Changing the Subject: Gender and Welfare Regime Studies

This essay takes as its point of departure a central question of social politics: What and how does gender contribute to the analysis of states and social provision? I address the question of why feminist critics have had so little effect on mainstream welfare regime studies. Resistance to feminist claims persists despite the largely unthreatening notions of gender and welfare characteristic of the genre, of which I provide a critical exposition. I then use one of the categories proposed by Julia Adams and Tasleem Padamsee's reconceptualization of regime to elaborate an example of the limits and possibilities of current practice in gendered welfare regime studies. I explore some of the causes and consequences of the dominance of the working mother (and by extension the conflicts between earning and caring) as the privileged subject of gendered welfare regime studies. I conclude by recommending we change the subject of social politics.