Why Might You Need
Working Well With Men?
“Social work literature has mainly focused upon females and gay males… heterosexual males are seldom discussed and when they are discussed they are portrayed in a very biased manner… [S]ocial workers do not receive necessary preparation for understanding and working with heterosexual males, especially from minority and immigrant groups, who are facing emotional, physical, interpersonal, and family problems. A stereotypic view of heterosexual males is both unfair and untrue, and precludes necessary attention in the classroom and in practice to their normative needs and special problems.” |
Kosberg, J. I. (2002). “Heterosexual males: A group forgotten by the profession of social work.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 29(3): 51-70. |
“A review of five major social work journals published during a 27-year period indicates that the literature on fathers is sparse. The view of fathers that emerges from articles that have been published shows fathers as perpetrators, as missing and as embattled. If the social work profession is to remain committed to working with families, then researchers and practitioners must study the changing patterns of fatherhood.” |
Greif, G. and C. Bailey (1990). “Where are the fathers in Social Work literature?” Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services: 88-92. p. 88 |
“Despite increasing attention to fathers in social work practice and research, men are still largely the ‘unheard gender’. Almost all the social work literature that deals with men discusses them as fathers, namely in terms of their function in the family. Very little of it looks at men in other roles or situations or concerns itself with men’s experiences, feelings or needs. Similar neglect of men characterises social work practice and training. The review points to a vicious circle in which the neglect of men in research, practice and training reinforce one another.” |
Baum, N. (2016). “The Unheard Gender: The Neglect of Men as Social Work Clients.” British Journal of Social Work 46(5): 1463-1471. p. 1463 |
In 2017, female MSW graduates outnumbered male MSW graduates by more than 6 to 1. |
Council on Social Work Education, 2017 Statistics on Social Work Education in the United States |
Women exhibit 4.5 times as much in-group bias as men do. |
Rudman, L. A. and S. A. Goodwin (2004). “Gender differences in automatic in-group bias: Why do women like women more than men like men?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87(4): 494–509. |
“The more amiability and esprit de corps among the members of a policy-making in-group, the greater is the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against out-groups.” |
Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston, Houghton Mifflin. p. 13 |
