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Chapter 13 Feminist Practice
Feminist perspectives help social work understand and respond to the oppression of women. Feminist
perspectives are a powerful method for analyzing women’s experiences and roles in many societies both
historically and at present. These perspectives are particularly helpful for social work as most clients and
practitioners are women and thus allow the social works and their clients to practice in solidarity with
each other’s worldviews. Understanding feminist practice thus benefits them and can be applied more
widely such as in practice with men, understanding historical development of social issues, or improving
techniques such as collaborative dialogue and groupwork.
Terminology
Consciousness-raising Strategy for stimulating awareness and change that is also related to the critical
practice of conscientization.
Reflexivity Originally developed as a research tool; reflexivity is now an established element of practice.
Dialogue The process of dialogue illuminates different perceptions by description and opposition against
each other. Dialogue in practice values and empowers women and other clients.
Social and personal identity Social and personal identify and the social processes by which this identity is
formed and changed are an important aspect of creating and intervening in relationships.
Ethics of care One approach to feminist practice believes that women’s caring arises from relatedness.
Liberal feminism A gradualist approach to improving the position of women.
Radical feminism Focuses on men’s power and privilege and seeks to promote separate opportunities for
women.
Socialist feminism Explains oppression as due to a class-based social system that subordinates women.
Black feminism Examines women’s situation based on race and historic patterns of experiences.
Postmodern feminism Looks at discourse in society to understand social assumptions about women.
Key Points
Feminist thinking has a lengthy history.
Feminist activity started in the late 1800s; through the 1930s most activity focused on political and legal
property rights. Beginning in 1960s, a second wave focused on social inequalities in the workplace,
political influence in the public sphere impacting women in the private sphere, and in interpersonal
relationships. Currently there is discussion of a ‘third wave’ backlash where equality is assumed to be
unachievable and false goal.
There are four major features of feminist practice that help characterize its use.
Feminist practice creates dialogical, egalitarian relationships. For example, rather than working from a
checklist of questions, practitioners open discussion with clients about issues and allow them to express
their opinions rather than sticking to the agency’s agenda.
Feminist practice focuses on personal identity. This approach to practice requires helping clients to clarify
and pursue important personal objectives that strengthen them as women.
Feminist practice values diversity. Practitioners seek to validate a wide variety of non-exploitive
relationships in clients’ lives.
Feminist practice. Practitioners see to use groups in order to promote an awareness and understanding of
oppression as well as strategies to respond and so do ‘consciousness-raising’, or increasing women’s
understanding awareness using learning opportunities and gaining experience of a wide range of social
relations.
The development of feminism resulted in diverse perspectives.
Liberal feminism A perspective that seeks improvements in equality between men and women particularly
in the workplace, caring, and family responsibilities; liberal feminism seeks to change gender assumptions
by legislation, changing social conventions, and by altering socialization processes.
Radical feminism As opposed to liberal feminism, radical feminism seeks to attack patriarchy and values
and celebrates differences between men and women as well as promoting separate women’s structures.
Socialist feminism Socialist feminism broadens the perspective to see women’s oppression as a result of
the inequality inherent in the social structure of a class-based social system that assigns women roles such
as domestic and child care as well as interacting with other forms of oppression.
Black feminism A different perspective is provided by black feminism that begins with racism and focuses
on the diversity of women and their oppressions. Responses to those oppressions are seen as being
dependent on the particular situation and connected to historic patterns of family slavery experiences.
Postmodern feminism Postmodern feminism questions rather than accepts categories; this perspective
examines discourse in society to understand social assumptions about women and their treatment in an
environment complex and sophisticate social relations particularly involving powerful groups.
Overall, feminist thinking has helped social work practice in many ways.
Feminist thinking has raised concerns for women’s conditions in diverse areas of society; aided in
developing a women-centered practice; highlighted women’s distinct voice and identity; and celebrated
women’s diversity.
For example, feminist practice seeks to link practitioners and clients.
Feminist practice seeks commonalities between female practitioners and the women they work with and
takes place in a dialogic, egalitarian relationship.
This link between practitioners and clients is informed by an ethics of care position.
The ethics of care position emphasizes the feminist view that caring derives from interpersonal
connections within relationships rather than from rational, planned service provision.
Feminist thinking over time has addressed a wide range of topics.
Specifically, feminist practice highlights women’s experiences and roles in childcare, roles in the
reproduction or development of social and economic systems, and the importance of reconstructing
relationships on a more equal footing.
A feminism perspective is an integral part of current-day critical practice.
Feminism refuses to take the present social order for granted and questions how gendered social
assumptions affect relationships and social institutions. Feminism gives priority to interpersonal and
personal experience as an expression of oppression and a contributor to social change; feminism goes
beyond issues of socioeconomic class but at the more complex explanations of interpersonal and social
relationships. Feminist social work also emphasis the way in which difference and power are linked and
the complexities of the interaction among social differences, physical differences, and professional help.
