Abstract
This article is concerned with the reproduction of gender inequality in social work and the extent to which the presence of men in the profession challenges discriminatory processes and occupational segregation. Although it is argued that men need to take more responsibility for caring roles in professions like social work, many of the rationales for encouraging more men to enter social work are unlikely to support alternative masculinities that will challenge gender inequalities. Only a profeminist commitment informing antisexist practices will enable men to address gender inequality in social work.
A continuing issue facing social work is the gender imbalance of the workforce. The evidence seems to be that the proportion of women in social work in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia is increasing. Women make up 79% of the membership of the National Association of Social Workers in the United States (Sakamoto, McPhail, Anastas, & Colarossi, 2008)—an increase in women’s membership, in that Kadushin noted in 1976 that women then constituted 63.3% of the profession. Similar trends are evident internationally. In England, there has been a decline in the number of men entering social work. Research conducted by the General Social Care Council (2010) found that men constituted only 13% of social workers or 3% less than the figures of the previous year. In Australia, in 1976, women constituted 64% of social workers compared with 78% in 1991 (Lewis, 2004). In 2006, 83% of all professional social workers in Australia were women (Healy & Lonne, 2010).
The majority of social work students are women. In the United Kingdom, in the 1990s, 75% of students in social work programs were women (Christie, 1998), while in 2008, the proportion was 80% (Evaluation of the Social Work Degree Qualification in England Team, 2008). This percentage of female students is similar in Canada, where women constituted 70–82% of students in 1999 (McMaster, 2002), and in Australia in 2006, 86% of students in bachelor of social work courses were women (Healy & Lonne, 2010).
Why are there so many women in social work? Social work has long been defined as a “female profession” because the caretaking functions of social work are perceived to be women’s activities (Brown, 1986; Orme, 2002). Thirty-five years ago, Kadushin (1976) argued that the functions of social work are an extension of the traditional women’s roles of wife and mother. Men are seen to have a different relationship to caring than women.
Orme (2002) argued that this association of care with women is based on an essentialist premise that implicates men as being noncaring and limits the capacity of women to establish themselves as full citizens. Gray (2010) similarly contended that the feminist ethic of care promoted by Gilligan (1982), which associates women with care and relationships and men with more abstract notions of justice and rights, does not acknowledge that men have caring capacities and that many of them take on caring roles. It must be acknowledged, however, that women have continued to carry an unequal burden of caring responsibilities and consequently that caring in social work is feminized simply because women do more caring than men do (Christie, 2006).
The framing of social work as a caring profession and the association of caring with women is one of the barriers that deters some men from considering social work as a legitimate career option. There also seems to be some societal ambivalence about men as carers, especially if this caring involves physical and personal care (McLean, 2003).
While social work can be regarded as a “women’s profession” because of its female majority workforce, its predominantly female clientele, and its association with caring, many of the values that are associated with hegemonic masculinity, such as emotional distance, rationality, and technical expertise, are also characteristic of social work (Christie, 1998; Pringle, 1995). In fact, Orme (2009) argued that social work practice is predominantly a rational-technical project that reflects dominant forms of masculinity.
Social Work as an Unequal Gender Regime
Women’s majority status in social work has led to social work being referred to as a female-dominated profession (Gibelman & Schervish, 1993; Kadushin, 1976; Simpson, 2004). However, it does not necessarily follow that a larger number of women in social work will inevitably translate into female leadership in the profession (Scourfield, 2003). Women in social work still work within patriarchal structures of employing organizations and may at times serve patriarchal interests, even if they are actively challenging them.
McPhail (2004) challenged the representation of social work as a female-dominated profession because although women constitute the majority of members, they do not have control of the profession. Curricular content is still dominated by male social work theorists, and quantitative and masculinist approaches to research still predominate. McPhail argued that framing social work as a female-dominated profession hides sexism and male prejudice in social work. In her view, it is more accurate to refer to social work as a “male-dominated female majority profession.”
One may expect that a profession that espouses social justice and human rights would be in the forefront of challenging oppression and discrimination within its own ranks. However, men have been shown to be overrepresented in both managerial and higher-status jobs in the social services (Gray & Heinsch, 2010). Studies of social workers have demonstrated that women are less likely than men to undertake managerial roles in the human services and that women in these roles earn less money than do men in comparable positions (Anastas, 2007; Bent-Goodley & Sarnoff, 2008; DiPalma & Topper, 2001; Koesk & Krowinski, 2004; Lewis, 2004; Sakamoto et al., 2008).
