Preparation

Think of a time when you were judged because of some aspect of yourself, of who you are. Who did the judging? What impact did their judgements make?

Think of a time when you haven’t been listened to, or when something you said was dismissed. Why did the person/people not listen to you or dismiss you?

Introduction

I first became interested in social injustice and oppression as a child. By my teenage years I was aware that I was living in a society that was riddled with both racism and sexism and as time went on I realised that these attitudes affected me, I thought and acted in ways that were both racist and sexist. Later on I became aware of how much I took for granted around sexuality, class, and disability. I continue to learn about how the problems of oppression in society are not ‘out there’, being perpetrated by ‘racists’ or ‘sexists’, but in me, in my thoughts and practices, in my daily experiences of people whose lives and experiences are different from mine.

In this page I will share something of my journey in relation to how social work can challenge oppression in society. I will present several models that I have found helpful, and also introduce a model of my own that I believe can make a valuable contribution to combatting oppression and creating a healthier, more just society for all.

Discounting the Problem

The first model I would like to discuss is taken from an approach called Transactional Analysis and was first proposed by Mellor and Schiff in 1975. They suggested that when confronted with an uncomfortable problem rather than address it people may choose to ‘discount’ it. They can do this at four different levels.

The most basic level is at the level of EXISTENCE – a person may simply say that a problem does not exist. In relation to social injustice someone might refuse to accept that oppression exists – ‘we live in a fair society. People get what they deserve. If some do better than others it’s simply because they are smarter or work harder. There isn’t a problem.’

You cannot solve a problem whose existence you deny. The first step to developing anti-oppressive practice is to educate yourself about the experiences of those in society who are facing oppression. This can be painful or uncomfortable. If you are being oppressed then you might have turned the other way and refused to address it – just keeping my head down and ploughing on. If you are part of a dominant group in society you may never have stopped to think about the impact of your behaviour and your attitudes on others. Either way, if you have been denying the existence of oppression then recognising this is an important first step to dealing with it.

However recognising the existence of a problem is not enough, you also have to recognise its SIGNIFICANCE. When people discount at the level of significance they are prepared to accept that there is a problem with oppression in society, but they don’t see it as a significant problems – ‘it’s not a problem. Sure, women earn less than men, but then they do other things. Maybe this isn’t ideal, but it keeps everything ticking along, and anyway, there are more important problems than this.’

When oppression is acknowledged as a problem, but discounted as a non-serious problem, the result will be a lack of commitment to action. In many ways this is a very significant danger in social work. When the immediate problem is the protection of a child it is easy for a social worker to place mothers (or female carers generally) into the role of ‘primary protectors’, and in doing so downplay the need to place the responsibility for abuse on fathers or other men who are doing the actual abuse. It is not necessarily that the social worker denies the existence of patriarchal oppression, only that in comparison to the demands of their job it is not seen as a priority.

A commitment to combatting oppression begins by recognising that oppression is a serious, significant problem in society. When two women a week are being killed by their partners, when black and minority ethnic people continued to be discriminated against in the jobs market, young gay men are choosing to kill themselves rather than face the bullying and harassment they received because of their sexuality, this shouldn’t need stating, but it does. Across many social groupings oppression is a real and serious problem.

Even when someone is willing and able to recognise the existence and significance of a problem, that does not mean they will be committed to solving it. The next level of discounting is SOLVABILITY. People may accept a problem exists, and is serious, but feel that it is not solvable. They may say ‘Yes, racism exists, and it is harming both individuals and society as a whole, but what can you do about it? It’s just how people are, they favour their own and don’t trust those who are different.’

We do not have to look far to see that although the final eradication of oppression is still a long way off, we are in some ways making progress. As I write this the Church of England has just voted to allow women to become Bishops. There are moves towards providing more equality for same-sex (lesbian and gay) couples. Going further back in history we see that signs like ‘No blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’ that used to be common in the UK in the 1940’s and 50’s are now illegal. And women and men share equal voting rights. These steps suggest that the fight against inequality and injustice is not hopeless. The problem of oppression is one where we have and can continue to make progress.

The final level of discounting is at the level of our OWN PART. Someone may accept that a problem exists, that it is significant and that it is solvable, but refuse to take any action in relation to it as they do not believe it is their role to do something about it. This may range from a kind of “learned helplessness” (Seligman, 1975) where someone says ‘I’d love to do something, but there’s nothing I can do’ to more of denial of responsibility, ‘I didn’t cause the problem, why should I fix it?’ In relation to this second point I am powerfully drawn to a statement by the author Terry Pratchett – “Even if it’s not your fault, it’s your responsibility.”

Levels of Discounting – Mellor and Schiff, 1975

Pause for Thought

When you look at society do you see a society that is just and fair for all, or one that continues to be full of divisions and inequality around skin colour, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, accent and (dis)ability?

How committed are you to challenging this? Can you point to things you have said or done in the last few weeks that in some small way have contributed to a fairer, more just society? If so, how did you manage that? If not, can you see where you have discounted the problem?

Thompson’s PCS Analysis

It feels to me that reference to Neil Thompson’s PCS analysis is practically essential on any social work related course in the UK. Thompson’s book ‘Anti-discriminatory Practice’, currently in its Seventh Edition, is required reading on many courses. As a result of this I will deal briefly with some key aspects of his approach here.

Thompson argues that it is discrimination that leads to oppression, and therefore the way to end oppression is to end discrimination. He argues that discrimination occurs at three levels, the Personal, in the ways individuals think about and relate to each other, at the Cultural, in the way that groups of people engage in behaviours and ways of thinking and living that favour some groups over others, and the Structural, in the systems and laws that regulate and control how society works and the consequences for certain types of behaviour.

