Article
Social work and gender:
An argument for practical
accounts
Stephen Hicks
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of
Manchester, UK
Abstract
This article contributes to the debate on gender and social work by examining dominant
approaches within the field. Anti-discriminatory, woman-centered and intersectional
accounts are critiqued for reliance upon both reification and isolation of gender. Via
examination of poststructural, queer and trans theories within social work, the author
then presents accounts based upon structural/materialist, ethnomethodological and
discursive theories, in order to open up debates about conceptualization of gender.
These are used to suggest that social work should adopt a focus on gender as a practical
accomplishment that occurs within various settings or contexts.
Keywords
Social work, gender, sex, ethnomethodology, discourse, anti-oppressive practice, men,
women, feminism
This article is a contribution to opening up the conversation on gender and social
work. It is concerned, more precisely, with the conceptualization and usage of
‘‘gender’’ within social work theory, research, and practice. Although a key feature
of everyday life, within social work, gender has what sociologists sometimes call a
‘‘seen-but-unnoticed’’ quality. It is frequently overlooked and, perhaps more
importantly, where it is considered, gender is theorized in a number of rather
limited ways.
For example, social work is often described as a female-dominated profession,
but one in which men disproportionately occupy senior roles. Yet, McPhail has
argued that ‘‘social work is more correctly described as a female majority, maledominated
profession’’ (McPhail, 2004b: 325), because, although there are many
Qualitative Social Work
2015, Vol. 14(4) 471–487
! The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1473325014558665
qsw.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
Stephen Hicks, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, Jean McFarlane
Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
Email: stephen.hicks@manchester.ac.uk
more women than men in the field, they do not necessarily dominate. This is an
important argument since, to describe social work as ‘‘female-dominated’’ suggests
that, merely because they are far greater in number, women hold more power. Yet,
this disregards some vital points. First, the smaller number of men in the profession
may actually hold more institutional power, and, second, a profession like social
work is, as with many fields involving the care of others, devalued. Third, the
question of how power works within social work institutions, and how this relates
to gender, is likely to be a lot more complicated.
Discussions about challenging oppression and discrimination within social work
theory and practice are some of the few occasions on which gender is openly
acknowledged (Dominelli, 2002a; Mullaly, 2007; Thompson, 2012). Yet these,
too, often rely upon limited accounts. Thompson’s text, for example, describes
gender as a ‘‘fundamental dimension of human experience, revealing an ever-present
set of differences between men and women’’ (Thompson, 2012: 55). While he
does go on to point out that social, rather than biological, processes produce
gender, it is largely at the level of attitudes that his suggestions for change are
leveled. This tends to individualize gender, to see it as a personal characteristic, and
to see gender oppression merely as a form of personal behavior or values.
In part, these points relate to the ways in which gender is defined. Second-wave
feminism, for example, separated the concept of ‘‘sex’’ from ‘‘gender,’’ in order to
show that ‘‘gender’’ refers to a set of social expectations that may be challenged
(Oakley, 1972; Unger, 1979). However, sometimes this notion of gender as a set of
cultural practices has been reduced to role or identity, so that gender is treated as a
preexisting characteristic or property of the individual. Later feminist theories
remind us, rather, that gender is a social relationship, based upon the promotion
of hierarchy, and one that is reiterated through interactions in everyday life.
This article pays considerable attention to this notion of gender as a form of
practice, since it is my contention that much of social work theory actually treats
gender as a rather static characteristic. After having reviewed some of the more
familiar approaches to gender within social work, I will go on to open up debates
via consideration of materialist, interactionist, and discursive accounts, before
finally considering what social work theory, research, and practice might learn
from these.
How does social work think about gender?
Where social work theory or research does think about gender, we see the influence
of feminist and/or sociological theories. Orme’s book, Gender and Community
Care, argues that the ‘‘gender politics of social work has to include the relationship
between the helper and those who require help, and . . . between the individual and
the state’’ (Orme, 2001: 14). She highlights the disproportionate representation of
women in mental health services, elder abuse, and those cared for in the community,
pointing out that these are all areas in which gender is usually ignored or
invisible or that, when it is noticed, the response is usually to suggest that men and
472 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
women should be treated differently. Orme argues this ‘‘categorisation of femaleness
and maleness, femininity and masculinity as dichotomous opposites does not
reflect the lived experience of users of community care services’’ (Orme, 2001: 239).
Scourfield points out that assumptions about gender difference ‘‘permeate interventions’’
in social work (Scourfield, 2010: 2), and he links these with heteronormativity.
He makes a case for the analysis of gender as a social category, since the
category relates to questions of social inequality (Scourfield, 2002). Christie similarly
argues that, within discourses of welfare, persons are gendered, ‘‘offering them
specific gendered identities and subject positions’’ (Christie, 2001: 9). In relation to
men in social work, he notes that they are often seen as either good (e.g. ‘‘male role
models’’) or bad (e.g. ‘‘dangerous/abusers’’).
Sociological social work texts see gender as referring to a social or cultural set of
ideas reflecting normative assumptions but, although such texts make reference to
gender as a practice, they often work at the level of attitudes or values, encouraging
social workers to reflect upon their own assumptions about gender (Llewellyn
et al., 2008; Sheach-Leith et al., 2011). Treating gender concepts at the level of
attitudes is a rather individualized approach, in which it seems to be an interpersonal
characteristic only, although there are other texts that consider gender as a
practice and insist on its contextualization within late or reflexive modernity
(Dunk-West and Verity, 2013).
