Blog 9

Blog 9

Most of my blog is going to be about the GLBT aspect of chapter six, but I would like to first and foremost state that I was horrified at the fact that of Brown’s eight categories of “workers with special needs” women made second on the list. Call me a feminist or at least someone who is arguing purely from conviction and not from reality, but that seems so absurd to me. I see the statistics regarding women making less than men (Brown, 2012, pg. 123), but this goes back to what I said last week. I don’t think that, as career counselors, we need to address all women through the lens of a “special needs worker.” My fury at Gottfredson has been reborn through this because even the feminist theorists are satisfied making charts about how far to the right women’s jobs are. It makes me think of the case studies we read in class: “Oh, that’s to bad that Jim is in a wheelchair, we can get past this once we figure out his life themes. Thank God he’s not a woman like Melissa, or his life would be completely determined by her husband’s obvious affair he’s having that she is too dense to see because she is a woman and must spend all of her time taking care of the kids!” Please, someone stand with me on this.

            As I digress, I’d like to get into the part of Brown’s chapter that is applicable to my group work! I thought it was so interesting that in Brown’s reference to Pope’s work, the idea of “soul searching” for the counselor themselves came up (2012, pg. 129). Aside from soul searching being one of my favorite phrases and activities, I feel like it needs to be emphasized in this case tenfold. For me, it is simple to conceptualize being a counselor to a GLBT client because of the open-minded environment I was raised in, but I feel like it will really separate the women from the girls (take that, Brown! I rephrased a cliché!) to see how well counselors can really hide their feelings about homosexuality or transexuality to properly guide a client in the correct career direction or, as Brown says, refer the client to someone else (2012, pg. 129). I just feel so passionate about the subject that it boggles my mind that a counselor would be able to admit that their bigotry is taking precedent over their duty as a career counselor.

Brown, D. (2012). Career Information, career counseling, and career development (10^th           ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.