Micro-aggressions, single mothers and interactions with government workers
The case of Australia's child support bureaucracy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2399378 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kristin Natalier (0000-0002-2867-1135, Flinders University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 622-636 |
| Publication date | 2017-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1440-7833 • E-ISSN: 1741-2978 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1440783317709358 |
| OpenAlex | W2618033457 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 34 |
This article analyses single mothers' experiences of Australia's child support bureaucracy, shifting the focus beyond problematic individual interactions to the discourses that shape them. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with 37 Australian single mothers, I argue that women's interactions with Department of Human Services - Child Support (DHS-CS) are expressions of gender-focused micro-aggressions. These are interactions that express and reinforce social hierarchies and power differentials in sometimes subtle and often taken-for-granted ways. I argue these interactions are structured by the dominant gendered welfare discourse that constitutes the welfare mother and legitimates masculine financial discretion. Thus, any attempt to address client concerns about the failings of DHS-CS, and by extension other government bureaucracies, must extend beyond 'training' and administrative processes, and engage with the more challenging strategies of socio-cultural change
Bureaucracy · Developmental psychology · Discretion · Government (linguistics) · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Single mothers · Sociology · Welfare · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Psychology · Work-Family Balance Challenges
Manifestations of Institutional Aggression in the Practice of Child Protection Workers
The Forms and Functions of Child Support Stigma
State Facilitated Economic Abuse
Feeling Excluded
Gender, malice, obligation and the state
Economic Abuse From Child and Youth Perspectives
Guaranteed or conditional child maintenance? Examining the 2016 reform in Sweden
Future Building and Emotional Reflexivity
Single Mothers' Post-Separation Provisioning
Absent Fathers?
Sexual orientation microaggressions
Racial microaggressions in everyday life
Child support research in Australia
Sexual Orientation Microaggressions
Post-Separation Parenting and Financial Arrangements
Child Support Policy in Australia and the United Kingdom
The gendered framing of Australia's child support reforms
Mothers' experiences of child support
You Just Have to Look at It as a Gift”
The Gendered Dynamics of Power in Disputes Over the Postseparation Care of Children
Gender and Evidence in Family Law Reform
Critical race theory, race and gender microaggressions, and the experience of Chicana and Chicano scholars
Women, Abuse, and the Welfare Bureaucracy
Welfare-to-work Policies and the Experience of Employed Single Mothers on Income Support in Australia
Half A Citizen
The Unmodified Family
Institutional processes and the production of gender inequalities
Domestic Violence and the Exemption from Seeking Child Support
Social Exclusion and Double Jeopardy
Microaggression, Women, and Social Work
When the Seemingly Innocuous “Stings
Using thematic analysis in psychology
A Genealogy of Dependency
Fatherhood Politics in the United States
Reforming Women in the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand
The impact of mutual obligation for sole parents
Separated Parents Reproducing and Undoing Gender Through Defining Legitimate Uses of Child Support
The Power of the Purse
Stratified Reproduction and Poor Women's Resistance
It's Not Just About the Money
Resisting the Welfare Mother
Experiences of racism among urban Indigenous Australians
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,13 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |