Women's Work With Women:
The South Asian Context
Women's Work With Women:
The South Asian Context
By: Vijay Agnew
From: Polyphony Vol.12, 1990 pp. 64-71
© 1991 Multicultural History Society of Ontario
From: Polyphony Vol.12, 1990 pp. 64-71
© 1991 Multicultural History Society of Ontario
This essay provides a platform for the voices of South Asian
women who have been required to take on responsibilities for both
cultural maintenance and cultural change in a demanding new
environment. It emphasizes the significance of ethnicity in
addition to race, class, and gender issues that South Asian women
share more widely with women in the host society.
This paper presents a selection of the voices of South Asian women
involved in the inevitable process of cultural and social
adaptation that accompanies immigration to a new country. In the
following interviews South Asian women in Toronto discuss their
experiences with the family, ethnic community, and women's
organizations-experiences that influence their view of their
ethnic and gender identity and guide their social and political
activities. Although the economic and social environment was more
influential than the ethnic sexual roles they had inherited,
prevailing images and concepts of gender roles for South Asian
women complicated their sense of themselves as women and as South
Asians. None of the women interviewed accepted traditional gender
roles in their entirety, either because of the exigencies of
surviving as an immigrant or because they did not believe in them.
Some of the women were struggling, individually or with other
women, to construct their own models of ethnic identity and gender
roles for South Asian women.
The interviews were conducted with community workers associated
with immigrant women's centres and active members of South Asian
women's organizations. South Asian community workers were
interviewed because they have intimate experience of the
difficulties encountered by South Asian women. They have
experienced social and cultural alienation and sometimes
discrimination based on sex and race.
Immigrant women's centres are intended to facilitate adaptation
and settlement; they usually provide language instruction and
training programs for immigrant women. However, these centres also
serve social and recreational needs and indirectly nurture a
political and feminist consciousness. Many of the counsellors were
themselves clients when they first contacted a women's
organization or centre. Their personal experience and professional
expertise combine to give them insight. Their work intensifies
their political consciousness and motivates them to challenge
mainstream institutions and feminist organizations to meet the
needs of immigrant women.
In Canada, South Asian women who attempt to help women from their
own ethnic group can do so either through volunteer activity or
paid work. In their countries of origin the immigrant women were
generally middle-class, but in Canada their jobs placed many in
the working class, so that the counsellors are usually
middle-class and their clients are primarily working-class. The
context of work with women in Canada is also different from that
in India. In Canada, counselling is funded by governmental
agencies that impose some restraints and limitations. And in
Canada women's work with women generates a political consciousness
of the oppression based on race and sex, as the following
interviews show.
Conventional wisdom regards immigrants as uprooted individuals who
must adopt the ways of a new land or at least compromise between
old and new world values. This view is being challenged by
scholars who argue that immigrants remain attached to the
emotional and social nexus of their homelands, and that life in
the New World is primarily conditioned by the obligations and
requirements of their family and the old society. Women immigrants
are faced with more difficulties and contradictions than men.
Theoretically, immigration to Canada creates the possibility of
exercising choices, asserting individual rights, and becoming
autonomous, independent women. But immigrant women who are
socialized within family and kinship networks are influenced by
the psychological and moral needs established in those networks.
Their new power of choice is exercised in a society where race,
class, and gender affect them in new ways and require new
evaluations of themselves and their new society.
Carol Gilligan, a feminist psychologist, has questioned the
concept of an autonomous, independent woman disconnected from
others. She notes that a woman's sense of self is developed by
making and maintaining relationships and affiliations with others.
A woman's moral development is complete only when she recognizes
herself as a responsible agent, a recipient of care, and an
individual with some rights. Consequently women need to maintain a
"web of relationships."
