Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

Introduction
Vesna Leskošek
The book is a volume in a series of books on teaching gender that was initiated
by the Athena3 1 and coordinated by the project lead, the University of Utrecht.
One of the working groups in the Athena3 is a working group on Women,
Feminism and the History of Social Work. Its contribution to the series is the
present volume on gender and the history of social work. The need for a book
on teaching gender in social work arises from the fact that social work education
often fails to incorporate gender as an analytical category, even though most of
the people that use social work services are women, a majority of social workers
are women, and women have had throughout history a significant role in the
establishment of social work as a profession. Thus, social work education cannot
neglect an issue of gender. Nevertheless, women are not sufficiently present in the
collective memory of the profession. A super ficial yet general conclusion is that
they are omitted from history because they did not contribute to it, or at least not
sufficiently to be recorded in historical memory.
Social work as a profession started to emerge early in the twentieth
century, when femininity was constructed in a way that supported the
public/private division. This applied, in particular, to a woman’s body and
her appearance, as well as the roles that she was supposed to play both in
private and in public. Religious institutions constructed her morality,
sexuality and motherhood, which in turn determined her social opportunities
and, consequently, her existence. Social work played a role in these processes in
various ways, depending on the prevailing beliefs about women and femininity.
The profession itself has various ideological origins. Some suggest that it is
a continuation of the philanthropic and charitable traditions associated with
the activities of various Churches; others seek its roots in social movements,
particularly in the labour movement and the women’s movement. Social work
is connected with various welfare regimes and exists in a variety of social and
cultural environments. 2 From the very beginning, many of its activities have
been connected with services targeted at women, treating them within the
framework of the prevailing gender ideologies.
1
Advanced Thematic Network in European Women’s Studies, funded by the EU Socrates programme.
2
Walter Lorenz, Social Work in a Changing Europe (London, New York: Routledge, 1994).
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