Whilst I think that the PCS analysis provides a good start point, I think it has a weakness when those using it try and make everything fit neatly into just one of those three levels. This is not Thompson’s intention as this leads to an overly simplified view of the complexities of society. Thompson himself represents the levels as being more of a continuum, the personal feeds into and is fed by the cultural, the cultural feeds into and is fed by the structural Oppression and discrimination occurs at more just three separate levels. Alternative models, such as those from Lena Dominelli and Gurnham Singh provide greater scope to analyse and address the processes of oppression in society. What I present next is my own interpretation of the work of Dominelli and Singh.

Level of Oppression

Oppression occurs at multiple levels. It can be found at the intra-personal level – in other words, oppression can begin and thrive inside people’s own minds. This applies to what might be called ‘the oppressors’ and ‘the oppressed’, but I need to explain these terms first.

In an earlier part of the website, I wrote about the Person Centred model. A key principle of this model, and one that underpins the values of social work, is that people are not labelled or judged according to their behaviour. In this respect, it then seems odd that I am using these labels which seem oppressive in themselves, who wants to think of themselves as ‘an oppressor’ or as one of the ‘oppressed’? It is important to understand that these are NOT labels of THE PERSON – there are position markers in an oppressive society. When the footballer Lionel Messi is described as a ‘forward’, no one would assume that this is passing some judgement on him as a person, it is simply describing his role and position during a football match. When I label myself as one of ‘the oppressors’ I am not passing judgement on me as a person; I am simply describing my position as a white, middle-class, (currently) able-bodied, heterosexual male. When I feel guilt it is not because I am these things, it is because I have used the fact that I am these things to gain some advantage over someone else who is not these things. This is not a guilt that condemns me as a person, but a guilt that motivates me to take action to create a society where no one will be judged or receive a worse experience because they are not part of a certain group.

Having explained that, I will return to my point about intra-personal oppression. For those who in a given society or situation might be defined as ‘the oppressors’, the intra-personal oppression is the beliefs and perceptions of superiority and the internalised sense of deserving more than others. It is important to bear in mind that this intra-personal sense of superiority may not be conscious and it can be displayed in a number of different ways.

At the most obvious and blatant level is the person who consciously and clearly has a sense of their own inherent superiority. Throughout history, there have been countless examples where one group has perceived themselves as being superior to another. This has happened with gender, with men seeing themselves as superior, and with physical characteristics, where one visible ethnic group believes in their innate superiority.

But this can also happen at a less obvious way. One example of this is something that has been labelled ‘mansplaining’. This is a process by which in a mixed gender group men may often presume that they have superior knowledge about a given subject and then take on the role of explaining the subject to the women present, without first checking if they already have knowledge of the subject. For the man doing this the intention is rarely, although not always, a conscious desire to place himself in a superior position, but the assumption that his knowledge is superior is already there behind the action.

For social workers, the belief that they must rescue their service users or must educate the service users, or that service users could not cope without them, are all examples of this unconscious intra-personal oppression.

For those who are part of an oppressed group in society, there is a mirror process. A person may start to believe that they are less important or inferior in some way to others. They regularly lay aside their needs and goals to meet the needs of others, not on the basis of mutual aid, but because they believe their needs and goals are less important than those who are part of the dominant group. This can have a range of harmful effects.

Someone who is carrying this sense of internalised oppression may choose not to apply for jobs that match their skills, abilities and experience because they think that they do not deserve or are not good enough for these jobs. They may find that they repeatedly choose to stay silent because they fear that they are not good enough to have their story taken seriously. An extreme example of this comes when people have been kept in bonded labour (slavery). This may lead to a complete deadening of emotions as it has been so dangerous to express, or even experience, emotions for so long the person can no longer even connect to their own emotions.

This first layer of oppression is then embedded in a second level – the inter-personal. In an oppressive society when people meet there are complex power-plays. One example given earlier was mansplaining. There are many other examples, many of which occur regularly but rarely cause comment. For example, it is still not uncommon for a woman to make a comment or a suggestion at a meeting which is ignored. Then shortly after the same point is made by a man, but this time the point is picked up on and taken seriously.

The range of inter-personal oppressive acts is long and complex. This list includes silencing (using techniques to prevent people speaking or being heard), objectifying (treating a person as an object to be admired or a tool to be used, not as a person), ‘othering’ (reinforcing difference and then overlaying this difference with a value label such as good/bad or normal/abnormal), rescuing (helping someone do what they can do for themselves, and so undermine their autonomy), shaming (acting in ways that leave the other person feeling bad about who they are).

What makes this complex is that most of these processes are not always wrong in all contexts. When someone is being offensive or harmful then there is nothing wrong with silencing them. There are some situations in which we need to recognise that we need people to get the job done and we need an instrumental (but not an objectified) view of the people involved. Sometimes we can rescue someone in an emergency without undermining them. There are occasions and degrees to which shame can be helpful in promoting positive behaviours. What makes these a problem in an oppressive society is when they are used consistently and persistently against the same groups of people. These are no longer effective strategies to get the job done, but deliberate strategies designed to ensure one group maintains and strengthens its power over another group.

Over time this develops into cultures and practices. One example of this can be shown powerfully in the following exercise.

Have a look at the words and phrases you have put in the boxes. What do you notice about them? What similarities and differences do you notice in the words and phrases you have used?

Having done that turn to table to the left and do the same again, this time for the groups that are on that table.

