Negotiating

the uncomfortable intersections between gender and professional identities in social work This article is based on a study of men’s relationship to the social work profession in the North-West of England. It argues that men’s presence in the social work profession is accounted for in discourses of career motivation, of career choice, and of men social workers as heroes and/or ‘gentle-men’. The article considers how these negotiations between gender and professional identities might contribute to debates about the detraditionalization of gender and work identities in late modernity. Key words: detraditionalization, feminized profession, men Certain areas of employment tend to be seen in gendered terms as primarily masculine or feminine activities. Yet neither gender nor employment categories remain static, so that although certain pro-fessions, such as nursing, teaching and social work are identified as feminized, the gendering of these professions is always subject to change. In this article I examine how interactions between gender and professional identities are negotiated in relation to men’s presence in the feminized profession of social work, while at the same time remaining conscious of the dangers of reifying gender and professional identities. My aim is to draw attention to how identities are con-structed in relation to one another and to other aspects of the social and personal context. Men’s relationships to work in the social work profession, particu-larly in the area of child welfare, are often ambiguous, contradictory and, at times, paradoxical. It is estimated that at least 30 per cent of men social workers work in childcare social work (Balloch et al., 1995). Evidence of men’s violence towards children, women and othe