Immigration breaks the old web of relationships and requires that
immigrant women establish a new network to support the exercise of
care and responsibility. The old values may conflict with the
assertion of individual rights, which the immigrant group as a
whole may consider selfish, and a threat to traditional norms and
social and family relationships. These women may be seen as
"unliberated." In the new society, on the other hand, women
immigrants must therefore find a balance between conflicting
needs, demands, and perceptions. They must maintain the existing
relationships within the family and at the same time establish new
friendships with others with whom they share common interests of
race, class, or sex. These relationships must be formed in an
alien and sometimes hostile environment.
Ethnic identity is influenced by a number of factors, such as the
political environment, the experience of finding work, family
adaptation, and gender role. South Asian women acquire their
ethnic identity in an environment replete with images of the
"traditional," "unskilled" woman oppressed by her old culture.
Interviews with South Asian women, however, cast doubt on such
popular and mistaken stereotypes. They suggest that ethnic
identity and gender roles for South Asian women do not exist in
some fixed and unchanging cultural codes but are constructed and
reconstructed in the context of work, family, and social
relationships.
The political environment in Canada is favourable to South Asian
women, and their needs and difficulties are a matter of public
discussion and policy. South Asian women have sometimes benefited
from government policies and programs intended to address the
special needs of women in general, for example, the Family Law
Reform Act. However, their class and race have sometimes excluded
them from resources and services like women's shelters or
daycare.
The experience of paid work, or the possibility of access to some
independent economic resources, however marginal, creates a
measure of self-esteem and the possibility of exercising choices.
However, when searching for a job and dealing with social welfare
agencies, South Asian women may encounter racial and sexual
discrimination, which, whether real or only imagined, makes it
more difficult for them to struggle against sexism in the
family.
The need to establish a network of relationships serving a variety
of economic, political, and social needs is an important
motivating force in South Asian women's relations with other
women. Women come together through activities initiated by women's
centres, as volunteers in women's organizations, or in the course
of their professional activities as community workers, social
workers, or counsellors in women's centres. In interviews these
community workers report that because they have the same ethnic
origin as their clients they have a special insight into the
women's problems.
In Canada, South Asian women may form political alliances with
white Canadian women on the basis of sex, or they can affiliate
with women of their own class or race in ethnic women's
organizations. They may address problems within the family or work
through women's centres or organizations that serve the special
needs of immigrant women. South Asian women participate only
marginally in mainstream feminist organizations; they are more
active in South Asian women's organizations or organizations of
women with cultural origins in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the
Caribbean.
The women who were interviewed are of different ages; one of them
is in her late twenties, one is in her fifties and one is sixty.
They have all lived in Canada for several years, and the younger
women were educated at Canadian universities. The interviews were
conducted in the summer of 1989 and form part of an ongoing
research project. The interviews were taped and a questionnaire
was used to facilitate the discussion, but the women were
encouraged to discuss the issues that were of the greatest
interest to them. All trace their political commitment and
activism to personal experiences, especially of sexual and racial
biases, which they see as significant influences in women's lives
in Canada.
In an interview at the Immigrant Women's Job Placement Centre, a
South Asian woman who works there as a counsellor described the
hopes women have when they first arrive in Canada: "Immigrant
women choose to come to Canada and when they come here they have a
dream. They know they have a bright future." But they have left
"their country, their relatives, and their roots" and "they must
start a new life all by themselves." They are "faced with a new
language, new society, new culture, and they are faced with family
problems, financial problems, and language problems." Usually
people want to come into an existing network, "either a community
network, or a support group."
When she first came to Canada, she said, she wanted economic
independence-a job. "I wanted something regular, some money,
that's really what I was looking for, coming to this country." The
Immigrant Women's Job Placement Centre helped her find work;
before becoming a counsellor she was a housekeeper and companion.
"After that I did some babysitting and gave private Yoga classes."
But sending resumes and trying very hard had disappointing results
until she was hired by the centre-"and this is only a part-time
position."
