ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 presented women social workers’ experiences of identifications and stances as being much less clearly aligned with feminist identity than their depiction in the mainstream feminist social work literature (see Chapter 1). The women social workers’ responses indicated a range of identifications and stances, the majority of which were more ambiguous and ambivalent than the feminist social work literature’s identification and stance. Having explored women social workers’ experiences of feminist identity, in this chapter we begin by turning to their experiences of egalitarian relationships. The feminist social work literature (see Chapter 2) has suggested that the shared experience of oppression between women provides the basis for such relationships, whereas Wise (1995, see Chapter 2) has questioned this. Having considered women social workers’ experiences of egalitarian relationships and empowerment, the chapter concludes by examining how women’s interests were addressed in the particular settings within which the women social workers were employed.