These inequalities are reflected in various forms of horizontal and vertical occupational segregation in social work. This pattern of gendered inequality in social work and human service agencies can be understood in relation to Connell’s (1987) concept of gender regimes. Connell used the notion of gender regimes to describe the current pattern of gender relations within specific institutions, such as workplaces, schools, the government, and other apparatuses of the state. An unequal gender regime is characterized by unequal power relations between men and women and unequal gender roles. It is similar to Dahlkild-Ohman and Eriksson’s (2011) framing of social work as an inequality regime. Like Connell’s notion of a gender regime, inequality regimes emphasize the production of unequal social orders resulting from processes and practices of power in specific organizational settings. Notwithstanding the influence of feminist ideas on social work, it is argued here that the social work profession still retains patriarchal gendered practices and that these gendered practices can be understood as representing an unequal gender regime.
It should also be remembered, of course, that men are not homogeneous. Not all men benefit equally from the operation of the structures of gender domination. Issues of race, sexuality, class, disability, and age significantly affect the extent to which some men benefit from patriarchy. Thus, some men in social work experience marginalization on the basis of their class origins, sexuality, level of able-bodiedness, and ethnicity or race (Pease, 2001). These other social divisions complicate men’s gender dominance in social work (Hearn, 2001). Furthermore, women are also divided by class, race, sexuality, and ablebodiedness, and, consequently, some women will face other sources of discrimination in addition to their gender (Bent-Goodley & Sarnoff, 2008).
The Feminist Engagement With Social Work
Feminist critiques of social work and feminist models of social work practice have been prominent since the 1970s, advocating practice informed by the many different forms of feminism, including liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist and socialist feminism, black feminism, and postmodern feminism (Dominelli, 2002). Increasingly, many feminists in social work have moved beyond binary thinking in relation to gender, embracing intersectional analyses (Mehrotra, 2010), the politics of recognition (Gray & Boddy, 2010), gender performativity (Gringeri, Wahab, & Anderson-Nathe, 2010), transnational feminism (Moosa-Mitha & Ross-Sheriff, 2010), and transgender theory (Nagoshi & Brzuzy, 2010).
Some would argue that social work is inherently a feminist project because feminist principles are so closely related to social work ethics and values (Lazzari, Colarossi, & Collins, 2009). Feminism has certainly shaped contemporary developments in the theory and practice of social work, at least in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. However, many mainstream approaches to social work still often ignore gender and gender analyses. It would thus seem that feminist ideas are not acceptable to many practitioners and academics in social work.
Philips (2007) found, in a survey of feminist content in Australian social work courses, that while most social work courses contained some feminist content, that there has been a decline in the teaching of feminist approaches to social work in the past 10 years. From the perspective of academic staff, this decline is due, in part, to increased hostility and/or indifference to feminist content by social work students over the past 20 years. Many students, in the view of social work academics, believe that feminist approaches to social work are obsolete.
Young women in social work who have not experienced men’s violence or gender discrimination in the paid workforce may have to be convinced of the merits of feminism for social work. Many young women have embraced third-wave feminism or postfeminism, which celebrates individual freedom, choice, gender fluidity, and personal empowerment (Gillis, Howie, & Munford, 2007). They do not see the relevance of second-wave feminist analyses, which are more likely to be taught in social work education. Although young women and men who enter social work may be more inclined to embrace postfeminist arguments, the material conditions of many women’s lives suggest that second-wave feminist frameworks are still relevant in informing feminist practices in social work. However, the changing gender concerns of young women and men oblige us to engage with generational issues in gender analyses.
Philips (2007) argued, rightly so in my view, that feminist approaches to social work are essential to further social work’s espoused claims to social justice. However, the negative responses of students to feminism raise issues about how feminist content is taught in social work courses and how feminist teaching and content engage with men, hegemonic masculinities, and male privilege.
Male social work students are likely to have come into contact with feminist approaches to social work practice at some stage of their education, and they have likely been expected to demonstrate, at least antisexist, if not feminist, values and practices. Thus, male social workers are at least aware of feminist analyses of patriarchy and dominant forms of masculinity even if they are not supportive of such critiques. What do we know about how men respond to this feminist content?
