ABSTRACT
Any consideration of the experiences of women as social work clients and workers should not proceed without examining the intersections between racial, class and gender oppression. The debate within social work about these different forms of oppression has a somewhat chequered history. The radical social work movement, informed by a Marxist analysis, introduced class as a central organizing concept; then feminism raised gender as a crucial issue; and most recently, anti-racist activists have put race and racism on the agenda of social work practice. However, it has not necessarily been the case that the relations between class, gender and race have been clearly identified, or how these relations affect women’s lives. The objective of this chapter is not directly to examine this social work literature, but to focus upon feminist ideas and the black feminist critique as a way of enhancing our understanding of how class and race affect the experiences of women.
