“Suitable home” and “employable mother” rules were selectively interpreted to block African American women from claiming their benefits until the rise of the welfare rights movement in the 1970s. “Man in house” and “substitute father” rules legitimized intrusion into their privacy, judgment of their sexuality, and invasions of their homes. Ronald Reagan’s 1976 stump speech about the lavish lifestyle of “welfare queen” Linda Taylor was intended to make the face of welfare both Black and female. “There’s a woman in Chicago,” he said during the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary
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