnant people in the United States. Moreover, restrictions in social welfare programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which serve low-income pregnant people and parents, raise similar questions. The regulation and administration of all three are framed by race, class, and gender. To understand how these restrictions (a) claim to protect women but ultimately function to control, police, and surveil and (b) rely on imagined, stereotype-laden psychological states such as vulnerability, irresponsibility, or irrationality, we turn to the British Common Law doctrine of coverture, which subsumed a married woman's legal, financial, and political identities under her husband's. The American colonies, and later, states of the United States, drew from British Common Law to craft laws that regulated relationships between men and women. Taken together, this analysis can provide a more comprehensive accounting of the cumulative harms experienced by women, poor people, people of color, and pregnant people in today's health and social welfare landscape. We conclude with recommendations for psychologists and other mental health providers to address, in practice and advocacy, the ethical dilemmas and obligations raised by the reach of coverture's logics in people's lives.</p>","PeriodicalId":48275,"journal":{"name":"Psychology of Women Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11008606/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Psychology of Women Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/03616843231186320","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/7/19 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion, states have begun to recriminalize the procedure. These abortion bans raise important questions about the political and social status of women and pregnant people in the United States. Moreover, restrictions in social welfare programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which serve low-income pregnant people and parents, raise similar questions. The regulation and administration of all three are framed by race, class, and gender. To understand how these restrictions (a) claim to protect women but ultimately function to control, police, and surveil and (b) rely on imagined, stereotype-laden psychological states such as vulnerability, irresponsibility, or irrationality, we turn to the British Common Law doctrine of coverture, which subsumed a married woman's legal, financial, and political identities under her husband's. The American colonies, and later, states of the United States, drew from British Common Law to craft laws that regulated relationships between men and women. Taken together, this analysis can provide a more comprehensive accounting of the cumulative harms experienced by women, poor people, people of color, and pregnant people in today's health and social welfare landscape. We conclude with recommendations for psychologists and other mental health providers to address, in practice and advocacy, the ethical dilemmas and obligations raised by the reach of coverture's logics in people's lives.
期刊介绍:
Psychology of Women Quarterly (PWQ) is a feminist, scientific, peer-reviewed journal that publishes empirical research, critical reviews and theoretical articles that advance a field of inquiry, teaching briefs, and invited book reviews related to the psychology of women and gender. Topics include (but are not limited to) feminist approaches, methodologies, and critiques; violence against women; body image and objectification; sexism, stereotyping, and discrimination; intersectionality of gender with other social locations (such as age, ability status, class, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation); international concerns; lifespan development and change; physical and mental well being; therapeutic interventions; sexuality; social activism; and career development. This journal will be of interest to clinicians, faculty, and researchers in all psychology disciplines, as well as those interested in the sociology of gender, women’s studies, interpersonal violence, ethnic and multicultural studies, social advocates, policy makers, and teacher education.