Hyde and Deal’s (2003) study found that the male social work students who were interviewed felt marginalized in the profession and felt unfairly viewed as “symbols of oppression,” rather than as individuals. These men thought that this view was particularly unwarranted because they demonstrated their positive credentials for choosing social work as a career. They believed that they were being held responsible for the discrimination that women experienced and that they were unfairly connected to more traditional men.
It is challenging for men to come to terms with the implications of antioppressive practice in relation to gender, when men are constructed as the agents of women’s oppression. While some men respond positively to feminist and antisexist practice, we also know that some men can be paralyzed by self-blame that can operate against them taking responsibility for addressing the structural barriers that women face (Gibbons, Crofts, Schott, Critchley, & Patterson, 2006).
A number of commentators in social work have argued that there is a lack of attention to men and men’s problems in the social work literature and social work practice (Glicken, 2005; Golden, 2008; Kosberg, 2002). Kosberg (2002, p. 51), for example, contended that the “social work literature is female oriented and provides a negative view of heterosexual males.” In his view, too much attention has been given to the problems and needs of women, and that, consequently, heterosexual male clients are missing out. These backlash responses by men to feminism in social work illustrate the lack of understanding of male privilege and power in the profession.
Social work education provides an excellent opportunity for all students to interrogate their privilege and unearned entitlements critically within various social divisions, whether these divisions are related to gender, class, race, sexuality, or other forms of privilege. However, it would seem that social work education is not always effective in assisting male students to acknowledge their structural gender privilege and how this privilege reproduces the oppression of women (Gibbons et al., 2006). Male students’ defensive responses to feminist content do not bode well for the future of the gender-conscious male social workers in the profession.
If male students in social work education demonstrate openness to exploring alternative masculinities, it will encourage women to explore possible partnerships with men in challenging gender discrimination. Some feminist educators in social work are trying to find ways to be inclusive of men without diluting the feminist orientation (Cree & Cavanagh, 1996; Gibbons et al., 2006; Hyde & Deal, 2003; Orme, 2009). However, if men are not to reproduce gendered inequalities by engaging in defensive strategies, they will need to relinquish their identification with superiority in relation to women. Doing so will involve a reconstruction of their adherence to dominant forms of masculinity and an identification with more caring-oriented activities of the profession (Bradley, 1993).
Men Doing Social Work
When women choose social work, their choice is regarded as a conventional career decision, whereas male social workers are seen as going against convention (Cree, 2001). Men who work in “women’s” jobs are seen to be challenging the gendered assumptions underpinning the work. This view partly explains why so few men enter these occupations. Some men in caring professions experience challenges to both their gender identity and their heterosexuality (Cross & Bagihole, 2002; Simpson, 2005).
The literature on men in social work is often concerned with the elaboration of the professional problems that men face in the profession as a result of their gender (Christie, 1998; Hogan, 1998; McLean, 2003). Research has focused on men’s gender-identity experiences and how men adapt to challenges to their masculinity when working in an occupation that is identified with women and women’s values. Hogan (1998), for example, explored the tensions between being both a social worker and a man and stated that it is difficult to be a man in social work because of the social construction of masculinity.
Williams (1995) argued against the view that men in social work experience significant disadvantages and discrimination because of their gender. Because men take their gender power and privilege with them into the profession, their power and privilege offset the negative effects of tokenism that women experience in male-dominated professions. Also, unlike the hostility often encountered by women in male-dominated occupations, women colleagues are generally welcoming to and supportive of men in social work (McLean, 2003).
One of the ways in which men adapt to the nontraditional aspect of social work is to specialize in male sex-typed activities. Men thus focus on what they regard as more masculine aspects of professional work. Being demonstrably careerist is one strategy that men use to offset challenges to their masculinity and to restore their dominant position (Lupton, 2006; Simpson, 2004). It is understandable, then, that questions have been raised about whether men’s presence in social work inhibits women’s opportunities for career advancement (McLean, 2003).
Christie (2006) argued that men’s relationship to social work is contradictory, ambiguous, and paradoxical. While social work may be regarded as a nontraditional occupation for men, men nevertheless tend to be located in traditional positions within the profession. Many writers have differentiated between the discomfort that some men may feel being a minority gender in social work and the systemic oppression that women encounter in male-dominated occupations (Christie, 2006; Hyde & Deal, 2003; McPhail, 2004). Although men may not feel privileged in social work, this experience flies in the face of men’s continued dominance in management and high-status specialisms in the profession.
