Women: Learning from experience

Synopsis: Creating a social life space is often overwhelming, since they’re often surrounded by violence. Fact is diversity can’t be dealt with in ten easy steps.


The struggle for women is to form and establish independent identities.

The crossroads

They stand at the crossroads, pulled physically and spiritually one way, politically and intellectually in another. Traditions generate conflicts over cultural and material issues.

In this crisis, women are often neither here nor there – suspended, as it were, between opposing goals. Creating a social life space is overwhelming, since they’re often surrounded by violence.




Immigrant and displaced

Fact is diversity can’t be dealt with in ten easy steps. Women face a multiplicity of struggles between social/familial patriarchy, and institutionalized racism.

Environmental uncertainty and social instability makes it harder to overcome impositions. While women in India may be on the march to confront traditional discriminations, their sisters, whether displaced in Asia and Africa, or migrant to Western lands of plenty, appear to be falling behind.

Justice fails

Governmental policies may be contributing to racial, religious and ethnic divisions between demographic groups even in the liberal West.

Measures are in place to control overt actions against race relations and equality. But there’s nothing to correct people’s opinions, beliefs and implicitly biased theories rooted in bygone times (that actually guide their actions).

Authorities hesitate to interfere in the ‘personal matters’ of immigrant families. All too often, the system fails to uphold the values of justice and equality. Instead they mirror the prejudices of the society they serve.

Seeking continuity

This emboldens perpetrators. As far as the women attempting to break out of the hostage situations are concerned, they’re entirely on their own.

Immigrants may have better education and significant economic mobility, but they’re just as marginalized in society as those displaced. In the new global age, women may still feel they’ve nowhere to go.

The search for identity for many comes full circle to the past. For example, the post 9/11 Islamophobia has led young Muslims to new identity assertion seeking continuity with culture and heritage. This sometimes becomes a misplaced solidarity - with groups that kill in the name of religion.

Find voice

Is the religion to blame? That the fault actually lies in the poor integration of diversity generally escapes notice. Many adopt religiosity for survival - to blend within the ethnic community, to not draw attention, or retribution to themselves, from one side at least.

Some survivors of oppression, on the other hand, realize they’ve nothing more to lose but the chains of bigotry. Having lost home, family and country, they find the voice to break the moulds that suffocate women.

They learn to speak out, to assert individuality beyond heritage and culture, to tell their story to awaken humanity to the failings of diversity. These women reach across divides to share their learning from experience. Their sphere of influence includes women of different origins united by suffering. Their fearless independence brings hope to other women, inspires change.

Comments/opinions, anyone??