Case+of+the+Well-Meaning+Feminist

**By: Laura Miller, Ashley White, Caitlin Woods**
== Case Study | Ethical Codes and Considerations | Laws and Legal Considerations | Literature Review ==

Professional Interview | Ethical Decision Making Model


Allison, a 28-year-old, White, first-year doctoral student, is doing a practicum at a community agency in a predominately Latino neighborhood in a large urban area. The agency offers comprehensive counseling services including career counseling. One of Allison’s clients is Carmen, a 19-year-old Latina. Carmen and her family moved from Puerto Rico when she was 10 years old. Carmen is single, lives with her parents, and attends a nearby community college.



Allison has been counseling Carmen for several sessions on career options that Carmen might pursue after she obtains her associate’s degree. In one of these sessions, Allison reviewed with Carmen the results of an interest inventory that she had recently completed that suggested a number of career options Carmen might consider pursuing. After each option was presented, Carmen would reflect on it and then say, "that sounds like it might be a good job, but I need to check with Popi to see what the thinks about it.” After reviewing several options, Allison asked Carmen who Popi was and why his option was so important to her. Carmen stated that Popi was her father and that she needed to seek his guidance and permission prior to entering a career. When Allison heard this, it aroused her feminist sensibilities and she responded that Carmen was woman now and did not need her father, or any man for that matter, giving her permission to live her life and pursue a career.



Allison believed Carmen was in a highly dysfunctional enmeshed family situation, and she wanted to explore strategies that would help Carmen break free of her father’s seemingly oppressive grip and allow her to assert her independence as a woman. For the next counseling session, Allison brought several books on women’s issues for Carmen to read. She also engaged Carmen in a discussion about what it means to be a woman in a contemporary American society. Allison’s goal was to get Carmen to being to assert her independence from her family, in particular her father. Allison attempted to stress to Carmen that the decisions to pursue a career was hers alone. She could certainly listen to her father’s advice, but as a modern American woman, Carmen did not need her father’s permission to pursue a career. This session ended with Allison attempting to get Carmen to think of ways that she could move out of her father’s house. Carmen did not return for further counseling after this session.



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References Photograph retrieved from http://www.singularitynyc.com/Rosie-information.html Photograph retrieved from http://addsherpa.com/2012/05/7-wrong-ways-to-decide-your-lifes-career/ Photograph retrieved from http://www.goshen.edu/library/womenstdept.php Photograph retrieved from http://www.techi.com/2011/03/warlock-mania-a-roadmap-for-fallen-celebrities-to-reinvent-themselves/