Should We Encourage More Men to Do Social Work?
It has been 45 years since John Lawrence first put the case for increasing the number of male social workers in the profession (Lawrence, 1965). Lawrence identified 11 claimed advantages of qualified male social workers over qualified female social workers: They have a greater sense of professional commitment in the early stages of their career; they provide essential employment stability in social agencies; they stay in the profession longer; they are not hampered by community attitudes toward professional women; they rely less completely on their work for personal and social satisfaction because they have a family and home of their own; they are more likely to gain recognition of qualified social work in public service circles; they are less likely to accept inadequate employment conditions; they are keener to insist upon independent and equal status with the established professions; they can more easily bridge the gap between government and nongovernment agencies; they take a broader view of individual problems; they are generally more aware of the father’s part in family life (p. 198).
The Role Model Argument
It has been argued that more men are needed in social work to ensure that boys and young men have the opportunity to interact with male social workers as role models (Christie, 1998; Hicks, 2001; Warming, 2005). Men are believed to have special qualities that they would bring to the profession as men. There is an expectation that male social workers can fill a gap created by absent fathers and counteract negative influences by other men (Christie, 2001a).
We should not expect men in social work to provide role models for boys without engaging these men in thinking about gender issues. Without engaging in debates about gender equality, men are likely to reproduce traditional forms of masculinity. If men emphasize the more masculine aspects of the job, they are less likely to have direct contact with male clients and more likely to reinforce traditional models of masculinity than to challenge them. Also, if men play out traditional gender roles in social work, it is unlikely that they will challenge gender hierarchy in the profession (Williams, 1995).
This argument for the involvement of more men in social work seems to be premised on stereotypical male gender roles and essentialist differences between women and men that are not consistent with gender equality (Hicks, 2001). Numerous writers have criticized the role-model premise for its reliance on essentialist notions of masculinity that are somehow transmitted by men to boys and for its inability to address issues of power and difference in men’s lives (Cameron, 2001; Connell, 1995; Pease, 2007).
The Gender Diversity Argument
Another argument for more men in social work is the equity argument—that there should be a gender balance in the profession to ensure that women’s and men’s interests as workers and as clients are met (Christie, 2001a; Gibbons et al., 2006; Pringle, 1998). This is an equal opportunities premise that posits that gender diversity in social work is important. Mahadevan (2009) contended, for example, that social work needs to reflect the wider society in which it is located and that, consequently, more men need to be recruited through targeted marketing campaigns and the provision of specific forms of support for male applicants.
It has been argued that if we want to dismantle the gendered segregation in paid work, we need to address the minority of men in “female” jobs alongside the minority of women in “male” jobs. This means that we would need to consider equalizing the number of men and women in all jobs not just those dominated by men (Williams, 1993). At the same time, if more men rise to the top in female-concentrated jobs, then gender equality will be undermined in those occupations. Williams (1995) argued that men maintain adherence to traditional forms of masculinity and male power and privilege within female-concentrated professions. Thus, the gender diversity rationale is not likely to break down traditional gender roles and will not challenge gender hierarchy in the profession. Because social work is a female majority profession, challenging gender segregation in it is more complex than challenging gender segregation in male-dominated occupations.
The Professional Status and Prestige Argument
Historically, as I discussed previously, the predominantly female composition of social work has been regarded as an obstacle to achieving full professional status, and, consequently, the recruitment of more men in social work has been seen as a solution to this problem (Williams, 1995). Many commentators have argued that women’s majority status in social work continues to be one of the major reasons why social work has not achieved higher professional status (Christie, 2001a; Harlow, 2004; Lewis, 2004). This lower professional status is seen as a consequence of both women’s status in the wider society and the fact that caring functions associated with women are regarded as not requiring financial rewards (Harlow, 2004).
There is also the view that increasing the proportion of men in the profession may improve the working conditions of female social workers (Christie, 2001a). Reminiscent of Lawrence’s (1965) view, men in social work who were interviewed by Lewis (2004) commented that women were less interested in rates of pay and working conditions. Many of them believed that the profession would benefit from more men being involved.
