One of my winter break reads (yes, the reviews are still trickling out, folks…) was the most recent book edited by my undergraduate advisor and very good friend (and blog reader!) Alice Lieberman. You should pick it up; I read it in just a few hours, as it’s really a collection of interviews with phenomenal women social workers around the world who have done (and are doing) amazing work.
Because it’s such an easy read, and because I know that you’re all looking for some more good books to add to your reading lists, at my suggestion, I’m just going to relate to the stories, in aggregate, in a couple of very personal ways. Besides, really, choosing just one of two to include here would be too difficult. Um, an ambassador? U.S. Senator? Iranian social worker who faced down a firing squad? One of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the country? And two nuns? You know how I feel about nuns…
On only about the third page of the book, still in the introduction, I had one of those lightbulb moments. I was really not aware, at all, of the literature about the powerful role that fathers, in particular, play in their daughters’ social and emotional development. That particular influence runs through many of the stories in the book, and it really hit a chord with me. In many of these cases, it’s obvious why supportive fathers are so important: in much of the developing world, without strong advocacy from the father, girls have very little access to education.
But that wasn’t the case for me, certainly, and yet I can think of no single greater influence in my decision to use my life to serve others, than my father. I thought of him a lot throughout the whole book. In an interview from Pakistan, an advocate speaks of seeing her mother berate a group of men who had just kicked a widow out of her house, and I thought of my Dad forcing a car off the road so that he could get out and drive the drunk (and unknown to us) man home. My favorite story in the book is in the chapter on Sister Jean Abbott, with whom I had the great honor to work some while I was in St. Louis. She speaks of her sister getting so excited when a man asked for a drink of water, because she thought this was her big chance to do what her father wanted: give someone more than what he/she had asked for. The man was quite taken aback with the huge breakfast her sister offered. It reminded me of my favorite story of my sister who, when asked to draw a picture of Jesus in Sunday School, drew him with a bald head and glasses. I don’t have to tell you what my Dad looks like.
The other very personal thing for me in this book was the realization that very few of the women profiled have children and partners, and some of those who do are either estranged from their families or acknowledge that they missed much of their children’s lives. I love my kids fiercely, and I gain tremendous joy from mothering them every day. Yet I am also very conscious of the opportunity cost of this intensive parenting–the more that I give to my kids, the less I have to give to others. I’m certainly not saying that I would have become an ambassador or an Ashoka fellow or anything, had I not chosen parenting, but I do wonder about that other path, sometimes. Having decided to have kids, I have very strong feelings about the role that I want to play in their lives, and yet I know what I’m not doing, then, as a result. And, of course, it made me think about how you’d likely never see those stories in a book about outstanding men and their contributions, and about how moms are the ones expected to straddle both worlds.
And it was also moving for me to see how many of the women spoke of Eleanor Roosevelt as an inspiration for their work. My daughter is named after her and has a framed picture of the former First Lady on her dresser. It is my sincere hope that my daughter grows up with some of the same compassion and wisdom and moral courage evidenced by her namesake and, apparently, many of those who seek to emulate her.
Less personal, but still powerful, was the very obvious interweaving of clinical and social change orientations in virtually all of the profiles in the book. I feel very strongly that bridging across this false divide is essential for the future of our profession and, I believe, key to our likelihood of success in grappling with the world’s problems, too. As woman after woman stated, it is when we bring our excellent people skills together with a macro-systems perspective and an unflinching commitment to social justice that we become truly powerful forces for change. Nearly all of the women took a more macro approach in school, and certainly in their practice, but they value their clinical experience and clinical tools, as well.
And, finally, my favorite quotes, which honestly reminded me of several of you!
“a dislike for injustice was one of her principal traits” (p. 113)
“it is difficult to say whether (she) chose social work or social work chose her” (p. 41)
And, in a quote of St. Francis of Assisi, “preach and, if necessary, use words” (p. 125)
What women in social work particularly inspire you? Or do you have your own story to tell about a parent’s influence, or the cost of family responsibilities, or being a woman in this “female” profession?
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Calculated Epiphanies and Justice in Funding
I saved my favorite of the Begging for Change posts for last; Robert Egger is one of the few nonprofit leaders I’ve ever heard be willing to speak truth to the Rockefellers of the world AND give social service organizations such a clear way to make the connection between their work and advocacy. Since justice not charity and the link between social work and social change are two of my very favorite topics, I was literally flagging almost every other page towards the end of the book.
But this will be a short post, because it’s been a long week of challenging everything we think we know about nonprofits, and it’s Friday, and, you know, there are limits. Two main takeaways:
1. Nonprofit organizations need to be consistent agitators for justice, which means not accepting funding from corporations and others who are creating a lot of the problems that these same organizations are then expected to address. Egger tells a sobering story of a graduate of the DC Central Kitchen program who gets a job in the AOL cafeteria. As the Kitchen’s Executive Director, Egger has these visions of partnerships between AOL and the Kitchen and all of the great work they can do together, until he finds out that the job only pays $8/hour despite requiring a long commute for the newly-minted graduate. It’s like Rockefeller, right? How would our society look different today if, instead of making a ton of money by exploiting natural and human resources and rewriting economic rules to enrich himself, and then donating some of the proceeds, Rockefeller had instead shaped an economy built on justice and prevention of suffering?
So here’s what I’d like to see: the next time that a social worker in a nonprofit organization is offered a grant from a corporation with a poor record of labor or human rights, instead of taking the check and serving as cover for the company’s larger misdeeds, what if the corporation was urged to set its own house in order first, as in the examples Egger provides?
2. Services aren’t enough. We need social change. Egger uses the example of Habitat for Humanity and how much more capacity the federal government, and corporate America, collectively, have to address affordable housing than the efforts of this one (even very large) nonprofit organization. He obviously gets it, that we need to cultivate our political strength and then wield it to bring about policy change. So you know I’m nodding along. And then he goes further, giving nonprofits a visual that I love–the idea of reaching decision makers’ hearts through your service work, like a Trojan Horse, and then helping them to reach the realization of their own powers to work alongside you towards a common goal. He calls this ‘calculated epiphany’, the idea of slipping into someone’s conscience to bring them along on your cause, and I think there’s a ton of truth to it.
In my own advocacy, I know that we won the most when we could first connect to lawmakers’ values around family, the story of a welcoming America, the promise of youth…and then they, often reluctantly, were forced to admit that making those values reality required policy change.
So what can be your Trojan Horses? How can you leverage your direct service work to build relationships with influential people in your community who are in a position to effect significant change? How can your organization become a place, as Egger says, where “people see the impossible made plausible”? What will you do to make lightbulbs go on…and stay on?
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Posted in Analysis and Commentary, Inspiration and Examples
Tagged advocacy, reviews, social justice, social services