Social Work Men as a Feminist Issue

British Journal of Social Work

This critical review shows that, despite increasing attention to fathers in social work practice and research, men are still largely the 'unheard gender'. Almost all the social work literature that deals with men discusses them as fathers, namely in terms of their function in the family. Very little of it looks at men in other roles or situations or concerns itself with men's experiences, feelings or needs. Similar neglect of men characterises social work practice and training. The review points to a vicious circle in which the neglect of men in research, practice and training reinforce one another. It offers explanations for the neglect and suggestions for how to better include men as social work clients.

2002

Writing a book is never the activity of a single individual. Knowledge is created through interaction between people. Even the author locked away in a garret relies on knowledge acquired, created and disseminated by others. Also, the act of writing becomes meaningless if no reader engages with the written words. But writing a book within an academic context has a further set of conditions that impact upon the author-reader relationship and place it on a more formal footing: the requirements of academia. I wish to thank many unnamed people who have assisted me in the creation of this book: the people who have agreed to be interviewed; the students who have engaged with me in a mutual exchange of information in the teaching and learning relation; and colleagues who have shared their knowledge with me. However, there are individuals who have made specific contributions that I would like to acknowledge by giving my sincerest thanks: Marilyn Callahan for her invaluable support and feedback after reading the draft manuscript; my parents for the endless love and wisdom that saw me through the physical process of writing; my brothers and sisters for their emotional succour when I felt lost; and David and Nicholas for the love, wit and sympathy in responding to my many absences. Thank you all. Without your contributions, this book would have been much poorer.

2018

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES • To provide an understanding of gender in the client– worker relationship and the workplace • To provide an understanding of gender, power and ideology in social work and social policy • To examine the nature of the gendered welfare state • To introduce feminist social work practice • To allow an awareness of women’s services • To note the di erences between mainstream and women’s services

Australian Social Work, 2018

This paper offers a critical analysis of existing literature on historical and contemporary gender dynamics in Australian social work education and practice. Analyses of gender dynamics and inequalities have the potential to illuminate pathways for inclusive social work education and practice, for both practitioners and people who access social work services. This critical review of the literature demonstrates that Australian social work education and practice have been shaped by gendered discourses, structures, and power dynamics since its inception. In a contemporary sense, women constitute the majority of social work educators and practitioners, while men disproportionately dominate positions of power and prestige, although rigorous Australian data on the roles and representation of men and women are not readily available. Our findings point to the need for further engagement with gender as a unit of analysis in Australian social work research, including further engagement with inclusive and intersectional feminisms. IMPLICATIONS. Enhanced knowledge of Australian social work history, particularly in relation to gender, allows for a greater understanding of current gendered power relations in social work education and practice.. Gender dynamics are underresearched in contemporary Australian social work education and practice.. Up-to-date data on the status and representation of men, women, and nonbinary people in social work are needed as the foundation for transformative and inclusive social work education and practice.

Introduction I am a ‘pro-feminist masculinist’. I always received laughs whenever I introduced myself as such in some of my graduate classes in Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies at Mona. The chuckles were however not uninformed and as the only male in the class for most of the courses, I was accepted in this new socio-academic category which I had carved out for myself. As a social work practitioner at the community level, the response was never quite the same whenever I declared I was supportive of feminism. In all fairness, in my professional life, I have less declared myself a pro-feminist than a feminist, and this battle still rages within me for a number of reasons. Firstly, when I say I am a feminist, people misunderstand and of course a discussion has to ensue on who is a feminist - that being a person who supports efforts to ensure that women have the same rights, freedoms, opportunities, and privileges as men. The misunderstanding among many with whom I have had this discussion is, more often than not, a mistaken association of feminists and feminism with feminine or effeminate behaviours and attitudes, or with the bra-burning, anti-male sentiments and imagery that characterized the radical second wave of feminism in the 1960s. Whatever the association, in each case I have felt that I have had to justify myself so as not to seem to wholly betray my masculine gender identity or the ‘manhood club’ to which I putatively belonged.