It may be that the status and salaries of social workers would increase if more men were recruited into the profession. If there are more men in an occupation, there seems to be a greater likelihood that the salaries of its members will be higher. It is a reality in a patriarchal society that female majority professions will have lower social status and lower salaries. However, should men be encouraged to join the profession as a means of gaining credibility in a patriarchal society?
Do Men’s Practices in Social Work Reproduce or Challenge Gender Inequality?
What does the presence or absence of men in social work mean for women in the profession? Depending on their practices, the presence of men in social work will either challenge or reproduce dominant constructions of masculinity (Dahlkild-Ohman & Eriksson, 2011). Most studies of men in female-concentrated occupations have reported that men are more likely to try to maintain their traditional masculinity than to demonstrate a commitment to changing their masculinity to adapt to the less traditional aspects of their work (Cameron, 2001; Cross & Bagihole, 2002; Simpson, 2004; Williams, 1995). If this is the case, then recruiting more men into social work would not challenge men’s gender dominance.
An understandable concern expressed by some women is that recruiting more men into social work will lead to a further overrepresentation of men in administrative positions and that men will achieve senior positions largely as a result of their gender. While some men may be motivated to enter social work because of social justice objectives, other men may see social work as an occupation that promises rapid career advancement, given the predominance of men in managerial positions (Christie, 2006).
In Davey’s (2002) study, the vast majority of men who were not already managers were interested in moving into management positions, and none of these men were restricted from doing so as a result of domestic circumstances. It seems unlikely in the context of current employment patterns of men in social work that more men coming into the profession will favor direct practice with clients over the pursuit of career progression into management. Also, given the time-use data that have demonstrated that women continue to undertake the majority of housework and child care tasks (Bloomfield, 2004), then female social workers will be faced with a juggling act of home and work that their male colleagues will not have to address. It is more likely than not that female social workers will carry the main responsibility for child care and housework and that male social workers will not be faced with these caring and domestic responsibilities.
Men’s Responsibility to Challenge Gender Inequality in Social Work
Increasingly, men in social work are being encouraged by feminist women to develop a profeminist commitment to equality alongside the promotion of feminist visions of social work that are promoted by women (Cree & Cavanagh, 1996; Gringeri, 2005). Lazzari, Colarossi, and Collins (2009), for example, argued that men can promote feminist values if they make their work accountable to feminist women and are able to challenge their own male privilege. Although they acknowledged that the social work profession reflects patriarchal structures and processes, the key issue for them was not whether the social worker is a man or a woman but whether he or she is willing to challenge power inequalities in the profession.
As I noted elsewhere (Pease, 2009), profeminism for men involves a sense of responsibility for our own and other men’s sexism and a commitment to work with women to end men’s violence (Douglas, 1993). It acknowledges that men benefit from the oppression of women, drawing attention to the privileges we receive as men and the harmful effects these privileges have on women (Thorne-Finch, 1992). It can thus be argued that more men should be encouraged to enter social work as part of increasing men’s responsibility to challenge patriarchy and gender inequality in the profession (Pringle, 1998). McMaster (2002) stated that men in social work have a responsibility to challenge dominant constructions of masculinity. This contention challenges the premise that the responsibility for challenging sexism should rest solely with women. Because men occupy more dominant positions in the human services, they have a greater responsibility than women to promote a nondiscriminatory culture in social work.
Hall (2007) went so far as to contend that men in social work who are not actively opposing sexism are practicing unethically with respect to the National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics in the United States. He argued that they are supporting the patriarchal system, which provides them with privileges by their lack of action to challenge it. Consequently, he stated, male social workers have an ethical and moral duty to support gender equality for the benefit of their female clients and their female coworkers.
Encouraging the development of profeminist practice by men in social work is a natural expression of antioppressive practice as it relates to gender. While antioppressive practice in general, with its focus on challenging oppression, is an appropriate framework within which to examine antisexist and profeminist practice by men (Lloyd & Degenhardt, 1996), antioppressive practice has been slow to encourage practitioners who are members of dominant groups to examine their own privileged positioning (Pease, 2006).
To what extent, then, do men in social work recognize their gender privilege, and to what extent are they willing to give up the privileges and power of their position? If men are to play an antioppressive role in relation to gender in social work, they will need to embrace a commitment to profeminist practice. In the context of the wider antioppressive theory and practice, social work education thus needs to develop specific knowledge and skills to inform a profeminist commitment by men in social work. If men gain unearned benefits from their presence in social work, they have a responsibility to challenge the basis of those entitlements (Pringle, 2001).
