Citation

Zufferey C. Affilia 2009; 24(4): 382-393.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0886109909343559

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Social workers’ bodies and identities are gendered. This article examines gender relations in social workers’ accounts of their practices using data from a qualitative study that focused on social workers’ responses to homelessness in three Australian cities. Themes in the data relate to essentialist notions of gender; gender functioning as an invisible form of oppression; heterosexual assumptions in client—worker relationships; and the preferability of feminist approaches, particularly when working with women’s homelessness that is a result of domestic violence.