Women and social policy

Abstract

As we saw in Chapter 6, British social policy has largely focused upon women as mothers rather than as workers or independent citizens. The relationship between the aims of social policies and the reality of women’s lives is a complex one. Writers have pointed to the significance which social policies have for women’s lives (Maclean and Groves, 1991; Williams, 1989). A broadly feminist perspective could be divided as to the way in which women should be identified by policies: for example, does a policy such as child benefit reinforce the gendered nature of child care or should it be protected as it represents the only benefit to which women are entitled as of universal right?