The State of Feminist Social Work

Vicky White

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN:
  9780415328449
  9780415328432
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134334353
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery
• Index: Social Sciences

Social work is currently undergoing major change in its policies, organization and day-to-day practice and much has been written about the feminist presence in social work. In particular, feminist social work has focused on the role of women social workers in developing distinctive forms of practice, rooted in a commitment to egalitarian relationships with women service users. The State of Feminist Social Work challenges the limitations of this perspective.

Tracing key ideas in feminist social work from the 1970s through to the present day, and using data from interviews with female social workers, this book draws out tensions between the literature and the actual experience of female social workers. In doing so, it:

• highlights the significance for feminists of social work's location in the state
• enables the experiences of women social workers to be explored and placed within their structural context
• opens up the possibility of diverse identities, identifications and stances amongst women social workers
• critically examines the current state of feminist social work.

The State of Feminist Social Work provides an important appraisal of the subject and is essential reading for all those with an interest in feminism and social work theory, practice and education.

Chapter 1
Feminist social work identity

Across 30 years of writing, a consistent emphasis in the feminist social work literature has been calls to women social workers to align themselves with principles that have been proposed as the basis for their practice. In seeing themselves as affiliated to what feminist social work is considered to stand for, women social workers have been urged to embrace a feminist social work identity that has been characterised as rooted in eclecticism. In the literature’s elaboration of this eclecticism, it is common for the diverse perspectives that fed into the origins of feminist social work to be mentioned, with little precision about their legacies and a broad measure of consensus about the open-ended nature of feminist social work, rooted in common principles. This eclecticism has been reappraised because of the diversity that is concealed within the term ‘women’. In response to critiques of eclecticism, one stance has been to view such challenges as capable of being used to revise and extend feminist social work, thus holding on to the promise of a unifying feminist identity. Another stance has been to seek to refine eclecticism through the adoption of a broader anti-discriminatory agenda that encompasses gender within a range of social divisions. Finally, some writers have stressed the splintering of feminist identity under the impact of postmodernist critique.

Eclecticism

Within much of the literature it is assumed that there is a feminist social work identity, readily accessible by women social workers, with which they can identify, align themselves and to which they can affiliate. For the most part, this remains an unstated assumption, serving as a foundation on which the literature’s other themes are constructed. When this theme has surfaced explicitly, women social workers have often been seen as being totally immersed in their feminist social work identity. For example, Hudson et al. have stressed the ‘feminist emphasis on the invariable influence of our values and how they inescapably permeate all that we do both professionally and personally’ (Hudson et al. 1994: 96). Similarly, the Birmingham Women and Social Work Group held that feminism is both a personal and political commitment and that it cannot be utilised or discarded on a whim (Birmingham Women and Social Work Group 1985: 119).

Opening up access to the immersion of women social workers in this feminist social work identity has usually been undertaken in a particular way. It has been common for the diverse origins of feminist social work to be mentioned, with little precision about their legacies and a broad measure of consensus about the open-ended eclectic nature of feminist social work. For example, in an early example of this eclecticism, Hale acknowledged a broad range of feminist perspectives. She emphasised the common ground they shared, namely, ‘consciousness of the inequality which women experience in relation to men and, resulting from this awareness, a desire to redress the balance and to remedy the injustices’ (Hale 1984: 168). In similar vein, Dominelli and McLeod regarded feminist social work as being informed by Marxism, socialism and liberalism (Dominelli and McLeod 1989: 27). However, the contributions of these perspectives to the construction of feminist social work were seen as condensable into

a very simple idea: that there are not two sorts of people in the world, the superior and the inferior, or in terms of power relations, the dominant and the subordinate. We are all equal irrespective of our gender. Social relations that obliterate this fact must therefore be transformed and recreated in ways that reflect equality in terms of gender.

(Dominelli and McLeod 1989: 1)

Later, Dominelli extended the origins of feminist social work to liberal, radical, socialist and black feminisms. She concluded that these perspectives were united by their commitment to the elimination of gender inequality and saw them as having a set of five principles in common (Dominelli 1992: 85). These five principles are:

• the personal is political;
• egalitarian relations replacing hierarchy and inequality;
• the interconnectedness between different aspects of our lives and the interdependency between human beings;
• a dialectical relationship between theory and practice;
• social rights vested in a citizenship accruing to individuals by virtue of their existence rather than their social status – the ‘I am, therefore, I have rights’ principle.