"At least this gives me security. Some self-respect and some
confidence that I can do something. No matter how old you are,
when it comes to paying the rent, put[ting] the food on
the table and when you need some money, you have to work and that
is the reality."
South Asian women want to achieve success in the new country.
However, they "cannot be open. South Asian women are forced to
give up their own tradition. They have to cut their hair in order
to absorb themselves in the Canadian society. They have to change
their dress, especially the woman who wears saris. She comes to
me, then I have to tell her as a counsellor, you don't put the red
dot on, you can't wear a sari and go to work."
South Asian women experience culture conflict, isolation, and
confusion about their sense of themselves. Their anxiety makes
them limit their expression of ethnic identity to home and family,
and "they are really living in two distinct societies. It's not
the same person that you see out there that you see at home. And
yet we don't know what is happening back home in terms of the
culture so we come out really cultureless. On the one hand, we
want to preserve our own culture, our own identity. On the other
hand, peer pressure in society will also come into this. We don't
know which direction to take and what's the best solution."
Even in the home, conflicts can arise from the clash between the
new Canadian society and the social environment of their homeland.
Choices which are made to resolve this clash depend upon the
availability of support systems and social networks, not cultural
and social inhibitions. "The father may want to arrange a marriage
for a young girl, and the girl says, 'That's it. I'm leaving home.
Good-bye.'
Then there is no support system. All these people that have
encouraged her, all her peers and her friends, Canadians or others
in society-they have said to her, 'Okay we'll take you to a
shelter,' but that was it. There was no support that she had out
there. No financial support-nothing. The parents had to go through
a lot of things as well, to see what did we do wrong, why did our
daughter leave home?"
Another interview was conducted with a volunteer worker in the
immigrant women's community. She has taught English "As a Second
Language" (ESL) to immigrant women and is now teaching adult
literacy as a volunteer. She was born in India and has lived in
Canada since she was a young child. She has a BA from the
University of Toronto. In the interview she discussed her work
experience and addressed the issue of cultural conflict and
identity.
She saw the cultural split as the dominant problem. "I remember at
the Indian Student Association at the University of Toronto being
told off. They said, 'You can say anything you want about India,
as long as you're not critical.' The people who were in the Indian
Student Association came from many parts of India. The one thing
they had in common was an Indian heritage. Some of them had been
brought up here, some of them had been born here, but the colour
identity and heritage are India.... They seem to cling to that
fact.... They tended to mirror in many senses the sexism that
exists in India. We're Indians, but we are Indian Canadians.
Basically you have to involve yourself in the issues of this
country. So that was a bit of a problem for me, adjusting or
feeling a sense of comfort or feeling like this is my place."
She articulates a consciousness of herself as a South Asian woman
and questions the labelling imposed upon on her by the larger
society. "It's not that I feel I am not Indian enough. It's more
than this. It is part of me, like it or not. This is how I am
identified by the dominant culture. My skin is brown, they call it
many names ... but the thing is, they try to label me outside of
Canadian. You try to form contacts with people in the same boat
and that means minorities and people of colour, because other
races are treated very differently."
"The curious thing is, I've come to recognize now that I don't
really know what being Indian is. I've often been told I am not
representative of the South Asian community. What does that mean?
Does it mean, to be representative I have to dress in a certain
way, I have to express my views politically in a certain
way...."
"You are what you are perceived to be. The first image of a South
Asian woman is skin colour. But then there is a whole range of
associations we have with that. This woman is traditional. She
bows down and does penance to her community and to her
husband."
This woman stresses the importance of networks, not only for
psychological and emotional support, but for survival and
mobility. She displays a well-developed political consciousness of
the inter-connectedness of race and gender. Being a woman, she
said, especially a South Asian woman, makes it difficult to
participate in political groups, but she is active in some
organizations. "Whether you are a Canadian or not, whether or not
you were born or brought up here, as women we are socialized not
to be assertive. So to get up in a union hall or to speak publicly
requires a certain amount of strength.... The skills required to
exercise control in public are different.... But that comes
through struggle, and I think it is not just South Asian women,
but women generally [who] lack confidence that comes with
having participated. What role does [a South Asian woman]
have... ? What job you have determines the range of services
available to you and the amount of power you feel you have in
affecting change. You win some and lose some. But the idea is to
continue. That is empowering."