When you have completed that compare your two lists.

What differences do you notice between the two lists? Which was easier to fill out? Which contained the most words? Which contained the most offensive words?

What is important to bear in mind is that no single individual created this difference in the language. It was not deliberately planned this way; it was simply the working out of the oppressive forces in society that creates a language where men have a more offensive and more diverse range of words to insult women than the other way round; where young people or able bodied people have words to insult the old, the very young and the disabled, but not the other way round; where words to insult white people are largely seen as juvenile and stupid, whereas words to insult black and minority ethnic people are highly offensive and harmful. This list goes on. The same applies with such diverse areas such as sexuality, class and even something as irrelevant as height.

This is one example of cultural oppression. A second example can be shown by going on to Google images and searching for the term “beautiful woman.”

What is striking about the image is that the pictures are all of white women, all in a very narrow age range, and many of them wearing very minimal clothing. At this point it is important to notice your reaction and compare this to the levels of resistance I mentioned at the start of this chapter. Are you failing to see how this could lead to the oppression of women? (Existence) Do you see this as being something unimportant, just a quirk of Google’s search algorithms? (Significance) Do you see this as in inevitable part of ‘human nature’, something that is sad, but unchangeable? (Solvability) Or do you see it as something you cannot change? (Own Part) Or do you perhaps see it as something you will reflect upon, learn about and challenge, in the hope that we can create a better society?

Google gives us a second insight into cultural oppression with its ‘autocomplete’ option. Below is an image of the suggestions, based on millions of other people’s searches when I began my search with the phrase ‘gay people are’.

As you can see from this, the list is not a positive one. Again, it is important to understand that this is a cultural phenomenon, not a deliberate act by Google or anyone else. From the language to the search terms, to the media or the myths and stories we tell our children, there is a message that some people are better than others and some types of behaviour belong only or especially to some groups.

What you can notice here is that this is not static. These images were taken when I first wrote this website in 2014. When I repeated this exercise again in 2021, the results were very different, for the first example, very different, for the second, still not equal, but less unbalanced than in 2014. 

The cultural level of oppression is complex and multi-layered. At a micro-cultural level, an individual is surrounded by people who shape their views, values and attitudes. It is easy to imagine two families living on the same street but having two very different sets of cultural practices. In one it is the women who cook, clean and care for the house and the people in it. In the other family, such tasks are shared equally without regard for gender. This goes beyond the inter-personal interactions of the family members and speaks to the cultural values and practices of the families.  Again, two families may live next door to each other, but one may relate almost exclusively to members of their own ethnic, religious or class group, whereas the other has rich and varied relationships with people from many different backgrounds. This too is not about the inter-personal relationships but about the culture of the people involved.

Moving up a level, communities, neighbourhoods and organisations can develop a culture. This can lead to situations such as the killing of Trayvon Martin. At the time of his death, Trayvon was living in a gated community. Such communities exist because of a perception that those outside the community are a threat and the only way to protect against that threat is with barriers and the threat of force. In this context, the actions of George Zimmerman in shooting Trayvon were the logic of the community’s cultural values and practices played out in their extreme form. This same pattern can be seen in the murder of George Floyd

Communities may foster interaction and equality, or they may foster division and inequality. This in turn creates environments of either mutual aid and respect or of fear and suspicion. This can also apply within organisations. Organisations can create a culture where every member of the organisation, from the lowest-paid cleaners to the most highly paid executive, is considered as important and listened to, or they can create a culture where power is centralised and respect is closely tied to the position in the hierarchy.

This level of culture can perhaps best be described as meso-culture and it involves more than just individuals who relate directly to each other, they involve wider systems, policies, procedures and practices within areas, communities and organisations. There may be organised geographically, in terms of a street or a neighbourhood; they may be organised around beliefs, such as in local branches of a religious organisation or political party; or they may be organised around a particular activity or interest, from a commercial company to a sports club. The reality is that wherever these are placed in society they can either reinforce or reduce inequality, injustice and oppression.

Moving up from the cultural level there is the societal level. This provides the overall framework in which meso-cultures, micro-cultures and individuals operate. Two of the most important features of the societal level are the political level and the economic level.

At a political level societies vary widely. At one extreme end of the scale are totalitarian dictatorships. In these societies, all the power is held by an individual who controls all political decisions. In reality, this is rare in all but the smallest societies as even in extreme dictatorships the leader is usually surrounded by a group of sub-leaders who can exercise a degree of discretion and control. However it can still be that practically all political power resides in very few people, whilst the rest have very little power.

At the other end of the scale are truly democratic societies, ones in which all members have equal influence over political decision making, where every voice is heard, all decisions are made jointly and there is consensus on how the society runs. Again, in reality, this is extremely rare, and then only in the smallest of societies. Even in nominally democratic societies, there is a tendency for the society to rely on ‘representative democracy’, where communities choose a member to represent them in a decision making body, rather than a ‘participative democracy’, where people participate more directly in the decision making process.

When analysing society we can use this model to both understand where we are now, where we have come from, where we are going, and where we’d like to go. It helps us see whether political power is genuinely shared or not, and whether things are moving in the direction of empowerment for all or in the direction of the centralisation of power.

Exploring political power gives an insight into inequality and oppression in society. When you compare the backgrounds and characteristics of those in power and compare this to the make-up of society certain features are clear. In the UK political leadership is disproportionately white, male and upper/upper-middle class. Whether you look at MP’s, cabinet ministers or Union leadership a similar pattern holds true, although with Unions the class bias is weaker.

