Making Sense of the Waves: Wipeout or Still Riding High?

Abstract

This article argues for feminism’s enduring importance in light of social workers’ daily experience of women’s abuse and oppression. Although cognizant of the many ways in which feminist theories can be understood, the authors examine the successive waves of feminism and apply Fraser’s theory of recognition and redistribution to examine contemporary feminist movements and point to future directions for feminist social work. They argue that postcolonial feminism, with its awareness of culture and context, is most useful for social work. They see new forms of third-wave feminism, including integrative and postfeminism, as fueling neoliberal consumerist inequality, intensifying the need for feminist social work critique, scholarship, and activism.