There are attempts within social work to think about how gender relates to
questions of race, class, disability, age, or sexuality, but more often gender is
treated as a stand-alone issue. An example of this would be some feminist work
on care, which argues that women need to be released from the burden of caring for
dependents. Although this point about the effects of state and family reliance upon
unpaid care is an important one, work by disabled feminists has pointed out that
the category ‘‘women’’ includes those being cared for, and that these arguments
position disabled women and men as a ‘‘burden’’ (Morris, 1991). Others have noted
the heteronormativity of such arguments, based, as they often are, on an assumed
heterosexual couple (Manthorpe, 2003).
However, by far the most regular usage of ‘‘gender’’ within social work is where
it is treated as ‘‘already given’’ (Smith, 1990: 159); that is, used as a label referring
to an assumed characteristic. Here, the formula runs, ‘‘gender causes x.’’ An interesting
example of this would be Failure to Protect: Moving Beyond Gendered
Responses (Strega et al., 2013), which examines why, in professional responses to
child sexual abuse, mothers are often held responsible via ‘‘failure to protect.’’ In
one sense, this is vitally important: why does some social work practice tend to
blame mothers and ignore fathers? Why are mothers often held accountable for
men’s abuse of children? But, in another sense, the book never really asks how
gender works, or is made to matter, in these contexts, and instead frequently treats
it as a mono-causal explanation.
This kind of usage of gender is limited for a number of reasons: first, gender may
take on a thing-like quality and appear to have agency—‘‘gender causes x.’’
Second, it treats a group (e.g. men) as homogeneous. But this doesn’t ask if all
Hicks 473
men are therefore more likely to abuse children, for example. And it doesn’t ask
whether all men are equally powerful. Third, it doesn’t really get to grips with just
how gender works in a given situation. Fourth, it may lead to simplistic explanations.
Of course, it is important to think about why men overwhelmingly commit
most forms of sexual violence, but this does not mean ‘‘gender causes abuse.’’ And,
lastly, this is a rather interior view of gender. The gender of the person seems to be
some kind of characteristic that causes a problem or outcome.
Woman-centered practice?
Much of the feminist social work literature treats gender as a basis for similarity
and shared purpose. Hanmer and Statham’s text, Women and Social Work, for
example, develops what they term a ‘‘woman-centred practice,’’ and makes the case
that, since women are the majority of social workers and service users, a commonality
of gendered experience, along the lines of ‘‘being female, their relationships
with men, children, living within the family, employment and working conditions’’
(Hanmer and Statham, 1999: 18), forms the basis of social change through
social work.
Although the book does acknowledge differences along lines of race, age, disability,
class, and sexuality, this notion of commonality, or what Dominelli and
McLeod term ‘‘non-hierarchical relationships between the social worker and the
woman/women she is working with’’ (Dominelli and McLeod, 1989: 38), has been
critiqued for assuming that feminist social work means working with women; that
empowerment is the only purpose of such work; that empowerment resolves power
dynamics within relationships; and that women’s shared experience means automatic
rapport (Baines, 1997; Orme, 2003; White, 2006; Wise, 1990). Hanmer and
Statham’s text mentions lesbian, black, and ethnic minority women in relation to
forms of diversity, but their description of women’s commonalities relies upon the
normative assumptions of whiteness and heterosexuality.
This ‘‘sameness’’ problem has been the target of other social work writings.
Lewis’ research argues that both race and gender are mutually constituted, yet
within social work they are often treated as separate spheres. She argues that
gender and race are experienced differently according to context, and so may
have different meanings and effects, even for the same person. So, just as the category
of gender must be one that allows for differences, so race, too, must not be
treated as already given, as referring to some kind of essential black or white
‘‘culture.’’ In relation to the black, female social workers in her study, Lewis suggests
that ‘‘‘racial’ and ethnic categories are simultaneously occupied and resisted
as a way of mediating a set of working lives which are overdetermined by ‘race’ and
gender’’ (Lewis, 2000: 205–206).
Indeed, if gender is to be seen in its complexity, then this must not be taken
solely to refer to women. For some theorists in social work, it is important to think
about work with men and fathers, the complexity of men’s position within social
work, notions of ‘‘masculinity’’ and the category ‘‘men’’ (Christie, 2001;
474 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
Cree, 1996; Featherstone et al., 2007; Scourfield, 2003). This also relates to how
social work thinks about trans issues and transgender people, a point to which I
shall return.
Social work, gender, and intersectionality
One response to this assumed gender sameness, and the treatment of gender in
isolation, is to consider intersectionality theory (Mehrotra, 2010; Murphy et al.,
2009; Wahab et al., forthcoming). Crenshaw’s argument proposes that the consideration
of subordination within single categories, like gender, prevents analysis of
race and gender for black women, since the claims of sex discrimination within law
are largely based upon experiences of white women in relation to gender only
(Crenshaw, 1991). This has been taken up in Incorporating Intersectionality in
Social Work Practice, Research, Policy, and Education (Murphy et al., 2009),
which argues that social work should consider how oppressions intersect to form
interlocking patterns of injustice. This means that attention to gender alone is
insufficient, since race and class make a difference, and it also means that any
individual might experience both oppression and privilege.