It is possible though even to broaden the analysis to compare the rhetoric of democracy – rule by ‘the people’ – with the reality of representative democracy as currently practiced. For most citizens there only serious involvement in political decision making is to vote for their representatives on a semi-regular, but infrequent, basis. Beyond this very little serious power is delegated to the average citizen.

At the same time no political group can achieve any degree of influence without substantial financial resources. This means that under the current UK political system only those with access to funds, whether through private wealth or by collective power from things like businesses and unions, can mount any realistic challenge to the status quo. This is one reason why the continued attack on Unions and organised labour since the early days of the Thatcher government (1979-91) is important. This attack continued under the Blair/Brown governments (1997-2010) and under the current coalition government following the 2010 General Election. If Unions can be completely disempowered then the only serious source of political funding will be wealthy individuals and commercial companies.

This is not inevitable. Local democracy is a possibility. Decentralisation of power within an overall system of checks and balances is possible. Historically this has happened in different countries and even within the UK, where centralised power was challenged by the banding together of diverse interests to move the political system from a more dictatorial system to a more democratic power. This can happen again, but only through an alliance of different interest groups, those ensuring class, gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and so on are all treated fairly, and no single issue or group manages to monopolise power. Ultimately this is required for a truly anti-oppressive practice to develop in society.

As the above decision on political power has shown, political power and money are closely interwoven. Without access to economic power giving people more political power is meaningless. Economic power itself covers a broad spectrum across different societies. At one end of the scale are what can be called Plutocratic Societies. These are societies where the rich rule everything, own everything, control everything. This is where to be rich enough is literally to be ‘above the law.’

In an extreme case this results in systems like slavery and serfdom – where people belong to the rich, where if you do not have economic freedom you are the property of those who do. Across much of Europe serfdom was the norm from the Middle Ages and in some areas well into the 19^th Century. Serfs did not have the freedom to do what they wanted, go where they wanted, work for who they wanted to. There could be bought and sold, or even put up as stakes in a game of cards. In the same way the trans-Atlantic slave trade turned people into property to be bought and sold; an entire social and economic system developed on the back of human misery and oppression.

Whilst it is tempting to believe that things are now better and that this is no longer a problem, this is flawed for two main reasons. Firstly, at a global level injustice and inequality is so profound that although formal national and internationally sanctioned slavery no longer exists, slavery and bonded labour are still a de facto reality for millions of people. Secondly, even in seemingly free-market liberal democracy the choice of work and economic freedom is far from evenly spread.

The book ‘The Spirit Level’ makes a powerful argument that the more evenly spread economic power is in a society the higher the level of well-being in that society. However in a society where people face a choice between minimum wages, subsistence employment and homelessness then there is no real choice. This creates the illusion of choice, but a reality of wage-slavery. People no longer work because they wish to contribute to society or to meet their needs, but to feed the profits of those who own and run the companies with enough economic power to control the market.

Again, alternative systems exist. Co-operative and social enterprises provide a realistic alternative to wage-slavery. On a global scale current Western patterns of consumption and production are not sustainable. We need to develop systems which focus on quality of life, not on growth for the sake of growth. However whilst economic power continues to be focused in the hands of small elite this is unlikely to happen.

Finally in this section it is possible to focus the analysis on a global level. The world is not fair. Some countries have massive amounts of power, and use that to push their agenda onto other, weaker countries. Global injustice feeds problems as diverse as terrorism, environmental destruction, mass starvation and mass migration. Solutions that attempt to address these issues without tackling the fundamental injustices that underpin them are bound to fail, and in many cases will simply worsen the problem they were trying to solve.

The ‘problems’ of immigration will not be solved by stronger borders, better screening processes or a quota system: they will be solved when people across the world work together to tackle the oppression and injustices that means that someone in one country would be willing to face profound risks in the hope that they might end up in a country where they can meet their needs and the needs of their family without facing the daily threat of death.

These levels of analysis can be brought together in the following table. Before you read this table I must apologise for the briefness of most of the practice implications. In most cases I have presented them as aphorisms, short sentences capturing a key idea, sometimes my own, mostly borrowed from others. In some cases the meaning will be clear, in others it will not be. Please do not panic about this lack of clarity. In many cases I am still trying to work out the full implications of each statement, and in practically every case each individual will have a different way of implementing the practice implication. Anti-oppressive practice cannot be based on unthinking obedience to someone else’s ideas for how you should act, instead it has to be based on you working out for yourself how to practice in ways that will promote social justice, protect human rights and enhance individual and social well-being.

That being said I hope you will find some of the following chart helpful as you discover your own way to make your practice increasingly anti-oppressive.

Although the above model is an original formulation, it is based very much on the work of Lena Dominelli and Gurnham Singh. It also is informed by the works of writers like Neil Thompson and bell hooks, as well as the experiences of service users, colleagues and students in the various posts I have held. What this shows, I hope, is that when it comes to anti-oppressive practice you need to read widely and deeply and reflect on both your own experiences and those whose experiences you shared in your life and in your work.

So far this chapter has focused on Discounting and how this acts as a barrier to creating a just and healthy society and on levels of oppression and the practice implications when attempting to tackle those levels of oppression. The reality is that it is only when a person recognises oppression as a problem and then commits to tackling it that the problem of oppression can be solved. The final model in this chapter will deal with some of the barriers to overcoming oppression even when someone is committed to doing so. To the best of my knowledge this model is original to me, although I must recognise the debt I owe to service users, colleagues and students, as well as a range of teachers and writers who have heavily shaped my understanding in this area.

