From what I observed in Haringey Council, lots of black (female) social workers were given opportunities and promotions, which is commendable.

Unfortunately, these opportunities did not extend as much to other ethnic minorities who remain underrepresented and marginalised.

I am not aware of men being subjected to discrimination in social work and that is arguably testimony to the generous and favourable working environment provided by the predominantly female workforce. However despite that seemingly attractive working environment, men are still simply refusing to consider social work as a career at an alarming rate and for a profession as self reflective as social work to continue to ignore this issue raises questions about its ability to successfully address other areas of diversity.

There’s a difference between decreased representation and active discrimination. We know that social workers who are not white face racism and other discrimination from colleagues, employers, other professionals and service users. As a male social worker I don’t experience any of this. In fact I don’t seem to face any gender related barriers at all in the workplace. That you commenting on this article to divert attention away from its important subject and onto ‘male discrimination’ says a lot about you, your priorities and values.

It’s not.

Such contradictory dogma perhaps goes at least some way to explaining why over the past few decades, an ever decreasing percentage of social workers are men. Given that protracted demographic trajectory,it is perhaps only reasonable that some may regard the phenomenon as “not a key issue”.

Given that there are more female users of our services than men, the 85% are more representative than assumed? Social work has a long way to go to represent the communities it purports to serve but the gender imbalance in the workforce is not the key issue. That the construct is one of assumed binary gender differences says more than it perhaps intends to.

Social work is 85% female so it’s a profession which has a very, very long way to go indeed to achieve anything remotely approaching a true representation of the people it serves.

What’s the gender imbalance that negatively impacts male staff in a predominantly female workforce?