From Free Life, Issue 35, January 2000
ISSN: 0260 5112
Review Article:
Political Correctness and Social Work
Terry Philpott (ed.)
Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1999, 82pp, £5.00 (pbk)
(ISBN 0 255 36457 1)

Political correctness has much more to do with ideological hair-splitting than with meeting the needs of the poor and oppressed, according to the chief executive of one of the country's leading social welfare agencies. Writing in Political Correctness and Social Work, published by the Health and Welfare Unit of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Helen Dent, Chief Executive of the Family Welfare Association, says that:

the length of the political correctness wars has been excessive, and much time and passion misdirected (p.27).
Political correctness has been used
not to tackle oppressors, but those on the same side who do not quite have the right attitude... by the 1980s, the PC police were swapping the pursed lips of 'you should see the state of her kitchen' for the pursed rhetoric of "you should see her ideology... (P.28).
For the users of social services, the concerns of political correctness seemed
a long way from their day-today priorities' like mouldy walls and unpaid electricity bills (p.37),
but then
political correctness was more achievable than social change, and it was a lot more fun (p.41).
The desire to address the issues of oppression and inequality which are the concern of political correctness is widespread amongst social workers. Helen Dent asks why it is that, given their commitment, so little progress has been made. One problem has been the failure of managers to set priorities and act on them.

The losers from all of this were the 'clients' of social work, the people who needed help but found that their social workers were away on training courses, or 'convening meetings for squabbles over whether to write "black" or "Black"' (p.30). Helen Dent gives the example of an elderly widow who needed personal care, but wanted a female home-help. She was told that such a request violated the local authority's equal opportunities policy, and that she would get no help at all.

The woman's relatives queried the policy. They pointed out that their mother had only experienced one man's hands on her-and her husband had died some 15 years previously. No man had ever washed her smalls! They pointed out that she was so embarrassed about taking her clothes off that she did not see the doctor until the lump in her breast had grown to the size of a tennis ball and she needed a double mastectomy. What with that and her rheumatoid arthritis and angina, she did sometimes need personal care. Could they not flex the rules for an old lady too embarrassed, proud and dignified to show her mutilated body to a man? Certainly not. In the era of political correctness new categories of undeserving poor emerged (p.35).
Mrs K. is still without her home-help. As Helen Dent says, this sort of attitude leads us into a moral maze. Would more gender-sensitive authorities allow a white woman to say she wanted a white home-help? Would that same authority allow an Asian woman to specify an Asian home-help for cultural reasons? (p.35).

Political correctness claimed to challenge powers structures in society, but ended up by re-enforcing them.

Whilst we worried about the ... politically correct, poverty increased in depth and scope, inequality grew, homelessness flourished. The traditional voice of the oppressed had found other priorities (p.41).
In spite of this, Helen Dent is optimistic that social work can now make progress if it develops 'a coherent strategy for action', combining the data and the knowledge base which have been accumulated with the motivation and commitment of social workers. Social work may have lost its way amongst the competing priorities of political correctness, but there are hopeful signs in various government initiatives such as
the white paper on the personal social services, 'quality protects' initiatives for children's services, and reviews to address the problems of inadequate services for mentally ill and socially excluded people ... but the reasons, in part at least, for government action should be a constant reminder of the damage wrought in social work and social policy by political correctness. It is time to move forward (p.41).
Her chapter forms part of a collection of essays edited by Terry Philpot, the former editor and now editor in chief of Community Care, the social care workers' magazine. Other contributors include Polly Neate, the current editor of Community Care, Anthony Douglas, director of community services for Havering, John Pierson, senior lecturer in social work at the University of Staffordshire, and Robert Pinker, emeritus professor of social administration at the London School of Economics. All authors were asked to address the question of whether or not political correctness plays an important part in social work, and whether there is enough evidence to brand social workers with what Terry Philpot describes as "the modem mark of Cain".
 Iti Saflaia

(Iti Saflaia is the Chairman of Africans for a Free Market Economy)