"I've taken part in pro-choice demonstrations. I've participated
in International Women's Day Coalition meetings. I represented an
organization. But I guess there are differences in how pro-choice
affects immigrant communities. We want choice, but we also want
the choice to be able to have children, to be able to bring them
up in a certain level of comfort. We may exercise the choice of
abortion under very restricted circumstances. The real issue for
us is determined by our economic situation. In the coalition, when
it came up it was difficult. When it came to dealing with
prostitution in the Philippines, it was condemned. It's another
example of imperialism, of sex trade, abusive exploitation of
women. But when it comes to the Canadian context, it is free women
exercising their choice. It seems racist.... Liberal North
American women will defend the rights of Filipino women or Latin
American women, but women in Canada, they don't quite see them in
the same light. They see them as free in exercising their choice.
I don't buy that logic."
But despite her misgivings about racism within the feminist
movement, she was hopeful about the future. "Like it or not, this
is my country. This is where I am living and have been living for
many years. I see myself participating in ongoing struggles.
Whether I choose to ally myself with a particular discussion or
issue doesn't mean it does not affect me. The idea is to bring to
the floor my perspective [on] how these issues affect my
community or affect me. We have a particular perspective to offer
them as South Asian women. I realize that there are many
differences that have to be fought out. We have many bridges to
form with the Canadian women, white women, in a common struggle.
We can come together."
The last interview was with a South Asian woman, married and with
two adult children, who is active in the South Asian community and
in her labour union. She is a founding member of the South Asian
Women's Group. She discussed the formation of the group and its
relationship to the mainstream women's movement.
She and her daughter knew that many Indian women were subject to
family violence, and they began to work on the problem in 1977.
Her daughter telephoned women she knew at the university and asked
them to come to a meeting. "In the beginning she called ten or
twelve women from all communities, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, and also from Africa. We were trying to get ideas how to
form a support group for South Asian women. It was merely a
support group, a cultural group of women who either needed help or
wanted to help single women, divorced women, or women who were
isolated in their homes. We thought that a lot of married women
would also come, but we really didn't attract married women as
such. We found that men in the South Asian community became very
insecure when only women were invited somewhere."
The formation of the group revealed how consciousness of sexual
oppression could be created in a supportive environment. By
establishing a group the organizers enabled the women to break
their isolation, gave them information about sources of
assistance, and established a valuable network for women that
could engender a political consciousness of racial and sexual
oppression. The women called themselves the South Asian Women's
Group, preferring that to "an association or some other very
snazzy name. We started to become known around 1979. From '77 to
'79, we would collect together maybe three times in the year,
hoping it was going to spread and people were going to be
attracted to it. It took some time to really snowball. There were
times when we were blamed for breaking up homes. We were moving
very cautiously because we knew how orthodox our own communities
are, our families are. There was not much militancy, or any kind
of high political game playing. It was mainly a support group,
cultural group, where we just made potluck dinners, talked about
things, showed movies. We then discussed the movies and other
women's issues in a critical way, to sort of somehow make them
[women] feel what is right and what is wrong. There was no
hard line laid down, you decide for yourself what is right and
wrong."
"We started to get funding in 1981-82. A lot of South Asian women
used to go to the Working Women's Centre for Spanish-and
Portuguese-speaking people on Bloor and Dufferin. They told us
that a lot of South Asian women came to them, so some of us
started. That was me, mainly. I started sitting there. They gave
us a little table."
