Commonality and Diversity in Feminist Social Work

Correspondence to Vicky White, Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL. Summary The relationship between feminist social workers and women serviceusers is a central concern in the feminist social work literature.The literature's discussion of feminist social worker/womanservice user relationships, along the dimensions of commonalityand diversity, is compared with the experiences and understandingsof feminist social workers who participated in a small-scalequalitative study. Two main themes are considered: first, commonalityin feminist social worker/woman service user relationships;secondly, diversity amongst women service users. Issues forfuture work are drawn out of the discussion of these themes:the problematic nature of feminist social worker/woman serviceuser commonality; the impact of social divisions other thangender on women service users' lives; the importance of unpackinggeneralizations about both women service users and feministsocial workers; the need to explore the intersections of thestatutory context and feminist social work identities. It isargued that in addressing these issues future work would beenriched if greater prominence were given to feminist practitioners'perspectives, experiences and understandings.