Principles and Practice of Social Work - Theoretical Assignment Free Essay Example, 2500 words

Feminist Social Work According to Walters (2005), feminism involves many of the movements and organisations that promote the concept of fighting for women’s political, social, and legal rights and freedoms in a male dominated society. In addition to groups that explicitly use the word feminism, scholars argue that any group that advocates for equality between men and women is feminist. These groups also fight for equal education and employment chances between men and women. Feminist theory is the framework that attempts to explain society structure and the role of gender in the functioning of society, accounting for all the opportunities that an individual stands to gain or lose by respect of being in this or that gender. For instance, not so long ago, society reserved some job positions for men as it considered them the breadwinners (Bell 2008). Gardiner (2002) asserts that, in 1928, Lucretia Mott and others played a pivotal role in campaigning for the abolishment of the slave trade, after which they focussed their efforts on women rights. They worked hard to ensure that all states in the United States of America passed laws that would allow people from all genders to enjoy equal rights and freedoms. We will write a custom essay sample on Principles and Practice of Social Work - Theoretical Assignment or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now Maxine Hong Kingston and others criticised early feminists for only campaigning for the rights of the working class white women, and wanted to include black women in the feminist movement. In addition, these third generation feminists campaigned for equality rather than suffrage, insisting that what women needed was an equal opportunity, rights and freedoms not favours as earlier feminists had postulated. They emphasised that campaigning for women to get preference treatment, it portrayed them as a weaker gender who could only survive on favours, a concept that went against the very spirit of feminism (Hochschild and Machung 2003). There are many classes of feminists depending on their approach in the fight for equality between men and women, though all agree that a person’s gender should not have a role in determining the opportunities and chances that society gives him or her. Two of the main different feminist approaches have a basis on the belief in society and gender roles; some believe that there are roles in society for a person depending on gender while others believe that gender roles are because of social conditioning. The former advocate for the needs of the society, believing of the need for someone to perform certain duties based on gender, while the latter advocates on individual rights and preferences, ensuring that everyone has a choice to do what they want regardless of gender.