This dissertation investigates the history of social work with single mothers in Slovenia between 1955 and 1991 and examines how institutions and society responded to this group during socialism. It asks how single mothers were constructed, which mechanisms shaped this construction, and what consequences followed for women and children.
The central concept introduced is immune masculinity, denoting the systemic tolerance of fathers’ and male partners’ absence from family life. This absence was not treated as an individual choice but was supported by legislative, administrative, and cultural mechanisms that legitimized men’s exemption from responsibility, reproduced gender inequality, and placed the burden of survival and care on women.
The study draws on archival case files from social work centres, articles from the magazine Naša žena (Our Woman), student theses from the Faculty of Social Work, and interviews with retired social workers. These sources provide institutional, public, academic, and experiential perspectives.
Findings show that single mothers were consistently defined through their supposed “deficiency”—the absent male partner—rather than as legitimate family units. Discourses moved from stigmatization in the 1950s and 1960s, through partial legitimization in the 1970s, to renewed emphasis on the two-parent family in the 1980s. Social work primarily addressed women’s vulnerability but rarely confronted male irresponsibility.
By introducing immune masculinity, the dissertation highlights how patriarchal structures shaped socialist institutions and offers critical insights for contemporary social policy, since many challenges faced by single mothers remain unresolved.
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