A few weeks ago I posted an article about a woman who was arrested for leaving her children in the car while she went on a job interview. I was shocked by the story because it seemed so outrageous and that the woman was innocent. Then, I read some more and realized that there was more to the incident than the one article let on.
The story goes like this: Shanesha Taylor, a single mother of two very young children, went on a job interview and left the kids in the car. They were in the car for 38 minutes. The windows were cracked, the air conditioning was on. A passerby called the police when they saw the children in the car in the Arizona heat. Shanesha Taylor was arrested for child abuse.
One of my friends posted the article on Facebook and said it was racist, and claimed that a white woman would not have been arrested for the same act. This annoyed me. She was not thinking about how there are more aspects of this issue than just race. This event with Shanesha Taylor is a prime example of intersectionality and the layers of oppression of women.
In thinking about this event, you can take one of two sides. The first is that Shanesha Taylor is a bad mother. Who would leave their kids in the car? She's not fit to be a mom. The second is that she is an innocent victim of oppression. She is a single mom, she's unemployed, she's black, she's poor and homeless, and she could not find childcare. And she's a woman, which intensifies the other forces.
Taylor is a single mom. There is no mention of the father of the children in any article I've read about her. This shows how the woman is expected to be the primary caretaker of children. If a woman has a child, and the father leaves, it's her responsibility. As such, the woman has this burden on her simply because she is a woman. It is so much more likely for a woman to have to assume the responsibility of the children than it is likely for the man. Whenever I hear of a divorced couple, or separated, etc., it is rare that I see the father being a single dad. This is because our society is sexist and assumes that women should care for their children. The father is detached. The articles about this event highlight child abuse on Shanesha's part, but they fail to put any blame on the father. In my opinion, he could be charged with child abuse to some extent, as well.
Taylor is also unemployed. Imagine how difficult it is for her to take care of her children and her private affairs when she has no help from her ex husband/boyfriend and when she has no job and no money. This makes me think of The Cult of True Womanhood and how it is geared toward white, upper-middle class women. Sure, Taylor might want to be able to care for her children full time and not have a job, but she cannot afford that luxury. Moreover, as discussed in The Lady and the Tramp (II): Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice by Gwendolyn Mink, Taylor has no option but to work outside the home. Otherwise, she is "ideologically unequal in a political culture that prizes income-producing work as the currency of virtue" (Mink p. 58). Additionally, because she is single, Taylor does not "enjoy vocational liberty" and she is "unpaid for [her] work in the home" and "forced either by law or by economic circumstance to choose wages over children" (p. 58).
Obviously, my friend who posted the article was not incorrect in saying that race played a part in this story. However, it does not entirely play the part she thinks. It is more of an issue of white privilege. By this, I mean that because Shanesha Taylor is a woman of color, she does not have the same every day privileges that a white woman has. People definitely made more assumptions about Taylor's situation than they would have if she were white. But at the same time, Taylor is in her situation because she is a) a woman and b) a woman of color. The nature of our patriarchal society puts women on the bottom, and in that category, the women of color are even lower. It is a deeply-rooted issue, not just a surface issue based on skin color.
Lastly, the cost of childcare is a big player in this story. Taylor could not find anyone to watch her kids for the day. Some might argue that that is a lame excuse for her to make. There's always someone out there. But not really. Childcare costs money. Shanesa Taylor does not have any money. So, how would she access childcare? Taylor would have had to spend money she did not have, and that would worsen her situation overall.
Some of the responses to this story annoyed me. The ones that claimed she was a bad mother ignored the underlying issues. Additionally, I think they might have exaggerated some aspects of the story. One article said the children were very clearly in distress and that the 6-month-old was crying hysterically. This bothered me because babies are ALWAYS crying hysterically. Not to mention that I'm sure they were terrified when a swarm of cop cars, likely with their loud sirens on, surrounded the car and a bunch of strangers came up to them. I'd be in distress over that. But the people who say Taylor is totally innocent is irksome, too. What she did was actually truly stupid. She left the car in the sun, running, with the doors unlocked. It could have been so easy for someone to steal that car and do more harm to those children than Taylor did to them by leaving them alone. It is true that Taylor is a victim of oppression in many forms, but that does not excuse her totally.
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