What is it about?
Research continues to demonstrate that female social workers earn less than their male counterparts and experience significant barriers to professional advancement. The combination of feminist ethics of care, risk and resilience, and ecological theories inform a conceptual model providing a roadmap for understanding impediments to the success of women social workers and offers strategies for empowering women in the profession.
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Why is it important?
The theoretically informed conceptual model outlined and discussed in this paper provides a roadmap to success for women social workers. As conceived, this model also has utility for empirically testing linkages among national climate, organizational influences, and risk factors promoting or inhibiting resilience.
Perspectives
More than 50 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women continue to earn less than their male counterparts and trail behind in professional advancement in the United States. Gender inequity in salary and leadership opportunity is also widespread in the profession of social work. Although social work has been uniquely dedicated to the promotion of economic and social justice, gender based salary disparities and glass ceilings persist. Social workers are trained to be agents of change and thereby have the capacity to promote gender equity within the social service organizations they are employed. Ethical practice dictates social workers challenge gender discrimination and women in the profession need to advocate for their own benefit.
Dr Gayle Mallinger
Western Kentucky University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Women Social Workers, Affilia, July 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0886109916647766.
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