Crazy quilts

Rethinking the welfare state debate from a woman’s point of view

Bibliographic Data

ID23246384
AuthorsLaura Balbo (corresponding author)
Year2018
Pages45-71
Publication date2018-12-19
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueWomen and the State (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9780429401602-2
OpenAlexW2914506533
ISBN9780429401602
LanguageEN
Citations received10

The current debate about the welfare state is inadequate and misleading because it has ignored women and their location in late capitalist society. The techniques of quilt-making developed, initially, from economic conditions of extreme scarcity. Quilt-making entails hard work, long hours, patience and repetition. The earliest quilts were known as Crazy Quilts. Women sewed odd-shaped scraps of fabric together and the result tended to resemble a jigsaw puzzle. Except for some groups in the population, resources never seem to be adequate in a society which demands that people constantly improve their economic and social conditions. The pressure to meet new needs, to live up to continuously rising standards, has been a crucial aspect of life in western societies in the 1960s and early 1970s. The enormous increase in the provision of services by the state or firms compared to that of the past has not simply transferred tasks from the family unit to other service delivering institutions.

Algorithm · Geometry · Point (geometry) · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Welfare · Welfare state · Computer Science · Gender Studies · Law · Mathematics · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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