The Middle Ground Intersectional Model

As stated earlier, power is not distributed equally in society and so some groups have more power than others. Social and cultural norms, values, standards, and practices tend to give some groups more power and use those to place some groups in generally dominant positions. This does not mean that all members of a dominant group are in themselves domineering, only that some groups get to be defined as better, more normal and more important than others. This allows them to create an ‘in-group’ and to define others as ‘the other’. This process of othering is closely linked to the concept of privilege – the unearned advantages that come from belonging to a dominant group.

This creates the first axis of a scale – from the dominant group to ‘the other’. In general in society when it comes to political, social and economic power men tend to be dominant and women are seen as ‘the other’, white people tend to be dominant, and black and minority ethnic populations are seen as ‘the other’. Young adults are seen as dominant, with children and older adults being seen as ‘the other’. Heterosexual people are dominant, with lesbian, gay men, and bisexual people being treated as ‘the other’. Middle-class people are dominant and working class individuals are seen as ‘the other’.

Anti-oppressive practice will have different implications for where on this axis and individual lies, and this may be in a different place when considering different types of oppression. In relationship to women, a gay man and a straight man share a similar position in terms of being part of a dominant gender group in society. However, a lesbian and a gay man may share a similar position in relation to how their sexuality is viewed when compared to a straight woman and a straight man. This means that each individual needs to consider and be considered in relation to their total experience in society and not in relation to a single dimension.

The second dimension is more complex and relates to this question of seeing the total experience of oppression. In relation to oppression, a person may adopt that position of denial mentioned earlier. This can occur for both those in the dominant group and for those who are treated as ‘the other’. Both groups may fail or choose not to see that their experience is shaped by the oppressive forces in society.

At the other end of the scale is an exclusive sectionality. This is where a someone sees the whole of a person’s experience as being related to a single dimension of their social position.

These two axes create four quadrants of oppressive practice that apply only to those who are committed to anti-oppressive practice. For people with conscious, deliberate and self-aware hierarchical beliefs and values anti-oppressive practice makes no sense. If you genuinely believe you are better than someone else then why should you pretend that you are not? This is one reason why you cannot have ‘personal values’ and ‘professional values’, because either you value something, or you don’t. That does not mean that you cannot have ‘personal values’ and ‘other people’ values. I hold myself to a very high set of standards, and I expect myself to live up to them. However I often accept that others will hold different values to me and I respect their right to live according to their own values. It is not my job to judge others, only to be responsible for myself and, in certain specific situations, to judge other people’s behaviour. It would be hard to mark an essay if I did not accept that.

Having made that point I will return to the quadrants. For someone who is in the dominant group they may simply fail to see that others do not have the social advantages that are common to those in dominant group. For example when a man walks past a woman late at night he may have absolutely no awareness of his potential to be perceived as a threat. To the man he may not even consider that although he knows he will not rape or sexually assault the woman, she does not know that. His lack of awareness means that simply things he could do, such as crossing over to the other side of the street, do not occur to him. For him this has no negative effect, in fact he can continue without any additional effort. However for many women this will have the effect of increasing anxiety and making her journey unnecessarily unpleasant. This is an example of the top left quadrant – oppressive denial.

I remember in my late teens and early twenties being shocked to hear the experiences of black friends and colleagues when it came to the myriad experiences of rejection and hostility that they faced daily. I did not want to believe that I lived in a society that operated in that way, a society in which your surname or accent, if they identified you as ‘not white’ would reduce your chances of being short-listed for interview. And yet this is the reality.

The many ‘micro-aggressions’ faced by those who are in ‘The Other’ group are too numerous to name here. These are usually not done as deliberate attempts to hurt or oppress, but that is their effect. Consider the effect on a young lesbian or a young gay man of repeatedly being asked ‘Have you got a boyfriend yet,’ or ‘have you got a girlfriend yet?’ The intention of asking that question is not to reject the person, but that is its effect. The automatic assumption that everyone in society is ‘straight’ is based on denial. In the same way even the term ‘straight’ is problematic, as if you are not ‘straight’ what is the opposite? It is no defence to state that the opposite of ‘gay’ is also not a positive (‘miserable’ or ‘boring’ perhaps?) because this too is a denial that for lesbians and gay men the problem is not just a single word but a whole history and culture of oppression.

For those in ‘The Other’ group the situation is quite different. This is represented by the lower left quadrant – internalised oppression. Here the problem is that social oppression is experienced as individual failure. A striking example of this can be found in a phenomenon known as ‘stereotype threat.’ This is a situation where the knowledge that the group to which you belong has a negative stereotype can in itself lead to worsening of performance. For example if you give a mixed gender group a ‘maths’ test on average men tend to perform better than women. However if you re-label the test as a ‘problem solving test’ the performance gap virtually disappears. This is probably because as girls are growing up in a patriarchal society in many subtle ways they receive the message that ‘maths is not for girls’. This is then internalised as ‘I am not good at maths’ and then when placed in a ‘maths’ position this anxiety affects performance.

Other experiments, especially in the field of social psychology, have provided more examples of this. When people internalise the oppressive values of society they see the problem as being ‘me’ and not the result of an oppressive social order, where hierarchical relationships further the needs and goals of the powerful at the expense of the powerless.

The third quadrant, the upper right, focuses on the problem in the oppressor group of focusing exclusively on a single area of oppression. This can lead to a variety of problems depending on how this is done.