While this goes some way to challenging supposed gender sameness, the authors
accept Andersen’s (2005) claim that sexuality does not occupy the same place as
race, class, and gender, since it has largely to do with identity–cultural issues rather
than political–structural ones. Andersen argues:
sexuality has never been formally used to deny sexual groups the right to vote, nor has
it been used in the formal and legal definition of personhood as is historically true of
African Americans and other groups. Gays and lesbians have never been formally
segregated in the labor market nor denied citizenship because of the labor they provide.
(Andersen, 2005: 451)
Murphy et al., while pointing out the need to consider questions of sexuality,
accept this view and suggest that sexuality cannot be treated as equivalent to
race, class, and gender. Here, then, is an obvious problem with some intersectionality
theory. An argument against a hierarchy of oppressions is contradicted by
establishment of another. And, as Schilt notes, this separate treatment of sexuality
ignores ways in which citizenship is denied to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender
people, and also that ‘‘gay men and lesbians who have nonnormative gender presentations,
who are working-class, and/or who are racial/ethnic minorities are often
those who end up being most excluded from legitimate avenues of employment’’
(Schilt, 2008: 112). Given that authors, such as Collins, argue that ‘‘what is needed
is a framework that not only analyzes heterosexism as a system of oppression, but
also conceptualizes its links to race, class, and gender as comparable systems of
oppression’’ (Collins, 2000: 128–129), this suppression of sexuality analysis in a
social work text seems misguided.
Hicks 475
Poststructural and postmodern feminist social work
Poststructural and postmodern theories have questioned the notion of identity or
experience-based knowledge that features in some feminist work, because poststructuralist
theories do not treat language as a reflector of reality, but rather a
powerful way of constructing knowledge. Thus, any claims that feminist social
work should be based upon validating the experiences of women are thrown into
question because those experiences are not merely authentic, they are motivated,
linguistic accounts, which aim to achieve certain effects, and they are open to
different interpretations.
Feminist poststructuralists also challenge the notion of women’s shared experience,
since the category ‘‘woman’’ is itself experienced differently and fractured
along race, class, sexuality, disability, age, and other lines (Featherstone, 2001;
Morley and Macfarlane, 2011; Pollack and Rossiter, 2010; Rossiter, 2000; Sands
and Nuccio, 1992). Of course, this is not merely a poststructural claim. Earlier
feminist debates also centered on potential exclusions of the category ‘‘woman’’ by
race, sexuality, and so on, but here the concern is more with the powerful effects of
language use. So, while Sands and Nuccio’s (1992) arguments for a postmodern
feminist social work, based upon difference, diversity, and recognizing the marginalized
do not sound particularly challenging, their questions about the potentially
oppressive nature of gendered or racialized categories used by social workers raise
important concerns regarding the nature of social work knowledge.
Dominelli has argued strongly against ‘‘individualistic’’ postmodern theory,
which, she says, does not consider systematic patterns of discrimination along
gender lines (Dominelli, 2002b: 34). She also claims that postmodern feminism
assumes that power ‘‘subsumes any form of opposition’’ (Dominelli, 2002a: 169).
This seems a rather limited reading of feminist postmodern theories, which are not
based on notions of the individual subject at all, but are rather concerned with how
subjectivity is produced through powerful discourses, interested in how dominant
knowledge forms arise, and in how these may be opposed via various forms of
subjugated, but not silenced, knowledge. Dominelli, however, argues for womancentered
practice, which seeks equality based on empowerment, listening to the
stories, and validating the experiences of women, a point that postmodern theories
would reject as both naive and asserting a powerful claim about what kinds of
knowledge count.
What such debates demonstrate, of course, is that what constitutes feminist
social work is not agreed. White’s study argues, ‘‘women social workers’ anecdotal
accounts of their experiences were of feminist identities that were fluid, sometimes
fragile or even non-existent’’ (White, 2006: 3). She is also critical of woman-centered
practice because this seems largely based upon community and voluntary
models that exist outside of state social work. While she is not critical of such
feminist work per se, White argues that the woman-centered model of practice is
largely ‘‘isolated from an analysis of the features of the organisational regime of
social work that are associated with its location in the state’’ (White, 2006: 31).
476 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
Postmodern feminist social work theories reject the notion of egalitarian power
relations as a fantasy that does not engage with the power dynamics that always
exist between social workers and clients, a point also made in earlier work (Wise,
1990). Power is not seen as a one-way street; that is, something always held by
social workers over service users. There is no space outside of power relations, and
so postmodern thinkers call for reflexivity about power within all practices. The
feminist model of empowerment, for example, may be criticized because it sees
power as somehow given to the (always) powerless service user by the (always)
powerful social worker, but also because the notion of ‘‘empowerment’’ has been
co-opted by neoliberal state welfare, so that it replaces any concern for wider
structural change with individualized notions of ‘‘choice.’’
Queer and trans theory
The influence of queer and trans theories on social work has been more limited to
date, but where this has been addressed, then the notion of ‘‘gender’’ itself is
challenged (Burdge, 2007; McPhail, 2004a; Nagoshi and Brzuzy, 2010; Wahab
et al., forthcoming). The dichotomous view of gender is brought into question,
as this is a powerful technology for the regulation of persons. Social work writings
on trans people generally caution against the reification of gender categories, with
phrases such as ‘‘gender variant’’ or ‘‘gender nonconforming’’ also being used
(Davis, 2009; Hartley and Whittle, 2003; Kahn, 2014; Martin and Yonkin,
2006). Yet, at the same time, there may be a tendency, in some accounts, to theorize
‘‘transgender identity’’ based upon developmental stages, or gender as something
fixed by the age of 3 (Mallon and DeCrescenzo, 2009). Spade, however, argues that
the vulnerabilities of trans people, especially those marginalized due to poverty, are
the result of ‘‘legal and administrative systems of domination . . . that employ rigid
gender binaries’’ (Spade, 2011: 13). Queer and trans theories thus argue that the
category ‘‘gender’’ should be questioned, and it is to this that I now turn.
