Language, power and gendered identities : the reflexive social worker
Date
2006
Authors
Bagshaw, D.
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Journal article
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Women in Welfare Education, 2006; 8:1-11
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Abstract
This paper explores the implications of feminist poststructuralist ideas for the theory and practice of social work, with a particular emphasis on the links between power, knowledge and language as discourse, and the constitution of gendered identities. The author explores the power of language to define our gendered identities, with illustrations drawn from research she has conducted in South Australia in the areas of domestic violence, verbal abuse and the construction of gendered adolescent identities in secondary schools. She argues that social workers should emphasise the importance of reflexivity in their practice by developing awareness of the effect of dominant cultural and professional discourses on their lives, in order to more fully understand the standpoint of the 'other', and by empowering their clients to identify, resist and challenge discourses and their effects. By conceiving of masculinities and femininities as discursive phenomena, offering a range of possible subject positions, there is greater potential for provoking change than if masculinity or femininity is conceived as an essence.
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Copyright 2006 Women in Welfare Education Collective