Affilia

Findings presented here draw upon 9 months of ethnographic research in three domestic violence service provision facilities as a means to articulate the key elements of social services fatigue, a phenomenon resulting from residents’ need to (1) document progress toward self-sufficiency, (2) use particular language and behavior in the presence of staff as a means to demonstrate this progress, (3) actively engage with staff and advocate volunteers, at least some of whom are victim-survivors of domestic violence themselves, and (4) quickly learn that these elements constitute conditions of service provision. It concludes by exploring the practical implications of recognizing social services fatigue as a problem.

The Microenterprise Development Programs (MDPs) in the United States provide low-income women with business training and loans for their business start-up. This study investigates whether gender differences in social capital influence business start-up in order to find implications to improve female micro-entrepreneurs’ business start-up. By analyzing the data from Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamic (2001–2004), this research finds that women are less likely to utilize bridging and linking social capital for their businesses and also are less likely to start up business compared to men. This study provides implications that U.S. MDPs need to develop gender-specific social capital interventions that support female participants’ business start-up.

Women with physical disabilities are at high risk of intimate partner violence. In addition they are subject to inaccurate stereotypes, including challenges to their gender identities. Like other assaulted women, they may reframe the violence they experience in order to reduce stigmatization. Nineteen formerly abused women with disabilities discussed their coping strategies and reasons for remaining in abusive relationships. Results were content analyzed using feminist and Interactionist lenses. Respondents used neutralization strategies common to abused women but incorporated disability-specific elements. Accounts tended to bolster a stereotypically feminine (gendered, nurturant, or sexual) identity. Policy and clinical implications are discussed.

This study explores inheritance experiences among people living with HIV. Although Kenyan law provides protections that guarantee rightful transfers of wealth, results from this phenomenological study indicate that poor women who have received an HIV seropositive diagnosis face exceptional barriers in the wealth transfer process. Participants paint a picture of a society straddling the line between social traditions and statutory laws, as it attempts to protect vulnerable groups in wealth transfers.

This article explores whether gendered norms and beliefs about emotions persist, as people relive and recount unexpected incidents of mass violence. The emotional expressions of men and women after two school shootings in Finland are examined and compared, based on qualitative interviews with local residents and crisis workers. Two emotional orientations in relation to school shootings were identified: being affected and being detached. Women were associated more with being emotionally affected and men with being detached. However, there was not always a consensus on how gendered individuals should express emotion in the aftermath of a school shooting.

This article explores the help-seeking challenges faced by a community sample of 25 Latina intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors. We include the experiences of Latinas who sought help from IPV services and those who did not. Additionally, we utilize an ecological framework to highlight the barriers that are present at multiple levels for Latinas who seek assistance, and we include their recommendations for increasing access. The information provided by these Latina survivors afford social workers the opportunity to address the barriers experienced by them as well as the opportunity to take a proactive stance in further enhancing services available in the community.

This qualitative study explored gender differences in socially interactive technology (SIT) use/abuse among dating teens from Michigan (N = 23). Focus group transcripts were coded using three categories: (1) type of SIT (e.g., social networking); (2) abusive action (e.g., monitoring); and (3) consequence (e.g., jealousy). Texting and social networking were the most commonly used types of SIT. Spying/monitoring, sexting, and password sharing/account access were the most common abusive actions. Distrust and jealousy were the most frequent consequences. Young men and women differed in their conceptualization of SIT abuse. Most participants agreed that some abusive actions were typical parts of adolescent dating experiences.

I am designing an elective on environmentalism in social work; there are numerous directions that the course could take. In the social work literature, an emerging theme is the depiction of Indigenous peoples as the original environmentalists, best situated to mentor the profession. However, I argue that this bypasses the ways that ideologies of nature operate in political spaces. Indigenous social movements around land and resources face resistance and we must engage with interdisciplinary critiques of the dangers of simplistic conceptualizations of the environment to see the intense political struggles taking place.

Based on an analysis of the work done by a field action project addressing issues of violence against women which then went on to become a national state sponsored scheme, this article talks about the flavor of feminist social work that it has proposed in the Indian context. The dimensions of feminist social work and the nuances such as working with women, men, families, and communities and addressing the systems and structure have been discussed. Finally, what it means for social work education in Indian context has been deliberated.