Opening up the debate on ‘‘gender’’
. . . ‘enough already with gender!’ The reason for such exasperation has to do with the
way gender has become operationalized in ‘gender research projects’ . . . In many of
these instances, gender is taken for granted as the point of departure for a set of
descriptions of social practices, understood as an adjective that qualifies established
objects of social science: gendered work, gendered performance, gendered play. In
fact, there is little inquiry on the production of difference. . . (Butler, 2011b: 21)
Collins’ (2000) Black Feminist Thought argues that feminist work on gender has
largely reflected the experiences of white, middle-class women. Writing mainly
about African American women’s experiences, Collins argues that many arguments
within feminist theory, such as the role of women as carers in the home or the
Hicks 477
oppressive nature of family life, do not consider black women’s experiences of
(often poorly paid domestic) work or of the positive role that black families
might play in helping to challenge racism. This is not to valorize ‘‘the black
family’’ or to deny the significance of sexism, but rather to insist that feminism,
and any account of gender relations, must take questions about race on board. As
well as this absence of race, black feminist writers also identify the construction of
racial stereotypes (such as, ‘‘more oppressed/in need of feminist help’’ or ‘‘strong,
black women/who don’t need feminism’’) within some theories.
In relation to questions of sexuality, too, feminist theories have been criticized
for their heteronormativity. Lorde’s work, for example, has asked not only why
race but also why sexuality, and lesbianism in particular, has been missing from
some feminist accounts (Lorde, 1996). Rubin, too, argues that feminism is not
necessarily the preferred theory of sexual oppression and that, in some cases, feminists
have proposed ‘‘a very conservative sexual morality’’ (Rubin, 1984: 302). Of
course, this is a complicated picture, since Rubin’s objections are, in some cases,
toward forms of lesbian feminism that she found to be restrictive or hierarchical,
but she is also making a case, not against feminism, but against theories that see
sexuality merely as a derivative of gender.
Material and structural accounts of gender
Materialist or structuralist accounts focus on institutions, such as the family
or the workplace, in order to examine how gender inequality is produced and
reproduced within such settings. Connell’s work, for example, describes gender
as ‘‘the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena,
and the set of practices that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into
social processes’’ (Connell, 2009: 11). This is because she views gender as a pattern
within wider social relations, and so is critical of any gender theory that does not
consider issues such as education, domestic violence, or health, all of which
are ‘‘gendered.’’ For Connell, then, societies exhibit a ‘‘gender order’’ (Connell,
2009: 73).
Another example of structural theory is Risman’s work on family relations
(Risman, 1998). Risman argues that institutions, such as workplaces or the
family, produce inequality between women and men. She makes a case for a
focus on material constraints, which she sees as lacking from other theories. For
Risman, gender is a structure that has consequences for people at individual, interactional,
and institutional levels. Her study of single fathers is particularly interesting
in this respect, as they were engaged in homemaking and caring for children.
Indeed, Risman refers to single fathers’ work as ‘‘mothering’’ (Risman, 1998: 52),
since she found that responsibility for home and care is better explained by parental
role rather than gender. Risman also says that single fathers ‘‘described themselves
as more feminine than did other men’’ (Risman, 1998: 65). Thus, for Risman, a
family structure in which there is one, male parent determines ‘‘gender,’’ in the
sense that this results in a particular sense of self (‘‘more feminine’’) and in work
478 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
usually associated with women. In heterosexual couple families, women were far
more likely to do this caring work.
It is possible to raise some questions about this perspective, not least in terms of
methodology, because Risman largely tests for gender as a measurable variable
(e.g. see ‘‘Measurement of Parenting Variables’’ or ‘‘Gendered selves’’ (Risman,
1998: 59 and 76)). This does not allow much space for the negotiation of gender
within an interactional context or the role of language in that process. Indeed,
Risman is rather dismissive of in-depth interviews, due to the distortions and failures
of memory that she sees in such methods. However, it is also important to
acknowledge that Risman’s view of gender as a structure does not see this as
determinative, since, in some cases, those structures and their consequences may
be challenged. However, Risman’s point is that institutional forms constrain ways
of behaving; or, they have certain gendered consequences, such as inequalities
between women and men.
This approach to gender is often taken up in work on stratification of social
work organizations. Here, it is argued that the gendered structure of social work,
with a disproportionate number of men in senior and management positions,
results in gendered inequality for women in terms of treatment and career prospects
(Dominelli, 2002b; Harlow, 2004; Kirwan, 1994). Yet it would also be possible to
argue that such explanations tell us little about how gender works in these settings.
Are ‘‘men’’ and ‘‘women’’ treated differently, regardless of race, sexuality, disability,
class, or other issues? If the explanation for inequality is merely ‘‘gender difference,’’
then how exactly do gendered ideas about persons arise within social
work in the first place? How are dominant or oppressive ideas about gender resisted
within social work teams or settings? Is gender the primary factor or point of
identification for social workers? These kinds of questions, which structural explanations
often avoid, bring us on to the question of how gender is produced through
practices.
