Women’s Issues in Social Policy

During the 1980s a notable development in mainstream social policy in the United Kingdom was the emergence of a feminist critique. Originally published in 1991, Women’s Issues in Social Policy was intended as a contribution to the social policy literature which could also be used in a women’s studies context. It demonstrates the impossibility of understanding the welfare state without appreciating how it treats women, especially as dependants within the family, and the conflicts of interest between men and women as well as the unequal power relationships in the welfare context. It also highlights the fact that women’s traditional role in welfare provision is as unpaid carers for children, the elderly and incapacitated people, and is particularly concerned with the everyday experiences and dissatisfactions of women which had largely been ignored within mainstream social policy research and literature at the time.

Women’s Issues in Social Policy incorporates recent research findings written from a feminist perspective and reveals the breadth and depth of recent work in previously unexplored areas such as time budgeting and transport, as well as developing analysis in traditional areas of interest such as health and personal care.

The editors also looked into the wider European context and included a chapter which examines whether the abortion issue would give birth to feminism in Poland.

Women’s Issues in Social Policy will be of value to teachers and students of social policy and women’s studies, as well as of interest to the general reader.

At the time of original publication the editors had been members of the Social Administration Association (now the Social Policy Association) since its inception in 1967, and in 1987 convened a conference in Women and Social Policy in Oxford where this volume originated.

Mavis Maclean was a fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford.

Dulcie Groves was an Honorary Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Lancaster.