Dealing With Sex And Power In Feminist Counselling

Dealing With Sex And Power In Feminist Counselling

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Like all counsellors, feminist counsellors address the issues and confusions that are at the guts of the client's current difficulties. But, feminist counsellors seek to help shoppers grow in awareness as to how their lives have been affected and curtailed by living in an exceedingly male-dominated society. Hence, several issues that are raised by a client are explored, not only in terms of the girl's personal experiences and relationships, however additionally in terms of gender stereotypes and power-relations.

From how women feel about their bodies, to how women's sexuality is exploited, abused and trivialised, feminist counsellors explore these problems with purchasers to present them a larger image of how their own problems, fears, and sense of inferiority are closely entwined with patriarchal values and social constructions.

Sex and Power

Not like mainstream counsellors, feminist counsellors explore the ways that in which sex and relationships are connected to politics. In terms of sex-roles and stereotypes, each socialised sex and politics are both inextricably bound up with power. For millennia, ladies are exploited in patriarchal cultures (Vesel-Mander and Kent-Rush: 1974, 22). Worell and Remer (1992, 92) read feminist therapy as that specialize in serving to purchasers determine the influence of social rules, sex-role socialisation, institutionalised sexism and alternative sorts of oppression on personal experience. Feminists of all backgrounds converge on the very fact that every area of a woman's life is stricken by gender inequalities. Girls's bodies and their sexuality is the world where patriarchal control and violence is most commonly displayed.

Women are faced with many opposing images and views of feminine sexuality. For centuries ladies were categorised as virgin, mother or whore. Within all major religions feminine sexuality is viewed as a temptation, leading innocent males towards sin. Patriarchal laws devised ways that of controlling feminine sexuality, making it permissible solely among the sanctity of marriage. In Victorian England a lady who enjoyed or pursued sexual pleasure was labelled mentally sick, was usually committed to an asylum or was deemed to be in would like of a gruesome operation to form her sexually passive, therefore that she may no longer relish sex. Since the Nineteen Sixties a woman is often deemed to be liberated only if she has sex with many partners (Worell and Remer (1992).

Feminist counsellors explore these deeply powerful and contradictory stereotypes with clients, teasing out how they have affected girls's decisions, and also the expression of their needs and feelings. According to Vesel-Mander and Kent-Rush (1974, 51), feminism seeks to bring out the validity of the lady's own experience, and to challenge society's artificial norms about what ladies should and should not want sexually.

Sexual Abuse and Domestic Violence

Several feminist counsellors specialize in working with girls who have suffered sexual abuse or violence. Sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and pornography are crimes that are viewed by feminists as ways in which in that the patriarchy keeps girls frightened and controlled. Feminist counsellors will not only explore the lady's personal experience of abuse however can conjointly have a look at society's values and stereotypes that make male abusers and female victims.

Girls who have been raped could agonise over what it was in their dress or behaviour that precipitated the attack, a question that will be thought of ludicrous in any different violent crime. Feminist counsellors work with their clients to assist them realise that the crime was in no approach instigated by them. Men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence and sexual abuse against women. This violence isn't concerning isolated incidents, but occurs in many contexts, from non-public and familial, to public (Walsh and Liddy: 1989).

MacLeod (1990, one) is extremely critical of the counselling that ladies who have suffered domestic violence receive from mainstream counsellors. She states that "mainstream treatment approaches utilized in social service or health agencies and by private medical, psychological and social work practitioners have been attacked for blaming the woman." She goes on to add that mainstream counsellors typically search for weaknesses or pathologies among the woman to explain the violence, minimising or ignoring the responsibility of the violent partner for his actions, and overlooking the social values and establishments that condone violence against women and children. Criticism of mainstream counselling is also made by MacLeod (1990) for its failure to understand the seriousness of the violence and the continued danger many abused girls experience, even when separating or divorcing from a violent partner. Additionally, mainstream counselling usually emphasises treatment based mostly on keeping the family along, whereas failing to recognise the power imbalance that exists between men and girls that reinforces abuse (MacLeod, 1990, two).

Body Image

The method in that girls are portrayed in advertising and pornography is additionally addressed by feminist counsellors. Women are groomed by culture to read themselves as objects, which should match a explicit form and style to fit in with perceived notions of beauty and desire. Despite all the political advances that feminists have achieved over several decades, women still learn to judge their value by their physical look, bodies, faces, hair and garments (Wolfe: 1991).

Feminist counsellors read such issues as low self-esteem because of poor body image, the utilization of cosmetic surgery for non-medical treatment, and such issues as bulimia and anorexia nervosa as being largely the result of patriarchal conditioning and exploitation. Psychotherapist, Susie Orbach (1993) explores the explanations why several girls become anorexic. Within the United States alone, 100 and fifty thousand ladies die from the consequences of anorexia. For Orbach (1993) the psychological roots of this type of self-inflicted violence are embedded when the girl initially tries to transform her body into that that will be acceptable to society. She surpasses society's demands that a girl be thin and desirable and instead goes on a type of hunger strike, attempting to control even her most basic want for food as she has been brought-up to deny her emotional needs.

Feminist counsellors seek to assist a lady begin to nurture herself, to find out to love and respect her own body. This helps the woman to grow in self-esteem, and to regain her sense of internal power. Vesel-Mander and Kent-Rush (1974, 56) suggest that feminist counsellors use body therapies as a result of a great deal of women's oppression is biological. As a results of centuries of negative programming, girls need to do a great deal of healing on their bodies and body images.

About the Author:
Steve Henderson has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Cosmetic Surgery ,you can also check out his latest website about:
Antique Treadle Sewing Machines Which reviews and lists the best



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