The practice of gender
For ethnomethodologists, a problem with structural accounts is that these assume
an institutional form results in gendered consequences, but this does not ask how
gender is achieved. What practices, for example, produce a gendered institution or
society, and how are these, in fact, constitutive of something called ‘‘gender?’’
Instead, ethnomethodological accounts are concerned with how gender is achieved
in everyday life; that is, with how all people ordinarily achieve a gender status.
Garfinkel’s study of Agnes, a person who presented as intersex but later revealed
herself to be a transsexual woman, was undertaken not to demonstrate the special
features of intersex persons or transsexualism, but rather to show that, for all
people, ‘‘sex status’’ is an ordinary social achievement. Garfinkel argued that
social life is ‘‘rigorously dichotomized into the ‘natural,’ i.e., moral, entities of
male and female’’ (Garfinkel, 1984: 116), and so, in order to be taken for a
‘‘normal’’ person, one has to be taken for a man or woman. But this process
Hicks 479
involves various cues, to do with appearance, speech, biography, and so on, that
each person (or ‘‘member’’) gives. So, for Garfinkel, ‘‘members’ practices alone produce
the observable-tellable normal sexuality of persons’’ (Garfinkel, 1984: 181).
This work was developed further in Kessler and McKenna’s study, which argued
that the attribution of gender is a primary feature of everyday life, and that what
they term ‘‘gender role’’ refers to a set of prescriptive characteristics or expectations
(Kessler and McKenna, 1985: 11). Kessler and McKenna argue that this process of
gendering persons into just one of the two categories (female or male) is fundamental
to social life, and yet unremarkable. This allows, for example, for the
presentation of gender as a social ‘‘fact,’’ in which some theorists or researchers
account for certain behaviors as caused by gender (‘‘gender causes x’’).
These arguments influenced the ‘‘doing gender’’ perspective of West and
Zimmerman, which states that gender ‘‘is the activity of managing situated conduct
in light of normative conceptions of attitudes and activities appropriate for one’s
sex category’’ (West and Zimmerman, 1987: 127). Crucially, this emphasizes the
concept of accountability, because:
a person engaged in virtually any activity may be held accountable for performance of
that activity as a woman or a man . . . to ‘do’ gender is not always to live up to normative
conceptions of femininity or masculinity; it is to engage in behavior at the risk
of gender assessment. (West and Zimmerman, 1987: 136)
In later work on ‘‘doing difference,’’ West and Fenstermaker have shown that
similar processes apply to race and class (West and Fenstermaker, 2002). West
and Zimmerman have also been critical of structural perspectives, which assume
that gender may be undone in order to undo inequality. They argue that gender is
not so easily abandoned, since all of everyday life is accountable in gendered terms
(West and Zimmerman, 2009).
Risman has suggested that the doing gender perspective is in danger simply of
labelling any activity as masculinity or femininity and, along with others, argues
that this may give the impression that nothing can change (Deutsch, 2007; Risman,
2009). In the sense, identified by Butler, of gender being treated as a given explanation
for phenomena, Risman’s point is important, but this would be a misreading
of ethnomethodological claims. Ethnomethodologists explore what ordinary
people count as examples of ‘‘masculinity’’ or ‘‘femininity,’’ and are interested in
transformational possibilities. After all, they see gender as a moral, not merely
practical, order. Thus, Deutsch’s proposal to ‘‘reserve the phrase ‘doing gender’
to refer to social interactions that reproduce gender difference and [to] use the
phrase ‘undoing gender’ to refer to social interactions that reduce gender difference’’
(Deutsch, 2007: 122) seems simplistic: how do we know when gender is being
either reproduced or reduced? And isn’t it possible that both are occurring within
any interaction that appears to involve gender?
Within social work, ethnomethodological perspectives on gender are rare, but
there is research that considers gender as practice. Po¨ so¨ ’s work, in which probation
480 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
officers attempted to identify whether speakers in transcripts were female or male,
demonstrates contradictory views of, and methods for identifying, gender.
Generally, talk about emotions, relationships, or children were associated with
women, and objectivity and reticence in speech associated with men. Po¨ so¨ argues
that gender is ‘‘situational and . . . case-specific’’ (Po¨ so¨ , 2003: 175), and that more
attention should be given to the ways in which it is practised.
Scourfield’s ethnographic study of a childcare social work team examines constructions
of gender, and suggests ‘‘an underlying dichotomy of men as abusers,
and women as carers’’ (Scourfield, 2003: 60). Women were primarily seen as
responsible for children’s welfare and they were expected to protect children
from abusive men, with the ‘‘failure to protect’’ discourse a feature. Men were
often described as dangerous, threatening, or absent/irrelevant, something that
Scourfield sees as part of the continued overlooking of men, and blaming of
women, within child protection. Thus, while there are ‘‘multiple gendered discourses
in the culture of the social work office that constitute the knowledge available
to social workers,’’ these are, at the same time, both powerfully limiting and
open to challenge (Scourfield, 2003: 151).
