Synopsis: Diversity has raised discrimination and crimes against women, especially immigrants or those internally displaced. Stereotypically women are considered carriers of traditions, and thus responsible for what’s going wrong with diversity.
Globalization meant celebrating diversity - the awareness of other races, cultures and religions uniting people across borders.
But diversity’s also raised discrimination and crimes against women, especially immigrants or those internally displaced.
Traditions
Traditions rule the lives of women over centuries and despite sparks of modernity, continue to define their psyche. These tend to devalue their freedom of choice, leaving many still pawns in power games.
Migrant communities have strict socializing rules for daughters, sisters and wives, distinct from the norms of the adopted country. The customs and practices followed may have become irrelevant even in their country of origin.
Still, rule enforcement is swift, sometimes shocking – harassment and violence, including honour killings, follow transgressing archaic patriarchal boundaries, even in the liberal West.
Terror recruits
Elsewhere, terrorist movements have begun using female ‘live bombs’. Black widow recruits gained publicity as having neither political nor religious agenda, but motivated by revenge for husbands, brothers, fathers or sons lost in the cause.
The women’s personal distress is deliberately used to attract sympathetic media coverage and as a recruitment instrument. Many are coerced – drugged, enslaved, raped, blackmailed and brainwashed, to choose this ‘shahidka’ path to suicide.
Weapons of war
In conflicts between nations or ethnic groups, rape, forced pregnancies, displacement and mass murder are now weapons of war. The women, who survive, suffer long-term physical and mental illness, social stigmata and economic hardship.
About 80 percent of refugees are women and children, defenceless by circumstances. Soldiers, militiamen and rebels all target women to terrorize civilians and decimate populations. The predatory assaults occur even during periods of calm by men emboldened by their plight.
Quick fix?
Stereotypically women are considered carriers of traditions, and thus at the centre of what’s going wrong with diversity.
For example, many westerners believe that immigrants don’t fit on because the women cling to traditional wear – sari, hijab, etc. - only to draw attention to, and to preserve cultural differences.
The assumption is that if the feminine gender would just change their attitude and attire, they could blend into society and all would be well.
Invisible
But there’s no ‘quick fix’ for discriminations against women within and between groups.
In attempting to integrate into the culture of adopted countries, immigrant women live with simmering undercurrents. They’re perceived as abandoning their own cultures within the community. Outside, they’re prey for the majority groups.
Whether immigrant or displaced, women themselves hesitate to report atrocities fearing retaliation from the perpetrators. Besides, even if they do, authorities are unwilling or unable to protect them. The silence means the female issue simply falls off the radar.
Women are thus the invisible group, often hostages at home and abroad. Cutting across race, community, age and religion, they battle just to be in control of their own lives.
Cont’d 2… learning from experience
2 comments:
Hello. Am back on the internet, this time from Bangalore - our Staff Training College. Looking forward to curling up with a good read like this one
I feel women have a tremendous amount of strength, and have always been able to manage because of that.
Self Help Groups in India have often successfully empowered women in situations where one would never have expected them to. The way these women change into confident, independant but still well-adjusted members of their society is amazing. The credit must go to the NGOs who put so much effort into the necessary spadework, then the handholding.
These SHGs show what women can do if empowered. As a Banker I have always been in support of them. I look forward to this movement flourishing, if possible all over the world, in whatever forms are appropriate in the local contexts
-- Sunil Aruldas
Indeed NGOs do a great job at the grassroots. But women still need to find their identity, and develop the self-confidence to make change.
Their terrible experiences with violence tend to raise defeatist attitudes. So they don't even make the effort to improve their lives, like say, joining self help groups to find some answers. This believing they’re somehow ‘lesser than’ isn't easy to overcome.
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