(Dominelli 1992: 86)

Elsewhere, Dominelli has stressed that liberal, radical, socialist, anti-racist and postmodernist feminisms have nine common characteristics that inform feminist social work’s theory and practice, premised upon taking ‘gendered inequality and its elimination as the starting point for working with women’. These nine characteristics are:

• upholding the right of women to be free from oppression;
• having women speak for themselves in their own voices;
• listening to what women have to say;
• creating alternative lifestyles in the here and now;
• integrating our theories with our practice;
• seeking compatibility between the ends being sought and the means whereby these are achieved;
• seeking collectivist solutions which respect the individuality and uniqueness of each woman;
• valuing women’s contributions;
• using women’s individual experiences to make sense of our social realities.

(Dominelli 2002a: 97)

These feminist principles and characteristics have been updated again by Dominelli, as ‘relevant to practice and evident in feminist social work’:

• recognising the diversity of women;
• valuing women’s strengths;
• eliminating the privileging of certain groups of women to prevent difference from becoming a basis for unequal power relations between different groups of women;
• considering women as active agents capable of making decisions for themselves in all aspects of their lives;
• locating individual women in their social situations and acknowledging the interconnections between the individual and collective entities relevant to them;
• providing women with the space to voice their own needs and solutions to problems;
• acknowledging the principle ‘the personal is political’ is relevant at macro, meso and micro levels of practice;
• redefining private woes as public issues;
• ensuring that women’s needs are addressed within the context of their being seen as whole human beings in which each area of life interacts with the others;
• recognising the interdependent nature of human relations and through that, realising that what happens to one individual or group has implications for everyone else;
• recognising that women’s individual problems have social causes and addressing both levels in each intervention; and
• looking for collective solutions to individual problems.

(Dominelli 2002b: 162–163)

In arguing for a similarly eclectic approach¹ to the definition of feminist social work identity, Reynolds has suggested that liberal, radical and socialist feminisms cover a wide spectrum of debate but they share ‘a questioning of notions that a woman’s place is primarily in the home; that women should take the main responsibility for child-rearing; and that women are naturally suited to low-paid and low-status caring work’ (Reynolds 1997: 74). She saw the eclectic approach as, what she terms, an ‘evangelising’ strategy:

It is in the interests of the development of feminist practice to have as many women as possible thinking of themselves as feminists. This has led feminist social work academics to stress the breadth of possibilities offered by feminism: the common goals rather than the different purposes.

(Reynolds 1997: 82)

This evangelising strategy was also evident in Hale’s approach. In arguing for the common ground of feminist social work, she suggested that her earlier work could have appeared to be bland and impotent because it was deliberately designed to emphasise the unity of feminist stances so that those women who had not identified themselves with feminism as a political perspective, but who had some consciousness of women’s inferior status and a desire to remedy it, would feel included in feminist social work (Hale 1984: 168). Similarly, McNay has suggested that feminist practitioners must show how their broad insights can be used by other workers who have yet to grasp the relevance of feminist analysis to the range of problems with which they are confronted (McNay 1992: 54).

Eclecticism reappraised

In its early days, the women’s movement stressed the inequalities between women and men, later moving on to emphasise ‘diversity within the concept of “woman”, which for feminist analysis had previously been accepted as a unitary category’ (Langan 1992a: 3–4, original emphasis). The consequences of diversity for feminist analysis have been depicted by some writers as far-reaching: ‘An emphasis on difference has shattered the illusion of the homogeneity of, and sisterhood between, women, which previously characterised white, middle-class, Westernised feminist politics and analysis’ (Asfar and Maynard 1994: 1). hooks has argued that ‘The vision of sisterhood evoked by women liberationists was based on the idea of common oppression, a false and corrupt platform disguising and mystifying the true nature of women’s varied and complex social reality’ (hooks 1990: 29).