Butler and performativity
Butler’s work on gender echoes aspects of ethnomethodology and doing gender,
since it is concerned with gender as ‘‘a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid
regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance’’
(Butler, 1990: 33). However, Butler’s work also demonstrates the influence of
poststructural theories and a concern with the heteronormative aspects of gendered
practices, noting that the:
heterosexualization of desire requires and institutes the production of discrete and
asymmetrical oppositions between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine,’ where these are understood
as expressive attributes of ‘male’ and ‘female.’ The cultural matrix through
which gender identity has become intelligible requires that certain kinds of ‘identities’
cannot ‘exist’—that is, those in which gender does not follow from sex and those
in which the practices of desire do not ‘follow’ from either sex or gender. (Butler,
1990: 17)
Of course, this does not mean that other kinds of ‘‘gender’’ do not exist, and Butler
uses the example of drag to show how gender is practised, but also, that it is always
imitative. By this she means that drag is no mere copy of an original gender, but
rather that in ‘‘imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of
gender itself—as well as its contingency’’ (Butler, 1990: 137).
In Bodies That Matter, Butler clarifies this performative sense of gender, arguing
that this is not about gender as an individual choice or mere play, since ‘‘performativity
must be understood not as a singular or deliberate ‘act,’ but, rather, as the
reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it
Hicks 481
names’’ (Butler, 2011a: xii). This is an important point because, while Butler’s
presentation of drag in Gender Trouble tends to suggest a challenge to traditional
versions of gender, work by others, such as Bridges, argues that some forms of
‘‘drag’’ may be used as a temporary joke, actually to reinforce ‘‘normal’’ gender
(Bridges, 2010). Indeed, Butler herself later noted that drag is not necessarily subversive
(Butler, 2011a).
Butler’s argument is that gender precedes the individual; that is, that subjectivity
must be taken up through gender, so one comes to be a person through being taken
for a woman or man. When an individual does not appear to be gendered in a
‘‘normal’’ way, then it is that individual, rather than the gender order, that is
questioned. In relation to social work, Green and Featherstone have analyzed
Butler’s potential, and have suggested that her work helps to challenge dogmatic
and morally certain positions within anti-oppressive theory, which they describe as
a ‘‘project that believes in its own innocence and construct[s] social workers as
disembodied carriers of a ‘pure’ project’’ (Green and Featherstone, 2014: 32).
Gender as discourse
The emphasis in Butler’s work on the question of discourse is taken up in a range of
theories, influenced in part by the poststructuralist turn to language, which consider
gender as discourse. These theories see gender as produced via social and
textual practices, which regulate the ways in which we may think about men,
women, and others. One important implication of this is that gender is not fixed,
nor is it simply attached to individuals. Instead, people contest gendered meanings
and subject positions, although, in order to be taken seriously, they may well have
to use familiar and expected ways of expressing themselves. Further, as Kessler and
McKenna argued, and Butler acknowledged in her later work, the reception of a
gendered claim, by audience or perceiver, matters.
Smith’s discussion of femininity as discourse suggests that the very concept
‘‘femininity’’ is produced through practices and their embeddedness in texts. So,
gender is not merely a structure or ideology imposed upon un/willing subjects, but
rather it is a ‘‘complex of actual relations vested in texts’’ (Smith, 1990: 163). This is
an interesting point, as we hear here Smith’s joint adherence to both a materialist
and discursive account of gender, which she sees as mutually dependent, since
gender is produced within both local and wider social relations. That is, a discourse
of gender relates to people’s actions within localized settings and the organization
of their ways of thinking and talking.
Like Garfinkel, Smith insists that gender is a moral order, which means that it is
coordinated with wider social and economic relations, so that femininity is ‘‘a
textual discourse vested in women’s magazines and television, advertisements,’’
and so on (Smith, 1990: 163). The moral order attempts to position women and
femininity only in relation to the, more valued, men and masculinity, and for
women this implies the need to be considered ‘‘attractive’’ or ‘‘desirable,’’ ‘‘a condition
of participation in circles organized heterosexually’’ (Smith, 1990: 194).
482 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
Smith refers to play and interplay within gendered discourse, in order to argue that
it does not prescribe action, and yet she also reminds us that social texts establish
recognizable concepts and categories, so that what is done may (or may not) be
recognized as an instance of what is authorized. Thus, to take up gender within
discourse is to be recognized as demonstrating a proper instance of such, that is, a
‘‘proper’’ man or woman.
Returning to social work and gender
In my research, I have argued for an analysis of gender as a practical achievement
within everyday social work contexts. Drawing upon the ethnomethodological and
discursive theories discussed earlier, I have suggested that gender is neither a characteristic
merely acquired and passed on through socialization or reproduction of
structural forms nor something inherent in the person. Rather, social work processes
involve the production of gender through practical means, which relate both
to immediate, local, and wider, institutional contexts. An example of this would be
my analysis of the ways in which notions about ‘‘gender role’’ are used within the
assessment of lesbian or gay foster care or adoption applicants (Hicks, 2011, 2013).
Here, I have demonstrated how social workers and applicants draw upon and
produce ideas about gender in order to categorize ‘‘identities’’ or ‘‘lifestyles,’’
and I have noted that, in most cases, the issue of ‘‘gender role models’’ has to be:
addressed in relation to gay and lesbian applicants, and those applicants, as well as
some social workers, who, in other contexts, are opposed to notions of gender
role, must conform since they are held accountable. And while there is resistance to
gender norms here, a standard and institutional discourse dominates, one in which
adherence to a moral order that upholds expected gender roles is required. (Hicks,
2013: 158)
This is confirmed in other research (Wood, 2013), and reminds us of the ethnomethodological
point that, where any person is perceived to question standard
gender in some way, then it is usually that individual or group category, rather
than the gender hierarchy, that is held to account, since gender functions as a moral
order. This approach to the theorization of gender within social work emphasizes
its reliance on other categories, such as race or sexuality, and its active production
via interactions involving powerful linguistic claims, moving us away from essentialist,
functionalist and, to some extent, structuralist accounts.
