Single Parent and Poverty

Nazneen Mehta brings the contrast between the images of poor women in the developing ‘Third World’ countries and the United States. She asserts that images shown through the media reflect on poverty. On the contrary, single and poor parents in the ‘Third World’ Countries get support from various international microcredit programs, while the ‘Welfare Queens’ in the United States are reprimanded with claims that they are lazy single parents. This brings out the existing contrast between the two communities. According to Mehta, these images are a reflection of the historical and political events that took place during colonization and the hard fought racism which led most women to poverty in the United States. In addition, it led to poverty as well as structural inequality that shaped these women’s lives. She also discusses policies that when implemented can bring change into these women’s lives.

The author of ‘Opposing Images: ’Third world Woman” and “Welfare Queen” is a law student in her third academic year at he Columbia University School of Law. Formerly, she has worked as a development legal fellow at All Our Kin, a non-profit based organization located in New Haven. This program is aimed at training low income earning women on becoming early childhood educators. In addition, the program supports these women on how to establish personal baby care business.

This source is credible and will be used to create awareness on how poor single parent have been labeled in the public discourse. In addition, this article will help in bringing together relevant stakeholder from different social groups in public discourse to find a solution to the sufferings of poor single women. Furthermore, this article is to be used in the enactment of policies that will lead to the empowerment of US welfare queens through various programs as the case in Third World Countries. This will in turn encourage welfare reform laws that will recognize the role of any poor woman as source of power and leadership to their families and community at large.