This general trend within feminism has been reflected in some of the feminist social work literature, although arguably to a less pronounced extent:

Particular groups of women (for example, black women, lesbians and women with disabilities) have developed critiques of the ways in which they are dominated by other women, including feminists. Consequently, by the mid-1980s, it had become clear that feminism’s presumption of ‘universal sisterhood’ was a conceptual and organisational barrier to addressing unequal relationships among women. The tendency of many recent feminist critiques of social work practice (my own included) has undoubtedly been to focus on the commonalties of women’s experiences at the expense of recognising social divisions that uphold the power of some groups of women at the expense of others.

(Hudson, A. 1989: 73)

From the late 1980s onwards, in addition to the overriding emphasis on an eclectic identity, forged in the fusion of a range of feminist perspectives, there were references to acknowledging differences amongst women (see, for example, Hanmer and Statham 1988: Ch. 1; Dominelli and McLeod 1989; Phillipson 1991: 17 and 38). Dominelli and McLeod, for example, highlighted critiques of feminism arising from the experiences women have from standpoints within a range of social divisions, such as class, ‘race’, sexuality, disability and age (Dominelli and McLeod 1989: 3–4). However, such references were seen as insufficient by some black, lesbian and disabled women who criticised the dominant feminist paradigm for its racism, ethnocentrism and heterosexism (Watson 1999: 4–5). The articulation of ‘other voices’ can be illustrated by drawing on examples in relation to ‘race’, disability and sexuality.

Black women’s lives, and the specificity of their experiences, were regarded as remaining invisible or being distorted so that they fitted into a white mould (Carby 1982; Bryan et al. 1985; Ramazanoglu 1986). These critiques were incorporated into social work (see, for example, Shah 1989; Watt and Cooke 1989; Lewis 1996):

When white women write about women they often write only about themselves. When they occasionally write about black women they usually just incorporate them in a racist and ethnocentric way . . . white women have made black women mere appendages to the perspectives of white feminists.

(Shah 1989: 178)

This incorporation of black women led Watt and Cooke to argue that it is the experience of racism that is the crucial division between black and white women. Black women share this experience with black men and, in spite of their oppression by men, they argued that it was racism that should remain a priority on the social work agenda (Watt and Cooke 1989: 75).

Another strand of critique came from women with disabilities who challenged their marginalisation and exclusion (Morris 1991/1992, 1993, 1996; Begum 1994, 1995), and other women commentators (see, for example, Fawcett 1998, 2000). Such writers highlighted the importance of bringing disabled women’s perspectives into social work: ‘When we appear as a public issue it is usually in the way the non-disabled world defines us and our concerns and not in a way we wish to appear ourselves’ (Morris 1993: 124). Begum insisted that disability, whilst needing to be given greater prominence, should not be regarded in isolation from the experience of other social divisions and argued that the way disabilities are perceived and experienced is determined by the way they interconnect with dimensions of ‘race’, gender, sexuality, class and age (Begum 1994: 21). She argued that black disabled women do not experience forms of oppression separately or in a hierarchical structure and should not be asked to compartmentalise their experiences into discrete categories (Begum 1994: 18).

In relation to sexuality, Cosis-Brown maintained that the feminist social work literature had little, beyond generalities, to say about being lesbians (Cosis-Brown 1992: 204; 1998). She argued that lesbian social workers are either ignored or seen solely in relation to their sexual orientation (Cosis-Brown 1992: 9). She queried this simplistic view of sexuality and suggested that self-definition as lesbian is an ongoing series of difficult processes, which is different for different women (Cosis-Brown 1992: 202). Hillin considered that part of these difficult processes is that some lesbian social workers still feel very vulnerable about coming out in social work settings and, as a consequence, are continually on guard to avoid giving anything away which might reveal their sexuality (Hillin 1985: 18). Black lesbian social workers encounter even more pressures within social work organisations: ‘Black women may not identify as lesbians in certain situations, making a rational choice about not wanting to take on racism and homophobia at the same time’ (Cosis-Brown 1992: 202).

The reappraisal of eclecticism is summed up in Ang’s assertion that feminism

can never ever be an encompassing home for all women, not just because different groups of women have different and sometimes conflicting interests, but, more radically, because for many groups of ‘other’ women other interests, other identifications are sometimes more important and politically pressing than, or even incompatible with, those related to their being women.

(Ang 1995: 73)

In the feminist social work literature, the difficulties that emerged from the articulation of diversity and difference were addressed largely through the refinement of eclecticism.