In using this article to review various theorizations of gender, my point has been
to highlight ways in which social work may be limited in the versions that it prioritizes.
The tendency to treat gender in isolation, critiqued in some accounts
(Brown, 1992; Shah, 1989), or to take up a solely structural view indicates a reification
of gender and an ignorance of its production through practice. My argument
has been that, bar a few examples (Po¨ so¨ , 2003; Scourfield, 2003), social work rarely
connects with gender as practice, ironic for a discipline so concerned with practical
Hicks 483
dynamics. This, then, is also an argument for attention to the ways in which gender
is produced through social work, something that draws upon both the practical and
the discursive, rather than starting with something termed ‘‘gender’’ and then
looking for its effects. This may prove controversial in a field somewhat dominated
by anti-discriminatory approaches; that is, where gender is considered at all; yet it
is my argument that taking up Butler’s ‘‘inquiry on the production of difference’’
(Butler, 2011b: 21) may open up possibilities for less restrictive accounts of gender
within social work’s various fields.
References
Andersen ML (2005) Thinking about women: A quarter century’s view. Gender & Society
19(4): 437–455.
Baines D (1997) Feminist social work in the inner city: The challenges of race, class, and
gender. Affilia 12(3): 297–317.
Bridges TS (2010) Men just weren’t made to do this: Performances of drag at ‘‘walk a mile in
her shoes’’ marches. Gender & Society 24(1): 5–30.
Brown HC (1992) Lesbians, the state and social work practice. In: Langan M and Day L
(eds) Women, Oppression and Social Work: Issues in Anti-Discriminatory Practice.
London: Routledge, pp. 201–219.
Burdge BJ (2007) Bending gender, ending gender: Theoretical foundations for social work
practice with the transgender community. Social Work 52(3): 243–250.
Butler J (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
Butler J (2011a) Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘‘Sex’’. London: Routledge.
Butler J (2011b) Speaking up, talking back: Joan Scott’s critical feminism. In: Butler J and
Weed E (eds) The Question of Gender: Joan W. Scott’s Critical Feminism. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, pp. 11–28.
Christie A (2001) Gendered discourses of welfare, men and social work. In: Christie A (ed.)
Men and Social Work: Theories and Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 7–34.
Collins PH (2000) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Connell R (2009) Gender: In World Perspective, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Cree VE (1996) Why do men care? In: Cavanagh K and Cree VE (eds) Working with Men:
Feminism and Social Work. London: Routledge pp. 64–86.
Crenshaw K (1991) Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence
against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43(1241): 1241–1299.
Davis C (2009) Introduction to practice with transgender and gender variant youth.
In: Mallon GP (ed.) Social Work Practice with Transgender and Gender Variant Youth.
London: Routledge, pp. 1–21.
Deutsch FM (2007) Undoing gender. Gender & Society 21(1): 106–127.
Dominelli L (2002a) Anti-oppressive Social Work Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Dominelli L (2002b) Feminist Social Work Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Dominelli L and McLeod E (1989) Feminist Social Work. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Dunk-West P and Verity F (2013) Sociological Social Work. Farnham: Ashgate.
484 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
Featherstone B (2001) Where to for feminist social work? Critical Social Work 2(1).
Available at: http://www1.uwindsor.ca/criticalsocialwork/where-to-for-feminist-socialwork
(accessed 12 October 2014).
Featherstone B, Rivett M and Scourfield J (2007) Working with Men in Health and Social
Care. London: SAGE.
Garfinkel H (1984) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Green L and Featherstone B (2014) Judith Butler, power and social work. In: Cocker C and
Hafford-Letchfield T (eds) Rethinking Anti-Discriminatory and Anti-Oppressive Theories
for Social Work Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 31–44.
Hanmer J and Statham D (1999) Women and Social Work: Towards a Woman-Centred
Practice, 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Harlow E (2004) Why don’t women want to be social workers anymore? New managerialism,
postfeminism and the shortage of social workers in social services departments in
England and Wales. European Journal of Social Work 7(2): 167–179.
Hartley CF and Whittle S (2003) Different sexed and gendered bodies demand different
ways of thinking about policy and practice. Practice 15(3): 61–73.
Hicks S (2011) Lesbian, Gay and Queer Parenting: Families, Intimacies, Genealogies.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hicks S (2013) Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents and the question of gender.
In: Goldberg AE and Allen KR (eds) LGBT-Parent Families: Innovations in Research and
Implications for Practice. New York: Springer, pp. 149–162.
Kahn S (2014) Experiences of faith for gender role non-conforming Muslims in resettlement:
Preliminary considerations for social work practitioners. British Journal of Social Work.
Epub ahead of print 3 June 2014. DOI: 10.1093/bjsw/bcu060.
Kessler SJ and McKenna W (1985) Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Kirwan M (1994) Gender and social work: Will DipSW make a difference? British Journal of
Social Work 24(2): 137–155.
Lewis G (2000) ‘‘Race’’, Gender, Social Welfare: Encounters in a Postcolonial Society.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Llewellyn A, Agu L and Mercer D (2008) Sociology for Social Workers. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Lorde A (1996) The Audre Lorde Compendium: Essays, Speeches and Journals. London:
Pandora.
Mallon GP and DeCrescenzo T (2009) Social work practice with transgender and gender
variant children and youth. In: Mallon GP (ed.) Social Work Practice with Transgender
and Gender Variant Youth. London: Routledge, pp. 65–86.