Men in social work need to understand the gendered inequalities that arise from the construction of hegemonic forms of masculinity. If they are unable to do so, then it is likely that they will unwittingly perpetuate patriarchal discourses that reproduce men’s privilege in their practice (McMaster, 2002). Furthermore, if men are not actively challenging the patriarchal features of their profession and their agency context, they will be part of the reproduction of patriarchal gender relations. It is not an either/or proposition, since men are inevitably going to be both challenging and reproducing hegemonic masculinities. It is a question of which side their consciousness and practice supports at any given moment.
Furthermore, the plurality of feminisms and the challenge to binary thinking in feminism have implications for profeminist practice by men. Profeminism for men is not straightforward or homogeneous. Men need to engage with the diversity of feminisms while avoiding the pitting of one feminism against another.
Although we have witnessed the development of profeminist and antisexist practice with men and boys in social work in the past few years (Christie, 2001b; Featherstone, Rivett, & Scourfield, 2007; Pease, 2001, 2009; Pringle, 1995), there are few examples of men working to challenge institutional discrimination against women in social work and the human services. Men need to challenge male domination within social work and the wider society, as well as in their work with male clients.
Conclusion
Figueira-McDonough, Netting, and Nichols-Casebolt (2001) argued that social work education reproduces gendered stratification in social work. Seventeen years ago, Taylor (1994) raised the question of whether the discussion of gender segregation in the profession should be incorporated into social work education and training. There is little evidence that such a discussion has occurred.
If we fail to examine the social construction of masculinities in social work, we will be unable to acknowledge the ways in which masculinities affect women’s lives. To the extent that issues of men and masculinity are discussed in social work education, the focus tends to be on the costs of sexism for men and how such costs may encourage men to be more responsive to feminism (Christie, 1998; Lloyd & Degenhardt, 1996; Thompson, 1995). For example, while Thompson encouraged the development of antisexist practice by men in social work, he did so primarily by focusing on the harmful effects of sexism on men. Men are likely to be more open to exploring the costs of masculinity for themselves than the unearned entitlements and privileges they receive as men.
I wrote this article as a white, straight, able-bodied, middle-class man from a working-class background. Developing a critical consciousness of oppression and privilege requires an interrogation of our own various identities and locations. In my own teaching in social work, I encourage the development of a critical awareness of one’s positioning in relation to various social divisions of social inequality (Pease, 2006). Part of doing so involves encouraging those on the privileged end of social divisions to see how they have unearned entitlements in relation to other groups. For men, this means challenging men in social work to recognize the consequences of unearned male entitlements in relation to women (Pease, 2010).
If we are to recruit more men into social work, we need to open up a debate within the profession and within social work education about the gendered nature of caring work. The social work profession and social work education need to interrogate the gendered assumptions about nurturing, caring, intimacy, and love that are embedded in social work. Ascribing caring to women and femininity reproduces patriarchal discourses by devaluing women’s practices in social work and legitimating men’s avoidance of caring (Camilleri & Jones, 2001). The challenge for the profession is to encourage men and women in social work to understand how affective inequalities in the doing and receiving of care and love reproduce inequalities in economic, political, and social relations (Lynch, Baker, Cantillon, & Walsh, 2009). Thus, fostering caregiving masculinities (Hanlon, 2009) and caring masculinities (Gartner, Schwerma, & Beier, 2007) is an essential part of promoting gender equality in the profession and the wider society.
There are progressive and important roles for men in social work in promoting a more egalitarian profession. However, while gender inequality and discrimination against women remain in the wider society and in the social work profession, we must be careful about encouraging more men to enter the profession. We also need to be clear about what constitutes “good practice” for men and be aware of the dangers and problems, as well as the possibilities that are associated with increasing men’s presence in social work.
Clearly, some men in social work do not subscribe to dominant forms of masculinity. The social work profession needs more men who are critical of hegemonic masculinity and who are aware of the gendered injustices that are associated with male privilege and unearned entitlements. However, if men in social work do not actively promote profeminist practices, they will reproduce an unequal gender regime within the profession.
Footnotes
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.