ABSTRACT
How realistic is it in mid-1990s Britain to expect the social work profession to contribute to the revolutionary programme of feminism? I shall argue in this chapter that current dominant views of ‘feminist social work’, while promoting an ethic of ‘empowerment’ for service users, paradoxically run the risk of disempowering and de-skilling female workers, as well as masking the coercive elements of much social work practice. These unintended consequences arise, I suggest, from the use of universalised instead of contextualised ethical principles which disguise the often extremely complex and difficult ethical dilemmas involved in everyday social work practice. I argue that it is more realistic, more honest and perhaps preferable for feminist women and pro-feminist men in social work to eschew the notion of ‘feminist social work’ as currently defined in favour of the less radical, more liberal feminist aproach of providing non-discriminatory services based on informed theoretical knowledge (including feminist knowledge) provided by a genuinely sexually unsegregated labour force.
