Brenda+Cossman

By Brenda Cossman
 * Family Feuds: Neo-Liberal and Neo-Conservative Visions of the Reprivatization Project**

Within the neo-liberal state, where the welfare is becoming increasingly scarce, family law is being called upon to address the economic needs of women and children.

The increased roll of family law is a key strategy behind a reprivatization regime by government that seeks to move the costs of social reproduction back into the home.

__We are seeing a shift from public accountability for systematic problems to the domain of private responsibility:__ - In the expanding definition of spouse within social welfare law. - In increasing child support obligations in family law. - In the extent to which private support obligations are being used to address women’s economic dependency (e.g., blaming child poverty on the “deadbeat dads)

Idea behind government objectives = problems can be solved within the private sphere through increased regulation of family law.

__The shift from public responsibility to private self-reliance has contradictions:__ 1) The shift operates at the discursive level, not the concrete level of women and children’s lives. 2) The privatization of the costs of social reproduction is not a new phenomenon in Canada. 3) The ungendered, individual self-reliance discourse of neo-liberalism is at odds with its reliance on traditionally moralizing, socially conservative ideas of the traditional family.
 * E.g., the disjuncture of definitions of spouse in systems regulating family support obligations and providing welfare has left the poorest women in a worse state.
 * Women’s dependency was once naturally seen within the realm of the nuclear family.
 * Reprivatization has taken a further step to introduce once-public goods into the family sphere, like the costs of care in non-traditional families.

Cossman argues that the privatizing project is eroding gender and the family.


 * PART I: Theoretical differences between neo-liberal and neo-conservative visions of the family and the contradictory implications for the regulation of the family**

Two main political views: Neo-conservatives = accept place of state in promoting family, reinforce gendered world, reinscribe traditional family and moral hierarchy. Neo-liberalists = reject state in private sphere of family, gender-neutral, focus on economic projects.

__The normative visions of neo-liberals clash with neo-conservatives visions at the site of the family. Neo-liberalist and neo-conservatist views are informing the law simultaneously, creating inherent contradictions in the law:__

//1) On the role of government and citizenship…// - Neo-liberalism = Government only responsible for helping people help themselves (i.e., private self-reliance). Economic dependency / structural disadvantage / difference is recast as an individual problem and is no longer a basis for citizenship claims. Family law replacing social welfare as primary source of financial support for persons without income. - Neo-conservatism = Rearticulation of the traditional family… Family as the ‘natural’ location for caregiving responsibilities, including healthcare, eldercare, and childcare. Demonization of welfare moms and deadbeat dads, to renaturalize the family as the source of women’s and child dependency.

//2) On the role of women…// - Neo-conservatism = Women are increasingly have to provide for basic needs and be responsible for “private obligations” of unpaid work within the family. Resassertion of the nuclear heterosexual family as the natural fundamental unit of society – responsible for moral and material care of its members. - Neo-liberalism = At the same time, restructuring of the Canadian labour market has led to a loss in jobs and the disappearance of the family wage. Women are increasingly earning wages outside of the home.

//3) On the place of the ‘family’…// Neo-conservatism = decline of traditional family is responsible for the breakdown of the moral basis of society, incl. welfarism, divorce, abortion, etc. Neo-liberalism = decline of individual economic initiative and overreliance on the state is responsible for the breakdown of society. //However…// Though morally agnostic, neo-liberalism relies on morally conservative strategies for supporting the privatization project. Both narratives base their support for reprivatization within the idea that the family is the natural institution for the care and welfare of persons. Ironically, both narratives have lined up with each other somewhat in the domain of family law. “The family came to symbolize what both factions could agree upon: anti-collectivism and anti-egalitarianism” – as such, the government has failed to realize any consistent or coherent family policy.

__PART II: Three areas of family and social welfare law as concrete instances of the contradictions: i) same-sex challenges to spousal definitions in family law, ii) legislative amendments to the child support law, iii) the restructuring of social welfare for single mothers in Ontario.__

The law has a role to play in selecting between and mediating competing and contradictory discourses.

//i) Gay and Lesbian Challenges to the Definitions of Spouse in Family Law://

1. Neo-liberals and neo-conservatives on same-sex families.

- Neo-liberalism: not in principle against gay and lesbian rights. Supports extended spousal definition which encourages the privatization of costs of more individuals and represents lower economic costs on the public pocket. - Neo-conservatives: unmoved by the economic issues; gay men and lesbians threaten moral order and the social institution of the family

2. Privatizing Lesbians

Initially, when the issue of spousal support between lesbian partners emerged, the government used a neo-conservative rhetoric to reject the claims of lesbians. The government couched their argument for a traditional family structure in feminist language, saying that the purpose of spousal support was to reduce the effects of systemic inequality against women in heterosexual relationships. The government did not address the fiscal cost-saving arguments in support of expanding the definition of “spouse”. Ultimately, the government changed its mind on the basis of equality arguments under s.15 of the Charter. The law had to mediate and choose between the diverging discourses in the political sphere. The courts have preferred the neo-liberal approach over the neo-conservative approach, because traditional family structures are inconsistent with egalitarian visions of the family.

//ii) Toughening Child Support Laws//

Both neo-liberals and neo-conservatives agree that children should not rely on welfare and both have targeted dead-beat dads. But while the neo-liberals force them to take responsibility for their children following divorce, the neo-conservatives make them take responsibility by preventing divorce in the first place. Neo-conservatives are concerned that divorce degrades fatherhood.

While neo-liberals have often won the debate surrounding child support laws, because of their support by feminists and women’s groups, neo-conservatives have gained some force through the support of father’s rights groups. Neo-conservatism is providing a strong dissent against new reforms in child support.