1989

Contemporanea (Bologna), 2019

Feminism and the professionalisation of social work: a socio-historical approach through two Swiss examples (1910-1970) The importance of the role of women, in particular of feminist organisations, in the history of social work has been highlighted by several historical studies 1. These studies have also emphasised the necessity for a comparative and transnational approach, in order to understand not only the role of these social actors in the creation of the first institutions, associations and schools, but also their contribution to the definition of the missions of social work. This article aims at contributing to this discussion through a comparison of the professionalisation process of two distinct professions within the social work field in Switzerland at two different periods. We will view professionalisation as a sociohistorical process reflecting collective strategies implemented by workers in the field. This strategies will be considered in collaboration or in conflict with other social actors, aimed at achieving recognition for specific missions and thus legitimating the place held in a particular field of intervention and granting value to the work being carried out 2. Firstly, we shall analyse the impact of the involvement of feminist movements in the professionalisation process of social service, in particular around the establishment of the first School of Social Work in French-speaking Switzerland, i.e. at the end of the 1910s. We will then discuss the absence of feminist influence in the emergence of sociocultural community work in French-speaking Switzerland in the 1960s and 1970s, that led to a primarily masculine profession. Finally, we shall offer some analyses focused on the comparison of these two processes, as well as thoughts on how the examination of these issues could be furthered.

Affilia, 2010

Affilia has had 30 or more years of creating and holding space open for feminist social work scholars, activists, and poets to reflect on the nexus of their work and social justice. So why is Affilia publishing this special issue on critical feminisms and why is the journal's corporate board organizing an upcoming conference on unsettling feminisms? Is there a need? Yes, we would answer emphatically. There is a need to open and broaden spaces for critical feminist work because much feminist social work research, practice, and education focus on ''women's issues'' without critically exploring or analyzing structural issues and forces as they inform people's lives. In this era of preemptive wars and increasingly globalized racial and class disparities, critical voices are systematically silenced or dismissed. Without critical feminist voices that highlight the ways in which inequalities in power and social structures distort gender, many people experience limited access to opportunities and a reduced potential for development. We join with Trevin ˜o, Harris, and Wallace (2008, p. 8) and paraphrase the much-needed contribution from critical scholarship: At its core, [critical work] is committed to advocating for justice for people who find themselves occupying positions on the margins-for those who hold ''minority'' status. It directs attention to the ways in which structural arrangements inhibit and disadvantage some more than others in our society. It spotlights the form and function of dispossession, disenfranchisement, and discrimination across a range of social institutions and then seeks to [hear] the voices of those who are victimized and displaced. [Critical theories], therefore, seek not only to name, but to be a tool for rooting out inequality and injustice. From this definition, we can see how critical feminisms support social workers to transform the paradigm of ''feminism as women's issues'' to realize the centrality of the production and reproduction of gender. This special issue of Affilia is ambitious in its intent and scope. With this issue, we intend to challenge ourselves, our colleagues, and our profession to engage with critical feminist scholarship for the purposes of beginning to ''collectively craft a bolder and broader vision'' for social work . Most important, to us and to many social workers we know, recentering a critical

Journal of Social Work, 2001

Journal of Social Work Education

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain. .. until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. (Addams, 1910, p. 81) In the winter 2008 issue of the Journal of Social Work Education (JSWE; Bent-Goodley & Sarnoff, 2008), a special section was devoted to the Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Council on the Role and Status of Women in Social Work Education (Women's Council), coedited by Bent-Goodley and Sarnoff. In their guest editorial, they stressed the importance of a special section in the JSWE devoted to the role and status of women in social work education, mainly because women are the majority of social work educators, students, practitioners, and clients, but they still lag behind in many parity issues in the profession (Bent-Goodley & Sarnoff, 2008). In social work education, although women outnumber men by three to one, gender gaps persist across the academic life cycle. Women are disproportionately represented in the lower ranks of instructors and lecturers, appointed more in undergraduate smaller institutions, earn consistently lower salaries, and hold more chair positions rather than dean and director positions (Tower, Faul, Hamilton-Mason, Gibson, & Collins, 2014). A feminist perspective includes a commitment to the empowerment and inclusion of women, power deconstruction, women's experiences, and social change (Kemp & Brandwein, 2010). Feminist theory offers a set of lenses for the purpose of analyzing oppression and the promotion of equity in a range of contexts, including higher education (Allen, 2011). As feminist social work educators, we value ''for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression'' (Vakalahi, Starks, & Hendricks, 2007).