Gender and Social Work. New Historical Studies and Intepretations

This Forum seeks to address the following issues: how did female social workers influence social policies and reform movements in different national contexts and at different moments in time? And how were these policies and movements gendered? How did women’s leadership shape the professionalization of social work? How did female social workers influence welfare states in the US and Western Europe, and social policies in the Soviet Union? How did the crisis of welfare states and the rise of neoliberalism transform female social work in different national and international contexts? How did female social workers redefine international institutions during the 20th century? And how did they affect international forms of cooperation, through – for example – their professional organizations? What was the importance of race and/or colonialism/decolonization in influencing the history of social work from a gendered perspective? How did women social workers promote gender equality6? How did female social workers interact with and redefine a wide-range of issues, such as human rights, social justice, and gender inequality at different moments of time and in different national and international contexts? And how have they addressed international problems having to do with human trafficking, child labor, domestic violence, global migration, and refugee crises? In examining the Italian case, Marilena Dellavalle highlights the importance of adopting a long-term perspective to the history of women’s social work. Her article traces the continuities between the reform policies introduced during the liberal period and the professionalization of social work after World War II. In this respect, women’s activism in so-called «practical feminism» at the beginning of the twentieth century, and their mobilization during World War I, were crucial in establishing women’s role in social welfare policies and in linking social work to the pursuit of women’s citizenship rights. With the rise of Fascism in the 1920s, this strong philanthropic tradition – which led to the organization of factory social services – was incorporated into the regime, along with many female social workers active since the liberal era. Dellavalle’s article emphasizes how the experience of the war and, most importantly, of the Resistance, led a new generation of antifascists to view social work as a crucial profession in the rebuilding of Italy after the fall of the Fascist regime. Women’s local activism led to new forms of political participation and citizenship, and to a new approach to welfare, in which female social workers were particularly important. Il Form presenta