DV in the SA Muslim community

The role of religion in DV situations has been previously described in this blog. A previous entry on the topic (see the entry dated November 22, 2009) discussed whether religion could ever be used to justify violence against women, and the author concluded that there was nothing in the religious texts that offered such a justification. Religion, however, is not always lived according to the texts; often, it is a deeply rooted cultural way of life. Although the religious culture may not tolerate physical violence, it may circumscribe and limit the role of women, thereby allowing another kind of violence against women.

Following the passage of the 1965 immigration laws, many Muslims immigrated to the US, bringing with them a strong sense of religious and cultural identity from their home countries. Upon arrival, they founded Islamic Community Centers in order to meet the needs of the Muslim community. Ruksana Ayyub, a psychotherapist and anti-DV activist in the SA and Muslim community, finds that these centers have not always been sympathetic to victims of DV, since they consider DV a problem that affects only ‘modern American women.’

To make sense of the lack of community response to the issue of DV, it is necessary to have a broader understanding of the role of women within Islam. Although Islam was originally a religion that empowered women and acknowledged their status and value, cultural distortions over the years have changed it into one that disempowers and oppresses them. To her disappointment, Ayyub observes that in Muslim religious centers across the US, debates rage about the right of a husband to beat his wife, and about the lower status and limited roles of women.

Islamic religion and culture expects women to fit into certain prescribed roles – mother, daughter, wife – and those who fit these roles are accordingly awarded status and respect. But women who do not subscribe to these roles, such as women attempting to leave abusive marriages, are met with disdain and resistance. Instead of supporting them, the religious community demands that they stay in their marriages and make the necessary sacrifices for the continuation of the relationship.

Should a woman choose to pursue a divorce against the wishes of her religious community, she may find herself stymied by Islamic religious law, since, in Islam, divorce is generally discouraged, and is sometimes only granted when the divorce proceedings are initiated by the husband. Women are further obstructed by the fact that most Muslim marriages and divorces in the US are performed at two levels – the religious level and the civil level. But Islamic rules of marriage, divorce, and remarriage are often at odds with civil law in the US; these discrepancies often prove disadvantageous to women. For instance, men may grant their wives a civil divorce but not a religious one; the lack of a religious divorce is not an impediment to men when they seek to remarry, since they are allowed by Islam to have up to four wives, but the same is not true for women. In other cases, men may take on secondary wives through religious marriage; in case these marriages are unsuccessful, the secondary wives are afforded no legal protection since the marriages were neither legal nor registered. In order to prevent this misuse of religious law, Ayyub encourages Muslim institutions to consider a civil divorce a final divorce, and to require proof of civil marriage in order to perform a religious marriage.

Unfortunately, even when there is a legal and religious divorce, it does not necessarily guarantee ease of remarriage. Although the Prophet Mohammed himself married divorced and widowed women as an example to other men, divorced women are now considered inauspicious and harbingers of ill-luck, making it difficult for them to seek spouses.

Ayyub observes that the Hijab (traditional head covering) and the Chador (face veil) are making a comeback among younger Muslim women in the US for very paradoxical reasons – on the one hand, it protects them from the sexualized norms of Western society, and on the other, it affords them independence because they find that the garment frees them from family objections. But this independence is often limited, since Muslim women are discouraged from pursuing a career. They may be allowed to do so only if their work does not require too much interaction with men and if it does not interfere with their familial responsibilities. Ayyub narrates the story of a Muslim woman completing her doctoral studies who was advised by a religious leader not to pursue a career so that she could fulfill her primary duty to her spouse. Although, in this particular case, the woman finds a way to continue working, Ayyub finds that many women have sacrificed careers and life goals in order to fulfill their responsibilities to the family.

The Qur’an generally encourages peace, justice, and kindness towards women; a single verse that may be interpreted as a justification for violence, however, dominates views of DV in the Muslim community. When there is DV in a relationship, religious leaders advise women to remain patient, accepting, obedient, and loyal; there are few consequences, if any, for the men. The majority of Islamic centers fail to address the issue within the community, and many refuse to provide information about outside resources such as state-sponsored shelters, support groups, and legal and social services, viewing them as too ‘radical’ and harmful to the Islamic community.

The experience of Muslim women is further complicated by their South Asian cultural background and their families of origin. These factors will be further discussed in the following week.

[For more information, see: Ayyub, R. (2000). Domestic Violence in the South Asian Muslim Immigrant Population in the United States. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 9(3), 237-248.]

Isolation by others as a form of DV

Last week, we discussed how willful isolation by a spouse, even in the absence of physical or sexual violence, is a form of DV. Unfortunately, isolation by spouse usually leads to or is co-present with other forms of isolation.

Isolation from others: In her interviews, Abraham finds that the very act of moving to the US is socially isolating, since the wife is leaving behind family, friends, and other support systems. The relationships that she forms in the US are often based on the husband’s existing friends, who will generally take his side in case of conflict. Even when they are aware of the abuse, few friends provide advice or support. In fact, they may trivialize the wife’s experience and compel her to not call the police (so as not to jeopardize the immigration status of the husband).

Isolation by ethnic community and other institutions: New immigrants often associate with other members of the same ethnic community. They are sometimes forced to do so due to the divisions of US society (which many find to be divided by racial and class lines), and many choose to do so, to try and replicate the kind of support that they have at home. Victims of DV, however, find the ethnic community unwilling to treat DV as a real problem for two reasons. First, they believe DV to be a private problem rather than a community problem, and second, they deny the existence of DV in order to uphold the image of a ‘model minority.’ (In fact, Abraham briefly discusses the difficulty involved in studying DV in a community that doesn’t consider DV an issue).

