Woman and Sexism, Term Paper Example

This paper explores the social work considerations ; focusing on the aspects that a social worker needs to know when interacting with women.  The paper is split into three parts (i) Introduction and Background (ii) Cultural issues influencing psychological functioning of women (iii) Summary and Conclusions.  The paper addresses the key question – why is it important for the social worker to understand the psychological and social needs of this population group?

Introduction

Historically Social Workers, when dealing with women, have tended to think that all women share a common value set of beliefs, ideology and concerns.  As we have become a much more integrated and globalized society this has changed.  We now have an integrated society that draws in women from many nations with different cultural  backgrounds. Social workers now need to adopt a new understanding and outlook in order to deal with this population group. As the Social Worker was largely viewed as a woman’s job it was held in low esteem and afforded low pay.  Equally this made this group of workers strong of character and conviction, hence it would unite around topics of a feminist agenda and provide special care and support in this area.  Sexism still remains in force where social workers practice” women who occupy social work positions are paid less than their male counterparts”

Cultural Issues

This needs exploring from a number of different perspectives. Social workers dealing with women who have been subjected to domestic violence ( battered wives).  The Social worker will need to explore the ethnicity and cultural background of the victim. This to establish a basis for the behaviour and understand the rationale and treatment for the abuse.  In any event this is now moving beyond the social workers realm into a legal jurisdiction. One of the early steps the Social Worker should do is help eliminate the fear of the woman(victim) and help her to focus on the immediate needs, the dangers presented and how help might best be administered. This should be placed in an immediate prioritization list.

There are additional social problems of sexism against women that the social workers need to be aware of.  Women have suffered from a lack of equality in the workplace and lower forms of remuneration than their male counterparts.  This often resulting in women having a lower self esteem. In the State of Washington a Government employees Union conducted a job evaluation study between men and women in similar jobs. The results revealed that on average men were paid 20% more than women.  ” Two major laws in the USA cover employment discrimination – Equal Pay Act 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964″  .  Despite considerable progress in pay equality in both Europe and the USA there still remains considerable inequities.  These particularly in emerging democracies like India, Tunisia, Turkey and South Africa.  Inequality of pay is particularly burdensome to single mothers who strive bring up a family.  The increased rate of divorce in both Europe and the USA has seen an increase in single parent families and the burden is particularly hard on the female counterpart.

Single parent households, resulting from marital separation or divorce, have been classified as impacting mainly women. In fact ” nine out of ten cases are female headed families” (Weiss, Feb 1984).

Social Workers need to familiarize themselves with ‘ Prochaska and DiClemente’s (1983) Stages of Change Model’. There are five stages that women will undergo when considering change that must take place : precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.  In India the concept of marital rape was not recognized by the legal system until very recently. With Indian people living abroad this caused a problem in foreign judicial courts, as they were subject to the laws of the land they are residing in.  Cultural background and understanding is important in helping to resolve these issues.  Similarly religions have treated women very differently to men; consider the way Islamic religion has treated women in terms of degrading and lack of human rights . Images of marital rape are what we call ‘sanitary stereotype’.

The social problem areas are also impacted  by a number of Social Institutions.  Education impacts the single parent family and the amount of money the mother is able to earn. Pay discrimination can impact the type and quality of education the parent can afford for their children equally clothing and other requirements of the educational system.  Equally Financial services may limit the amount of support to single families whom they might deem as having a poor credit rating and being of high risk. ” The major issue facing single mothers and their children today is poverty”  (Burden)

Conclusions

The Social Worker’s role has considerably transformed into more than that of a helper and councillor. It forms an important mediatory role between the law enforcement officers and the medical community.  Sexism directed at women has three  components: (i) negative attitudes towards women (ii) stereotyping women and (iii) discrimination – exclusion or separation.  (Kendall, 2008) The role requires a considerable understanding of the psychological implications when dealing with different population groups.  With women and sexism it is as much about understanding the cultural backgrounds as is the need to provide firm assistance and know when to involve other areas of specific expertise.  A great deal of discrimination and abuse against women is owing to male domination to retain control and power over the other gender.  This has been emphasised in the religions and used as an excuse to subjugate women in subordinate roles to men.

Works Cited

Alfred Kadushin, Daniel Harkness. Supervision in social work . New York : Columbia University Press, 2002.

Burden, Dianne S. “Single Parents and the Work Setting.” Family Relations (1986): 37.

Donald J. Treiman, Heidi I. Hartmann. Women, work, and wages: equal pay for jobs of equal value . Washington DC: National Research Council USA, 1990.

Patricia Searles, Ronald J. Berger. Rape and society: readings on the problem of sexual assault . Oxford: Westview Press, 1995.

Weiss, Robert S. “Impact of marital dissolution on income and consumption in single parent homes.” Journal of marriage and the family (Feb 1984): 185.