Ethnicity, Gender, and Marital Violence: South Asian Women's Organizations in the United States

• NCJ Number: 166411
• Journal: Gender and Society Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Dated: (August 1995) Pages: 450-468
• Author(s): M Abraham
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1994 World Congress of Sociology in Bielefeld, Germany.

Annotation

Based on a two-stage questionnaire with six South Asian organizations that focus on South Asian women, this article examines the factors that determined the creation of such organizations.

Abstract

Through an analysis of their organizational ideology, structure, goals, and strategies, this article shows their relevance and the instrumental role they play in shifting marital violence among South Asians in the United States from a "private problem" to a "social issue." The article is divided into five sections. The first section briefly reviews the major theoretical and conceptual considerations pertinent to understanding South Asian Women's Organizations (SAWO's). The second section outlines causal factors for the emergence of SAWO's in the United States. The next section explains their organizational ideology and structure, and the fourth section discusses the organizations' goals and strategies. The final section discusses the importance of SAWO's as a growing social movement in addressing violence against minority women. The article concludes that SAWO's provide victims of marital violence with various forms of psychological, social, legal, and economic support. They empower South Asian women by moving them from silence to speech. Most important, they raise community and public awareness of the problem of marital violence within the South Asian community. They focus on the need to address the intersection of ethnicity and gender, both within community and society at large, when dealing with the issue of marital violence. SAWO's address the mechanisms of patriarchal control, issues of women's self-esteem as victims of marital violence, and the need for cultural sensitization in methods of intervention and policy formulation. Through their various strategies, they provide the impetus for social change at the level of the individual, community, and the larger society. 49 references