Lacking support in their own community, victims may also be hesitant to approach the police or the court systems for help, believing there to be, or having experienced, stereotyping or systematic bias in these institutions. (It is important to note that they may have been convinced of the inaccessibility of the institutions by their spouse).

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In many cases, all 3 forms of isolation overlap – women who are isolated and mistreated by their husbands are unable to develop effective social support systems; and as a result, are unfamiliar with outside support systems. Cultural notions about marriage and partnership may also make it hard for women to leave. For many of the interviewed women, even when other forms of abuse were present, they found that the social isolation was often the most disempowering part of the DV experience.

Abraham recommends that communities break down the “wall of isolation” by welcoming new members into their midst and helping them integrate into the new culture, by recognizing diversity (in other words, understanding that not everyone fits the model minority stereotyping), and by redefining the chauvinistic nature of many SA cultures so that DV is seen as a community problem.

[For more information, see: Abraham, M. (2000). Isolation as a Form of Marital Violence: The South Asian Immigrant Experience. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 9(3), 221-236.]

Isolation by spouse as a form of DV

Researchers have shown that loneliness and isolation, especially as a result of cultural change, is a risk factor for DV. This is largely because familial and cultural support systems that are available to an individual in the home country are often lost in the transition. In this article, Abraham explores isolation, which she defines as the “individual’s perception and reality of being emotionally and socially alone, economically confined, and culturally disconnected” (p. 222), as a form of DV in the SA community.

Abraham found that this kind of abuse is hidden behind an “invisible wall of isolation” because of a number of reasons – due to the power tactics used by the abusers, geographic immobility, cultural and linguistic constraints, financial dependency, and lack of social networks. There are also societal factors such as the racial and ethnic divisions of US culture that isolate abused women, and immigration policies that handicap immigrant women.

To understand the experience of isolation, Abraham interviewed 25 women who had experienced DV. All the women were first-generation immigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and most had come to the US after marriage. They ranged in age from their 20s to 50s, and represented all major SA religions. She found that isolation can happen at three levels: in the relationship with the husband, in relationships with others (friends, relatives, coworkers), and in terms of participation in and access to larger social structures (such as organizations and institutions).

Isolation by spouse: Abraham finds that the delay in newlyweds joining each other inhibits bonding or communication between the spouses. In many cases, the first real contact is after the wife has already left behind her support systems in her home country. But at this point, she finds herself emotionally, financially, and socially dependent on a man she has just met, making it easy for the husband to take advantage of the situation.

This form of isolation is often the hardest to take because the husband is believed to be the one person the wife can interact with and depend on in the new country. Spousal isolation can begin very soon after marriage – for instance, men may not take the necessary efforts to get their wives to join them in the US, leaving the women unsure about their husband’s intentions, or they may not help them feel comfortable in or get adjusted to the new way of life, leaving the women hesitant to venture out of the house. Husbands may not allow their wives to leave the apartment or give her any money. They may monitor her daily activities, threaten to shame her, constantly find fault with her, or use her lack of familiarity with the culture to further isolate her (for example, “you don’t know this neighborhood”). As a result, the wife becomes increasingly dependent on her husband for money, outings, etc., and therefore more vulnerable to abuse.

[It must be noted that many of the interviewed women, including those who worked, specifically identified financial isolation (not giving her money, excluding her from investments and accounts, not letting her know how much he makes) as the most immobilizing kind of spousal isolation.]

Next week, we shall discuss the two other kinds of social isolation that victims of DV experience.

[For more information, see: Abraham, M. (2000). Isolation as a Form of Marital Violence: The South Asian Immigrant Experience. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 9(3), 221-236.]

Youth as perpetrators of DV

Parents generally have more power in parent-child relationships, so youth often experience DV in these relationships as victims (as described in the previous entry). In relationships with siblings and peers, however, the balance of power is more even, and youth can be both victims and perpetrators of DV.

Youth as perpetrators:

In some SA communities in the U.S., there is some evidence that brothers may keep their sisters from having or meeting friends or boyfriends in order to maintain their honor or purity. Although in traditional SA culture there is some expectation that brothers will protect their sisters, this kind of intimidation and exertion of control goes far beyond the bounds of what is considered merely ‘brotherly’. If males perceive themselves to be a member of a marginalized minority, they may view this as a way of gaining power and respect in society.

There have also been news reports about young men who sexually abuse the sisters with whom they share rooms. In these cases, too, youth are stuck in the liminal space between U. S. culture (where sharing rooms between opposite sex siblings is unusual, but there is a lack of supervision) and their traditional culture (where sharing rooms is not unusual, although social control is exerted by the many other individuals also in the room).

When SA youth are involved in dating relationships, girls usually bear the full brunt of traditional expectations (chastity, family honor) but also the burden of penalties (such as pregnancies). As a result, SA girls who find themselves in abusive relationships may be unable to access traditional support structures, such as extended family members, for help. Boys are generally not held responsible for their actions, and may even be considered victims by people who believe the girls to be demanding, needy, or even liars.
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In all of the scenarios described above, SA youth appear to be trapped in a liminal space, where they are neither children nor adults, neither South Asian nor American. Their negotiation of these identities is further complicated by gender roles and expectations of the dominant culture versus their traditional culture. While their unique place in society does not provide an explanation for DV in SA youth, Purkayastha’s descriptions provide a framework in which to understand their lives better.

[For more information, see: Purkayastha, B. (2000). Liminal Lives: South Asian Youth and Domestic Violence. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 9(3), 201-219.]