Manthorpe J (2003) Nearest and dearest? The neglect of lesbians in caring relationships.
British Journal of Social Work 33(6): 753–768.
Martin JI and Yonkin DR (2006) Transgender identity. In: Morrow DF and Messinger L
(eds) Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression in Social Work Practice: Working with
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People. New York: Columbia University Press,
pp. 105–128.
McPhail BA (2004a) Questioning gender and sexuality binaries: What queer theorists, transgendered
individuals, and sex researchers can teach social work. Journal of Gay & Lesbian
Social Services 17(1): 3–21.
McPhail BA (2004b) Setting the record straight: Social work is not a female-dominated
profession. Social Work 49(2): 323–326.
Hicks 485
Mehrotra G (2010) Toward a continuum of intersectionality theorizing for feminist social
work scholarship. Affilia 25(4): 417–430.
Morley C and Macfarlane S (2011) The nexus between feminism and postmodernism: Still a
central concern for critical social work. British Journal of Social Work 42(4): 687–705.
Morris J (1991) Pride Against Prejudice: Transforming Attitudes to Disability. London: The
Women’s Press.
Mullaly B (2007) The New Structural Social Work, 3rd ed. Don Mills: Oxford University
Press.
Murphy Y, Hunt V, Zajicek AM, et al. (2009) Incorporating Intersectionality in Social Work
Practice, Research, Policy, and Education. Washington: NASW Press.
Nagoshi JL and Brzuzy S (2010) Transgender theory: Embodying research and practice.
Affilia 25(4): 431–443.
Oakley A (1972) Sex, Gender and Society. London: Temple Smith.
Orme J (2001) Gender and Community Care: Social Work and Social Care Perspectives.
Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Orme J (2003) ‘‘It’s feminist because I say so!’’: Feminism, social work and critical practice
in the UK. Qualitative Social Work 2(2): 131–153.
Pollack S and Rossiter A (2010) Neoliberalism and the entrepreneurial subject: Implications
for feminism and social work. Canadian Social Work Review 27(2): 155–169.
Po¨ so¨ T (2003) Complicated gender. In: Hall C, Juhila K, Parton N, et al. (eds) Constructing
Clienthood in Social Work and Human Services: Interaction, Identities and Practices.
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, pp. 161–176.
Risman BJ (1998) Gender Vertigo: American Families in Transition. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Risman BJ (2009) From doing to undoing: Gender as we know it. Gender & Society 23(1):
81–84.
Rossiter A (2000) The postmodern feminist condition: New conditions for social work.
In: Fawcett B, Featherstone B, Fook J, et al. (eds) Practice and Research in Social
Work: Postmodern Feminist Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 24–38.
Rubin G (1984) Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality.
In: Vance CS (ed.) Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 267–319.
Sands RG and Nuccio K (1992) Postmodern feminist theory and social work. Social Work
37(6): 489–494.
Schilt K (2008) The unfinished business of sexuality: Comment on Andersen. Gender and
Society 22(1): 109–114.
Scourfield JB (2002) Reflections on gender, knowledge and values in social work. British
Journal of Social Work 32(1): 1–15.
Scourfield J (2003) Gender and Child Protection. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Scourfield J (2010) Gender and child welfare in society: Introduction to some key concepts.
In: Featherstone B, Hooper C-A, Scourfield J, et al. (eds) Gender and Child Welfare in
Society. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1–25.
Shah N (1989) It’s up to you sisters: Black women and radical social work. In: Langan M
and Lee P (eds) Radical Social Work Today. London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 178–191.
Sheach-Leith V, Sutherland M and Gibson N (2011) Gender. In: Yuill C and Gibson A (eds)
Sociology for Social Work: An Introduction. London: SAGE, pp. 45–68.
Smith DE (1990) Texts, Facts, and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling. London:
Routledge.
486 Qualitative Social Work 14(4)
Spade D (2011) Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits
of Law. Brooklyn: South End Press.
Strega S, Krane J, Lapierre S, et al. (eds) (2013) Failure to Protect: Moving Beyond Gendered
Responses. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
Thompson N (2012) Anti-Discriminatory Practice: Equality, Diversity and Social Justice, 5th
ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Unger RK (1979) Toward a redefinition of sex and gender. American Psychologist 34(11):
1085–1094.
Wahab S, Anderson-Nathe B and Gringeri C (forthcoming) Introduction. In: Wahab S,
Anderson-Nathe B and Gringeri C (eds) Feminisms in Social Work Research: Promise and
Possibilities for Justice-Based Knowledge. London: Routledge, pp. 1–15.
West C and Fenstermaker S (2002) Accountability in action: The accomplishment of gender,
race and class in a meeting of the University of California Board of Regents. Discourse &
Society 13(4): 537–563.
West C and Zimmerman DH (1987) Doing gender. Gender & Society 1(2): 125–151.
West C and Zimmerman DH (2009) Accounting for doing gender. Gender & Society 23(1):
112–122.
White V (2006) The State of Feminist Social Work. London: Routledge.
Wise S (1990) Becoming a feminist social worker. In: Stanley L (ed.) Feminist Praxis:
Research, Theory and Epistemology in Feminist Sociology. London: Routledge,
pp. 236–249.
Wood K (2013) Negotiating the new normal: Displaying family in the context of gay and
lesbian fostering and adoption. PhD Thesis, University of Hull, UK.
Hicks 487