The first problem is what might be called liberal guilt. This can occur when a member of a dominant group is so concerned of the oppression felt by a group that is considered part of ‘The Other’ that they feel bad about who they are. This is a bad thing for several reasons. Firstly, a person who feels guilty or ashamed of their own identity is unlikely to be able to help someone else feel good about who they are. On a more serious level the result is an unwillingness to challenge unacceptable behaviour of someone who is considered part of ‘The Other’ for fear of adding to the oppression of an oppressed group. This was powerfully demonstrated in the Victoria Climbié case. In this case it was noted that various workers were unwilling to criticise or even investigate Victoria’s carers for fear of being accused of being racist. The reality is that no group has a monopoly on goodness or badness. In order to create justice people must be held accountable for the consequences of their actions. An experience of oppression is not an excuse for acting in a harmful or abusive way, and social workers need to have the confidence to assess such harmful or abusive actions. This is an example where an attempt to not oppress one individual on one ground may in fact lead to greater oppression of someone with even less power.

Another example of this might be a case where a parent has a mental health difficulty. A social worker may be aware of how much stigma and prejudice people with mental health difficulties face, and quite rightly does not want to add to that oppression. If this leads to the worker not challenging harmful parenting techniques then the child or children may suffer even greater preventable harm. The result is that by focusing on the exclusive sectional oppression on grounds of mental health the worker fails to address the oppression children face on the grounds of their age and developmental immaturity.

A second problem related to liberal guilt is ‘rescuing’. In this situation a member of the dominant group focuses exclusively on the oppression of ‘The Other’ and believes that rather than being ‘power-less’ (as in having less power that the someone in the dominant group they are ‘powerless’ (as in having no power whatsoever). This means that the person in the dominant group believes that they have to speak for people in ‘The Other’ group. The motivation for this at a conscious level may be to be anti-oppressive, but the unintended consequence of this is to further oppression as it comes from a position of unequal power. The person in the dominant group is seeing themselves as more knowledgeable and more skilled than those in ‘The Other’ group.

For social workers and for social work tutors this is a difficult challenge. Often our positional power, the power that comes from having a role within a powerful organisation, will mean that we have power over others. The training and the professional development we do will give us knowledge and skills that can be used to help people overcome oppression. The problem arises when we use this positional and professional power in a way that focuses exclusively on our power and reinforces the powerlessness of those we are working with. What makes this so hard is that when we are in the dominant position we have an intuitive sense we are ‘doing the right thing’ and so we fail to see the harm of our own actions. The example of ‘mansplaining’ mentioned earlier can be an example of this. If I, as a man, decide I am going to ‘educate’ women about the evils of patriarchy then in my own mind I see myself as ‘the hero’. I am using my position as a man and as a tutor to ‘rescue’ women students from the evils of sexism, and in doing so I am probably writing myself out of the equation as part of the problem. I will explain to women what their experience is, and by explain I mean ‘tell them’, rather than listening to their experiences and supporting them to develop their own understanding, whilst at the same time I continue to acknowledge how my behaviour and attitudes continue to reinforce gender inequality, despite my efforts to be conscious of and prevent this.

Practice which has anti-oppressive intentions but which is based on the superiority a dominant group to solve the problem will in most cases only result in greater oppression and a lengthening of the problem. Thinking back to the Practice Pyramid, genuine anti-oppressive practice is based upon values of respect, equality and diversity. It is based upon core beliefs that those experiencing oppression are the experts on the experience of oppression; that listening is more important than telling; that everyone has resources and strengths that can be mobilised to help people reach their goals, goals that they themselves form.

Finally in the lower right quadrant there is a difficulty of Externalised Helplessness. This is a situation where oppression is experienced so strongly that the person believes that they have no choice and no control. In the most extreme cases, for example in the case of slavery, this can lead to a complete deadening of emotional experiences, a loss of a sense of aliveness and of ‘being human’. Even the smallest actions of autonomy become practically impossible.

In other cases it can lead to a denial of personal responsibility for oppressive behaviour against some other group. One example of this can arise when a gay man acts in sexist ways towards women. It is possible in this situation for the man, when challenged, to see this challenge as going from the perspective of being challenged because he is gay and not because his behaviour has a sexist effect.

A similar situation may have arisen in the Ali Desai case. Desai was a senior police officer who was arrested and imprisoned for perverting the course of justice. When he was arrested his defence was that the allegations made against him were motivated by racism. This is a complicated situation and it is important not to rush to simplistic conclusions, but racism can exist alongside personally and professionally inappropriate behaviour. The challenge comes in recognising the oppression experienced by members of oppressed groups whilst also holding people to account for their behaviour. As mentioned earlier this has serious implications in social work, as was shown by the Victoria Climbié case.

Where to focus your attention?

Having outlined the Middle Ground Intersectional Model it is important to raise a vital point – notice where you focus your attention? My guess, based on using this and similar models in my teaching, is that if you are part of a dominant group you will focus on the bottom right quadrant. You will draw comfort from this model by thinking it proves that oppressed people are making a fuss about nothing. If you do that, beware. You have just revealed how deep and how dangerous your dominant position is. If you use a model of oppression to prove that oppression is not a problem, not a serious problem, not a solvable problem, or not your responsibility to solve, then you need to re-read this chapter. If having re-read it you continue to do this then perhaps you should question your current readiness for social work practice. As Neil Thompson states, social work which is not anti-discriminatory/anti-oppressive is not good social work, no matter how good it is in other ways.

