The enemy within: a commentary on the demonization of difference

Ways in which the poor and the powerless, women in particular, have been made the focus of rhetoric aimed at the undoing of the federal welfare system are described. The stigmatizing of poor, single mothers as a means of diverting attention from recent substantial shifts in wealth in the U.S. is examined, and it is suggested that the essential problem is not the character and habits of poor women but the persistence of poverty as a fundamental structure of the society.