Saxakali Magazine 2:2 Gender Issues: Family Violence

Saxakali Magazine V2N2
Gender Issues:

Family Violence

by Sushila Patil

Women are thought to be very emotional; I find that men are no less irrational, especially to the point of violence. Recently I met an Indo-Caribbean woman who told me her stories as a battered woman. She was very emotional, as women are thought to be, but in this situation its understood.

After raising children while being married to an abusive partner for twenty years, she decided to end the relationship. Her grown children now live with their father in what used to be her "own" home.

Not suprisingly, she told me that her husband didn't allow her to become the joint owner of their home, so she was compelled to give up her children and home, with her divorce. Additionally, he never allowed her to apply for U.S. citizenship - so she was effectively isolated from family support have been denied the privilege of sponsoring her family. She now faces a climate hostile to immigrants, both "legal" and undocumented.

Recently, she lamented the fact that this past mother's day, her children didn't call on her as they used to, and that she rarely saw them anymore. Her daughter, venting her own guilt, called a few days later and asked, "why didn't you visit us, why couldn't you come to the house and visit the family?"

Despite feeling defeated, my friend asserted that she took enough abuse for twenty years! She couldn't imagine voluntarily choosing to visit her family with him there! He was still capable of inflicting the very violence against her that got him locked down in the first place. Eventually, she decided to have the police intervene and, as a result, her batterer was incacerated for a number of years.

Was this the distinctive case of good father/bad husband? I think not. Although a woman herself, her daughter's response is a betrayal. Perhaps biased in her father's favor whom she sees everyday and whose house she now lives in, she conveniently overlooks her mother's contributions and suffering. The twenty years she spent raising her children in the midst of being tortured... denied everything. At times, for her very survival, the battered woman is ultimately compelled to fight against her oppressors.

Internalizing her battered mother's experience, her daughter saught to make her feel guilty for leaving her husband, her home, her children and, let us not forget, the family! It's interesting to see how girls and women have been socialized to accept violence as part and parcel of their lives in saving the family and keeping it together; divorced women are stigmatized.

This is not simply a problem of the first generation immigrant woman, but of the whole society. Although men are part of the problem, women, daughters and sons are socialized to think and act in ways that support mysogeny (extreme distrust and hatred of women) to the point of violence. The experience of domestic violence is far more despicable than it may at first appear.

I thought that in a subtle, way my friend's daughter, who constructed her identity around notions of "the family," continued to exploit her mother. Forced ideologies of the family, patriarchy and heterosexist ways of thinking continue to create confusion and chaos in human relationships.

Fortunately for my friend, she didn't face the added hurdles of language (she spoke English) and lack of credentials (she has some educational degree). These advantages enabled her to get steady work, plus benefits.

At times she seems pained and tired of the mental guilt she's made to feel. However, I think she has chosen to struggle and resist for herself and supporters - countless other women like herself.

End Domestic Violence Now