If you are part of a group who regularly faces oppression, again, be careful where you focus your attention. Focusing exclusively on the problems of the oppressors will only reinforce your sense of powerlessness. You do not need to defend yourself from the oppressive beliefs of others. This does not mean you should not tackle the oppressive behaviour of others, that should be a given, but only that once you have examined yourself and taken responsibility for your behaviour you do not need to prove yourself to others. Racism is a problem FOR black and ethnic minority people, but a problem OF white people; sexism is a problem FOR women, but a problem OF men; homophobia is a problem for bisexual people, lesbians and gay men, but a problem OF straight people; and so on through a myriad of social oppressions. Whilst it is important to look at a range of strategies that are a problem FOR you, see table 5, you do not need to take responsibility for the problems that are OF other people.

Finishing the Model

In bringing this all together it is possible to finish the model by exploring the Middle Ground. This is the area where we no longer deny the existence of a problem of oppression, nor do we focus on a single dimension of oppression to the exclusion of all other oppressions. This Middle Ground is the common practices that can help to combat oppression across all groups in society. It is, I admit, utopian. It suggests that we can solve the problems of a deeply unequal and unjust world, and that a world without hierarchy, or at least with minimal hierarchies which can demonstrate their legitimacy, is possible. I suspect that we are probably 500 to 1,000 years away from fully realising this potential, but I also recognise that we have made progress in many areas of equality and justice in the last 200 to 300 years, and so I remain optimistic that progress is possible, and probably essential if we are to maintain this planet as a place fit for human habitation.

The final stage of the model will look different, depending on whether you are considering a situation where you are in the group that holds the most social power or the group that is being disempowered. For those in the dominant group it will look like Figure 17.

Your middle ground will depend upon your commitment to social justice. It is extremely hard to give up power unless you see that there is some greater goal at the end of it. Individual power when exercised without justice leads to an oppressive society, one that may be relative advantage to one group, but does so at the expense of well-being for all. This case is powerfully argued by Wilson and Pickett in their book ‘The Spirit Level’.

Secondly, when you have power which is backed by privilege, you need to recognise that. Without recognising the unearned benefits that come from being part of a dominant group you cannot challenge injustice and create a fairer, healthier society. A direct result of that will come both the desire and the ability to listen non-defensively to those who are experiencing oppression. This is a third strategy for developing anti-oppressive practice. Listening also means being aware of how our communication, both in listening and speaking, is shaped by the biases discussed in chapter 5, ego-centric biases, ethno-centric biases and socio-centric biases. These are extremely hard to overcome as they are seen as being ‘normal’ and as such tend to be invisible to the person.

Fourthly, it is important to develop a secure sense of your own identity, in all its messiness and complexity. I am who I am, and unless I am respectful of that I am unlikely to really help someone else be proud of who they are. I did not choose my gender, ethnicity, class, nationality or sexuality. On one level it makes no sense to be proud of these things. On a different level I am increasingly accepting and proud of just being me. This is not pride based on being better than someone else, but just a sense that ‘I am OK in being me.’ This forms the basis for relationships where I can support others in accepting and respecting their identities.

Fifthly, it is important in anti-oppressive practice to put the edge at the centre. This means in any situation asking yourself: ‘who has the least power?’ That person should be the one whose needs are put most central and whose views are most listened to. You can then work up through other people in the situation ensuring that your focus reverses the injustice in society.

Sixth, if you are part of a dominant group, educate yourself. It is not the role of women to educate men about sexism. They may choose in a given situation to do so, but sexism is a problem OF men and FOR women, and therefore, if you are a man, the responsibility to educate yourself about sexism is yours, and not that of women. It is not the role of black people to educate white people about racism, or of older adults to educate younger adults about ageism, or for those with disabilities to educate able-bodied people about ableism. Where it is YOUR problem, you must take responsibility to educate yourself.

Finally, if you are truly committed to anti-oppressive practice you must challenge all hierarchies and all oppressions. If you say, prejudice is wrong, but it is OK to discriminate against young people as they know nothing, then you have opened the door for all oppressions. If you believe that fighting racism means that you shouldn’t challenge sexist practices in a specific group because they are black and ‘that’s just their culture’, then you have opened to the door to all oppressions. If you say: ‘Yes, I’m against oppression, but same sex relationships should not be treated the same as opposite sex relationships’, then you have opened the door to all oppressions.

The only hierarchies that have any place in a just society are those that can justify themselves on open and clear grounds. When a parent grabs a child who is about to run in the road and pulls them back, that is an exercise of power, but it is a legitimate one, not based on age but on the parents greater ability to assess risk. When someone who has studied a field for years makes an announcement on that subject then it is legitimate that we give that more credence than someone who has only read a few pages on the internet about it. Again, this is not because we should defer to authority figures but because the evidence on which subject experts can call upon is legitimately greater than for non-experts. That does not mean that we should not challenge ‘experts’, especially when they speak outside their subject area or draw conclusions that go beyond the best available evidence, but it is to say that some hierarchies can defend their authority, and others can’t, as the anarchist writer Bakunin was happy to admit – “In the matter of boots I am happy to defer to the authority of the bootmaker.”

In many ways the position for those in ‘The Other’ group, for those who are experiencing oppression, the picture is similar, after all this is the idea of their being ‘middle ground’, but it is slightly different.