Feminism also has contributed to postmodernism
Postmodern arguments, such as those against the idea of a single, fixed, logical social order, connects with
feminism to develop postmodern feminism approaches to address the complexities and ambiguities in
women’s lives. Feminism also gives an important role to identity and its sources in people’s social
experience as one’s sense of self derives from myriad social relationships and the institutional and
personal influences on them. Postmodern feminism particularly focuses on the deconstruction of these
sorts of discourses about women in society. Postmodern feminism attaches a high value to diversity and
women’s individual choice.
Alternative feminist perspectives aid in understanding the wide variety of women’s roles.
Feminist perspectives such as liberal, radical, black, socialist, and postmodern explored and illuminated
the different ways in which oppression may impact the lives of women.
Feminist social work theory arose in the 1970s.
Feminist social work theory emerged out of the commitment of women social worker to wider feminist
movements in Western societies in the 1970s. It became associated with the radical social work
movements in the 1960s and early 1970sbut its earliest writings came from a broader, more liberal
tradition in response to general movements to improve civil and human rights. Additional impacts were
on counseling approaches to women’s well-being and health as well as issues of violence, rape, and
prostitution.
Feminist social work includes four major areas.
Women’s conditions Women share the experience of oppression and discrimination in many areas of life
and as professionals is disadvantaged in pursuing work and professional advancement.
Women-centered practice This types of practice focus on identifying women’s particular needs and
responding to them.
Women’s different voice Women experience the world differently, and have views that are different from
those of men, particularly in matters of social and moral concern.
Working with diversity Because of their shared experience with oppression, women were able to identify,
value, and respond to many different sorts of social diversity. This is an important source of the feminist
contribution to anti-oppressive and critical practice.
An important value of feminist practice is sharing experiences with clients.
An important value position in feminist practice is that women share important commonalities in that
they share experiences as victims of oppression a patriarchal society that privileges men’s ways of thinking
and living. This is a source of identity for women and a basis for building relationships between
practitioners and clients thus enabling women to support each other.
Dialogic practice illustrates feminist practice values.
Dialogic practice views the dialogue between participants in a social situation as always being open-ended.
Thus it is important to avoid defining required outcomes in advance or closing off debate before the
participants in a situation have been able to adequately engage.
Ethics of care views are also a good illustration of feminist thinking.
Ethics of care is an example of the alternative cultural expression that women’s thinking and actions
represent. This approach argues that women have a distinctive approach to care relationships in society
that is derived from their relationships and social experience—which differs from men’s understanding
and thus does not emerge from economic oppression but from differences in men’s and women’s
experiences. This relates to work that suggests women and men have different modes of reasoning about
moral questions, including the nature of caring. Generally speaking, men care because of a commitment to
duty, responsibility, and social obligations and women experience caring attitudes and caring behavior as
coming from connections between people.
Issues
Debates about feminist theory reflect attitudes towards women and inequalities.
Debates reflect attitudes toward women and feminist in particular existing gender inequalities. Feminism
asserts that women are oppressed by social structure and relationships in society that privilege men and
male views of social priorities and thus devalue or exclude the views of women, resulting in the oppression
of women particularly those without economic or social power. Given that the oppression results from
gender divisions, intervening to overcome the oppression is difficult.
Critiques of feminism raise issues regarding exclusion and risk.
Some of the critiques of feminism question whether by using it that it excludes equally important issues
that mainly affect men, including violence and exploitation in the workplace, and the impact of gender
divisions on men’s problems such as the lack of efforts to engage men in family and social care despite
evidence that a caring role is required for them in many situations. By concentrating on women, critics say
that feminism fails to pick up on important opportunities to change gender relations and roles for the
benefit of both sexes.
Proponents argue that women are more common both as clients and providers.
Most social work does involve women working with other women and in most societies women are
significantly more affected by poverty and other social problems. However, women may be the main
clients of social work in particular welfare systems, since in others such as Nordic systems men are
common. Critics sometimes argue that women practitioners feel more comfortable working with the
female members of the family rather than the male and that the daytime service provision generates a
focus on linking with women given current social patterns.
Other critics see explicit use of feminist ideas as placing women’s issues in a ghetto.
By creating feminist practice, women’s issues thus are moved into an area of special interest rather than
gaining credence for feminist analysis more widely; some argue that the lack of feminist models of general
practice renders feminism almost invisible and thus its social critiques ineffective.
On the other hand, biases in society may justify the role of feminism.
Discrimination against women continues to be commonplace at work and in the welfare system, women
are disadvantaged economically and socially everywhere, and thus there is clearly an issue to be address
by the social work profession. Thus a gender-focused approach to practice may be justified given the
pervasive nature of discrimination against women.
Final Thoughts…
Use of feminist ideas in practice raises problems for some writers due to their perception of a limited
focus, priority being given to women’s issues, marginalized position in specialized agencies, and limited
research base. On the other hand, feminist theory has changed how social work practice and society think
about gender roles and relationships in regard to social policy and welfare services. Feminism has
questioned the quality of relationships among individuals and promoted dialogical and egalitarian
relations in practice. Feminist-informed social work practice has given greater credence to the perspective
of the recipient, be they male or female. Feminist theory has also raised awareness of women’s shared
experiences working with other women particularly in oppressed situations. All together, feminist theory
is both a unique and a useful addition to the body of social work theory.