Domestic violence is just one amongst many forms of violence against women. Throughout their lifetime, female infants, children, adolescents, adults and elders experience a series of abusive, horrible or tragic events that can range from child prostitution to withholding healthcare and medication for elders. Domestic violence is as much about physical, sexual, economic and emotional abuse as it is about living in a climate of fear, misery, loss, humiliation and despair. These abuses are experienced in the context of additional discrimination based on race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, type of labor performed, level of education and/or English proficiency, class position, disability, or immigration/refugee status. The lives of abused Asian women are further shadowed by cultural burdens of shame and victim-blaming.
Domestic violence occurs in all Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Our abusers come from all walks of life: be they taxi-drivers or neurosurgeons, be they Buddhists, Christians, or Muslims; be they teenagers or elders; be they heterosexual or lesbian/gay/bisexual /transgender; be they new or fifth generation immigrants. The extent of the problem is hard to determine because most statistics are based only on those cases that happen to get reported. Often these statistics do not include specific data about Asian populations.
There is research that indicates that domestic violence is common in our communities. In a Chicago study1, 60% of Asian women reported experiencing physical abuse and 36.7% experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner sometime in their lives. Narika, a Bay Area helpline for South Asians receives over 1,000 telephone requests per year from victims, their friends/families and service agencies2. Asian Women's Shelter in San Francisco turns away 75% of the battered women seeking shelter because of lack of space3. Thirty-one percent of women killed in domestic violence-related deaths from 1993-1997 in Santa Clara County were Asian4, although Asians comprised only 17.5% of the county’s population.
What are the root causes of domestic violence? We need firmly to debunk the usual 'stress theory' -- that men batter women because they are having or have had a hard time. Women have the same life experiences and stresses: they come from violent homes, grow up in colonized countries, come as refugees or immigrants, have childhood histories of abuse, get cut off on the freeway, get high or drunk, get fired from their jobs, live in poverty, etc. And yet, women are not resorting to domestic violence. Neither are non-abusive men subjected to the same stressors. Finally, men who do not have these difficulties, batter.
"Culture" is also used by our communities to explain and justify domestic violence, revealing traditional, frozen ideas of culture. Cultural explanations then sound something like this: "people in my [Asian] culture behave like this, or believe women should be treated this way, so it’s all right for me to do so". Firstly, culture is reduced to a static monolith, even though dynamic forces re-shape it constantly. Secondly, these claims are supposedly defending the culture of the home country. What is in fact being defended is not racial/ethnic culture but instead the culture of patriarchy.
Violence against women is rooted in patriarchy. It is reinforced by cultural beliefs and norms based on the devaluation of women, and the exercise of power and control over them. It is legitimized, obscured, or denied by familial and social institutions.
Activists often use anti-oppression frameworks, human rights approaches and other ways to strive for gender equity. Most often, when we use such analyses, we are accused of being 'anti-men' instead of being supported for our anti-violence work. Despite these obstacles, in the past 10-15 years, API advocates have been developing services specifically for Asian battered women - there are now over 65 agencies and programs in the continental U.S. We are also deeply committed to creating social change that strengthens Asian families and communities.
Confronting domestic violence engages us in questions about women's safety, the lack of accountability towards men who batter, childhood and adolescent trauma, and community complacency. To resist domestic violence means activism on several fronts: reaching out to battered women and providing them services; changing the behaviors and belief systems of abusers; advocating for systems change; and organizing our communities to replace oppressive practices with empowering ones. It means taking what we learn from the stories, strengths and courage of battered women to transform cultures. Not only Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, but also cultures of violence.
[1] Song-Kim YI. Battered Korean Women in Urban United States. In: Furuto SM, Renuka B, Chung DK, Murase K, Ross-Sheriff F, eds. Social Work Practice with Asian Americans: Sage Sourcebooks for the Human Services Series. Vol. 20. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. 1992; 213-226.
[2] Narika. Changing Voices. Newsletter, 2001; 1(1). Available at: www.narika.org.
[3] Campbell DW, Masaki B, Torress S. Water on rock: Changing domestic violence perceptions in the African American, Asian American and Latino communities. In: Klein E, Campbell J, Soler E, Ghez M, eds. Ending Domestic Violence: Changing Public Perceptions/Halting the Epidemic. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 1997; 64-87.
[4] Santa Clara County Death Review Sub-Committee of the Domestic Violence Council, Death Review Committee Final Report. San Jose: Author; 1997.