Firstly, I must repeat what I said earlier: as a white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual man, I must be very cautious about telling those who are being oppressed what they should do. What I have seen that has seemed to be successful is when those who are being oppressed can engage in ‘unapologetic speaking’. This means avoiding words like ‘just’ or ‘only’, as in ‘I’m just a student’ or ‘I’m only a secretary’. Your daily lived experience provides ample proof that oppression is a reality, and you do not need to defend that. What often makes this hard is the fact that blatant, extreme and unambiguous acts of oppression are relatively rare, whereas smaller ‘micro-aggressions’, ‘othering’, ‘silencing’ ‘labelling’ and ‘denial’ are common. In any one given situation, it may be impossible to prove that this was caused by prejudice. This is similar to the problem of proving global warming. No single hot summer or drought proves global warming, and no cold snap or snowstorm disproves it. All we can say is that if global warming is true then we will expect these events to happen more often than before, and these other events to happen less often. In the same way, most acts of oppression cannot be conclusively proved to be motivated by prejudice, but we can say that for some people in society such events are infrequent, whereas for others they happen on a regular basis. It is this that should be spoken about unapologetically – you (the oppressor) may or may not have intended to be oppressive, but my lived experience is that what you have just done is oppressive.

Other aspects are the same whether you are in the dominant group or ‘The Other’ group. A secure sense of identity and putting the edge at the centre are equally important, as is challenging all hierarchies. Educating yourself is slightly more complex though, as you need to be careful to note whether those who are trying to educate you are speaking and listening to you or speaking for you. If it is the first then you will probably make progress, if is the latter then you will probably me better finding sources that more closely resonate with your own experience. As a test of that consider this chapter: has it left you feeling heard and empowered, or weakened and undermined? If it is the first, then I am pleased with a job well done, if it is the latter then I will encourage you to keep looking, find other sources, find people who can empower you and feel free to ignore anything in this chapter that undermines you. Just because I have a job title ‘lecturer’ or claim to have ‘experience’ these are just labels, and in no way should undermine the validity of your own experience or silence your voice, regardless of my intentions.

At the end of the day anti-discriminatory practice, anti-racist practice and anti-sexist practice are all about practice. Whilst I personally believe that the answer to oppression in society will ultimately be societal and cultural, this is of limited use in the day-to-day practice of social workers. That is why my model focuses on individual actions that can be taken by social workers and service users.

I will finish this chapter with a story. I think that stories often form a better way to understand a concept than merely to describe the theory in abstract terms. I need to begin by clarifying what I mean by ‘story’. For some people the concept of ‘story’ implies something ‘made up’, something that is not true. For me, ‘story’ simply means events organised in a way that makes narrative sense to the speaker and listener. This story is about the South African anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko. Biko was a founder member of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, and spoke and wrote about the need for black people in Africa to form their own solutions for achieving justice in Africa. He was as critical of white liberals as he was of white supremacists, arguing that both of them in their own way disempowered black Africans. He was eventually murdered in police custody in 1977. Given that background, this story illustrates an important point about anti-oppressive practice.

On the way through the arid, flat Orange Free State he (Steve Biko) grew bored and lonely and gave a lift to two young whites. They seemed reluctant to talk, and as company and conversation had been the aim in giving them a lift (they were hitchhiking to Johannesburg) he decided to draw them out.

“Are you boys English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking?” he asked.

After some hesitation, one of them said: “We’re both English-speaking.” But Steve could detect from their accent that they were Afrikaners.

“What a pity,” he said, “I was hoping you were Afrikaans-speaking because I want to improve my Afrikaans and I hoped to get some practice.”

No response.

“Kom, praat met my [Come, speak with me],” he said in Afrikaans.

“No, we don’t know Afrikaans much,” one of them replied. But the more English he spoke the more they struggled, until eventually he challenged them with a smile: “Come on, you’re Afrikaans-speaking, aren’t you?” With great reluctance they admitted it.

“Why did you deny it?” he persisted. Well, they said, they knew that black people didn’t like Afrikaners. Typically, Steve then delivered a long lecture to the effect that people should never, under any circumstances be ashamed or reticent about their origins or race or culture. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in language or culture. In fact, you should be proud of these things!” (Woods, 1987, p76-77)

Reflection

• What struck you most in this chapter?
• Are you proud to be yourself without comparing yourself to others?
• Do you get angry at the injustice in the world?
• What are you going to do about it?

Recommended Reading

Maclean, S. and Harrison, R. (2011) Theory and Practice: a straightforward guide for society work students. Lichfield: Kirwan Maclean Associates. Various chapters – 5, 7, 9-16

Thompson, N. (2006) Anti-Discriminatory Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Chapters 1 and 2, pp 1-47 (Focus on understanding these two chapters before approaching the rest of the book)

Burke, B. (2013) “Anti-Oppressive Practice” in Davis. M. The Blackwell Companion to Social Work: Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell. Pp414-416

Thompson, N. (2009) People Skills. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Chapter 22 – “Anti-discriminatory practice” pp195-204

Dominelli, L. (2002) “Anti-oppressive practice in context” in Adams, R., Dominelli, L. and Payne, M. Social Work: Themes, issues and critical debates. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp 3-19

Burke, B. and Harrison, P. “Anti-oppressive practice. in Adams, R., Dominelli, L. and Payne, M. Social Work: Themes, issues and critical debates. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Pp 227-236.

Trevithick, P. (2012) Social Work Skills and Knowledge: a practice handbook. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Appendix 9 – “Radical and activist perspectives in social work” pp345-348

Teater, B. (2010) Applying Social Work Theories and Methods. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Chapter 6 – “Feminist theory and practice.” Pp87-101

Doel, M. and Shardlow, S. (2005) Modern Social Work Practice: Teaching and learning in practice settings. Aldershot: Ashgate. Chapter 14 – “Anti-Oppressive Practice” pp207-218

Dominelli, L, (2009) “Anti-oppressive practice: the challenge of the twenty-first century.” In Adams, R., Dominelli, L. and Payne, M. Social Work: Themes, issues and critical debates.” Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp49-64

Last updated 28.09.21