Chapter 6 Interpreting Refugee Women’s Life Stories
6.4 Presentation and Discussion of Findings: Seeking to Understand Michelle’s and Aliyah’s Stories
6.4.3 Family Dynamics: Knowing Your Place
By and large, women are constructed as caregivers (Morrell and Richter 2006). Aliyah’s and Michelle’s husbands, too, understood child-rearing as a woman’s responsibility. In addition, Romi Sigsworth, Collet Ngwane and Angelica Pino (2008) point out that the power imbalances inherent in most male-female relationships are increased in situations where women’s vulnerabilities are heightened by external conditions – in this case, as foreign females in an unfamiliar country. Both men deserted their wives intermittently, but even when at home, they were often unavailable, either on account of drinking (Michelle’s husband) or smoking marijuana (Aliyah’s husband). Added to this were dimensions of abuse, i.e. verbal abuse coupled with plain disregard in Michelle’s case, and physical abuse together with financial neglect in Aliyah’s. As a result, motherhood was difficult, even traumatic for both Michelle and Aliyah. For example, Michelle recounts the night when her youngest son died:
In the night ... the baby cried. And in the morning he passed away ... I ... went with the baby to the hospital ... That night [my husband] was drunk ... The baby was crying, and [his father]
was sleeping (Recorded Interview, 12.12.08).
This experience resonates with Robert Morrell and Linda Richter’s (2006) observation that in many African households, some fathers may be physically present, but in essence, they are absent. For Michelle, Thomás’ attitude meant that the responsibilities not just for care giving,
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but also for bread winning were placed squarely on his wife’s shoulders – under already trying circumstances, as observed by the following:
Michelle cannot provide food and shelter for the entire family alone while [Thomás] sits at home and drinks (Diary Record, 30.01.09).
Carrying dual responsibilities is particularly hard for women at the bottom rung of the economic ladder (Chant and Pedwell 2008). In the following example, Michelle took a day off from her job as a cleaner to take her surviving son to hospital when he was ill with asthma.
She is not going to lose another child ... [But her employer] feels that too often, she is absent from work: If ... everybody always [had] reasons not to show up for work, he might as well close down the business (Diary Record, 18.10.08).
Aliyah, too, was left by an abusive and neglectful husband to fend for herself and her son:
He hit me ... every time. Then I said, ‘No, I suffered enough’ ... He left me with the child, but he said, ‘I’m not going to give you even one cent. You’re gonna know how to take care of him from right now.’ I said, ‘Okay, from the beginning I took care of him. I’m still gonna take care of him!’ (Recorded Interview, 02.12.08).
Sigsworth et al. (2008) point out that migrant women often start having their own money for the first time, in their land of refuge, which results in some of them beginning to exercise their rights – something their husbands may find threatening – increasing the risk of domestic violence and/or leading to separation. Although financial and other household responsibilities rest with women, the failure to fulfil socially and economically constructed masculine ideals may, for these men, result in a crisis of identity linked to threatened patriarchal privilege (Reid and Walker 2005). Furthermore, a fear of being left may well point to an additional sense of having their masculine image undermined, hence prompting harsh - even criminal - responses on the part of the men concerned. Aliyah’s husband returned at the point where she seemed to make a financial break for herself and her child. ‘You know,’ Aliyah said, ‘the men, they are jealous.’ He attacked her the day she requested a divorce, stabbing her over 20 times, in front of three-year-old Muadh.
Having survived by a thread, Aliya tried to ensure her safety by applying for a Protection Order in terms of the Domestic Violence Act, 116 of 1998. Unfortunately, her experience resonates with those of many women who are disappointed at the lack of effective response from the police. Aliyah explained:
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Every time he comes, I call the police, but they don’t come. So I call one of my neighbours (Recorded Interview, 02.12.08).
Michelle, although she had experienced frequent abuse and disdain from Thomás, proved reluctant and unable to leave her marriage. In this regard, Boonzaaier (2003) suggests that an exploration of why women stay in relationships should involve an interaction between the meanings women attach to their experiences, the social and cultural context, women’s social networks, and the practical realities of their lives. Thus, Kopano Ratele (2003) reminds us that to be enabled to leave abusive situations, individuals need other people, in fact alternative identities in relation to which they can be understood. More specifically, Sally Engle Merry (2009) contends that migrant women who leave their abusers risk the condemnation of their communities on whom they, as discussed above, depend for survival.
In other words, Michelle remained in a marital arrangement that was harmful to her on account of combined structural, cultural, and situational factors that need to be considered in all their complexity if support from social workers were to be meaningful. While Aliyah did try to divorce, her vivid description of her husband’s assault on her coheres with findings from Reshma Sathiparsad’s (2005) research with South African men who rationalized that women needed to be punished if found to be rejecting of them. Aliyah’s narrative thus demonstrates the interconnectedness of power and the cultural constructions of maleness, including the chastisement of a wife who does not know her place (Bassadien and Hochfeld 2005) and hostility to women’s independence (Bennett, Maharaj and Ncanywa 2008). Frustrated by his inability to control Aliyah’s actions, her husband may have resorted to the power of violence to assert his masculine identity.
So not just during flight, but also after arrival in their land of refuge, Michelle and Aliyah were both denied Bodily Integrity (Nussbaum 2000:79). And certainly, neither were they provided with the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation (Nussbaum 2000:80). By the time we met, Play (Nussbaum 2000:80) interestingly placed amongst the ten central capabilities - seemed beyond imagination altogether.
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