Eclecticism refined

In response to critiques of eclecticism, one stance taken in the feminist social work literature has been to view such challenges as capable of being used to revise and extend feminist social work identity (Dominelli and McLeod 1989: 2–3). Through this process of refinement, it has been argued, critiques that reflect social divisions other than gender can be identified with feminist social work:

A feminist stance endorses egalitarianism across all social dimensions. Therefore, feminists are also against other social divisions which reflect dominance and subordination such as race, class, heterosexism, ageism and ‘ablebodiedism’ . . . feminist responses to criticism of their theory and practice is sufficiently advanced to demonstrate that incorporated as a central feature of a feminist stance on social inequality is the rejection of all social divisions and not simply those based on gender.

(Dominelli and McLeod 1989: 2 and 4)

This elaboration of feminist social work’s identity has been indicated by Dominelli through extensions to its terminology, for example, ‘anti-racist feminist social work’ (Dominelli 1991), ‘anti-racist socialist feminist social work’ (Dominelli 1992), ‘anti-racist feminist sociological social work’ (Dominelli 1997).

Thus, the inclusion of different women’s experiences and standpoints has not necessarily been seen as undermining the unifying identity that has emerged from the feminist social work agenda: ‘Unity-diversity . . . encourages us to respect difference, preserve uniqueness, while also seeing similarities and wholeness’ (Phillipson 1991: 18). There has been a sense of confidence that routes through to an eclectic identity could still be found. In relation to ‘race’, for example, feminist social work writers have acknowledged that although black and white women have considerable differences to contend with between them, they are also grappling with common causes, and the principle of sisterhood need not be lost (Dominelli and McLeod 1989: 30). A refined eclecticism has been seen as still offering the basis for feminist social work:

There are a number of principles that feminists share, regardless of their overall analyses and calls for action. These include integrating the personal and political dimensions of life, respecting the diversity encompassed by women, seeking more egalitarian forms of social relationships and transforming the existing social order . . . Women have persevered in searching for ways of symbolically and practically emphasising their commitment to ‘unity in diversity’.

(Dominelli 2002b: 3–4)

The emergence of a diverse range of women’s standpoints on to the feminist social work agenda has often been discussed in this way; in terms of how differences amongst women can be incorporated into feminist practice and ultimately transcended. Thus Cavanagh and Cree have suggested that although a single feminist standpoint cannot adequately express the reality of women’s lives, women still have common experience and common goals (Cavanagh and Cree 1996: xxi). Hanmer and Statham saw this recognition of commonality as the cornerstone of feminist social work and stressed that recognition of diversity occurs in the context of commonality (Hanmer and Statham 1999: 19). Hudson et al. warned that, as a result of this tendency towards stressing commonality of identity, feminist social work had been castigated for being synonymous with the values and experiences of white, heterosexual middle-class women (Hudson et al. 1994: 9) and Graham concluded that ‘feminist social work has yet to engage in a systematic way with the debates about difference and divisions among women . . . masking “race”, class, sexuality and disability as crucial dimensions of women’s lives’ (Graham 1992: 63). Despite such earlier cautions, the promise of a unifying feminist identity remains a theme in some of the literature.

Identity diversified

In contrast to attempts in the feminist social work literature to refine eclecticism and rescue a unifying feminist identity, Langan has sought the kind of engagement that Graham saw as having been lacking. Langan began by identifying the need to move beyond the limitations of the past in feminist social work through attempting to develop a wider, non-oppressive, anti-discriminatory form of social work theory and practice that recognised the complexity and diversity of the oppressions that affect women’s lives (Langan 1992a: 1). Rather than seeing feminist social work as capable of expanding its eclecticism to incorpora...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Feminist Social Work Identity
• Chapter 2: Egalitarian Relationships, Empowerment and Statutory Social Work
• Chapter 3: State Social Work
• Chapter 4: Social Work Regimes
• Chapter 5: Social Work Education
• Chapter 6: Identities, Identifications and Stances
• Chapter 7: Egalitarian Relationships and Empowerment in Practice
• Chapter 8: Managerialism and Practice
• Chapter 9: Accommodations and Challenges to Managerialism
• Chapter 10: The State of Feminist Social Work
• Appendix I: Sampling, Interviewing and Data Analysis
• Appendix II: Profile of the Women Social Workers
• Notes
• Bibliography