She said that South Asian women's problems required different
approaches than other groups. Immigration removes the protection
of the cultural norms of their home communities, leaving them more
vulnerable to male oppression within the family. Other immigrant
women might be more willing to go "to an outside agency for help,
to which our women are not used. Our women are used to other women
helping them within the extended family or within the community.
If the husband beats them up, there is always the mother-in-law or
sister-in-law or someone who the husband respects that might come
and give him a talk. So the husbands have this built-in
inhibition, or they might get a bad name or the family gets a bad
name. So there are all these circumstances by which women are
protected. This is totally taken away in a society such as this
where everyone is on his own, where even husbands and wives are at
war with each other. Practically, a woman who doesn't work is
totally at the mercy of her husband and the society."
"The most common problem faced by women who come to the South
Asian Women's Centre is social isolation," she observed. "They
have grown up, gotten used to certain things in their own
societies, they find totally gone in this society. So they are
looking for that, they are trying to discuss what their feelings
are. They are looking for friends. There are many reasons for
which they may seek a group such as ours: there are single women
who are having a really bad time, family violence or who are
trying to find a job."
She noted the cultural and social alienation experienced by South
Asian women in shelters for women. She contrasted the work of her
group in the South Asian community to that of mainstream
feminists. "The mainstream Canadian women are really performing a
miracle working with the family violence area. We haven't been
able to do as much because of lack of funds, lack of volunteers,
lack of space. The mainstream women's movement is doing their
best. But when South Asian women come into the shelters, they
don't have the resources to help them. Sometimes they call on me,
they call on my daughter, they call on many other South Asian
women to come and translate for them or to break the
[battered] women's social isolation. We had an instance in
which the woman was totally devoid of any knowledge of English and
local food habits and all the other things that go with it. The
counsellors at the shelter were having problems with her relating
to other women there and she was having problems. In the end the
woman went back to her husband who was beating her."
The South Asian Women's Group is trying to fill the gap. "In the
beginning we were very critical of the mainstream women's
movement, and I think they took it very well. They were pained
because they had no idea that their movement was not our movement.
So it was our duty to tell them that these are the immigrant
women's issues or coloured women's issues. They realized that
perhaps they had overlooked these things. But it's very difficult
to get rid of all the conditioning in which white women would
always think that they are the leaders and we should be the
followers."
In her view the South Asian Women's Group has not begun to address
the issues of the feminist movement. "The level of consciousness
of women is so varied, they are from different economic groups,
provincial groups. We get all sorts of women, so we are still
building grounds. A handful of us are involved in the mainstream
women's movement, but our attitude has always been not to push
other women into something they don't understand."
The South Asian Women's Group tries to create confidence among the
women and help them overcome feelings of dependence and
vulnerability. But the struggle to establish a positive sense of
themselves as women and South Asians remains difficult. "Remember
we are dealing with women who find it difficult to come to our
group even for potluck dinner. We are wary that even the word
'feminism' may inhibit these women [from coming]. We are
trying to get them attracted to our centre so that at least they
expose themselves a little to what other women are thinking. Let
them hear that in this society there are laws against men being
abusive to women or there are ways in which women can stand on
their own two feet, be economically independent. They don't have
to stay dependent on their husbands. This is why we want to keep
our group away from all the jargon about feminism. We try to sort
of incorporate it in a way that is easily understandable to them.
We tell them we want women to be happy and to have good
families."
However, this is sometimes a difficult and frustrating task. "How
to get these women to be independent? How to help them have more
self-esteem? How to get them to be happier? To take away some of
the earlier conditioning. This is something that has been a source
of tremendous frustration.
"I have a very strong Indian identity. I'll always fight; fighting
is in my blood. There are lots of traditional things that I am
proud of from my country; there are many things that I want to
shake off. I totally disagree with the way we treat our women, the
lower class, but that doesn't mean that everything Indian is bad.
There are lots of things in Indian culture, the way we treat other
people, our elders, that could be adopted by the West and they
could benefit from it."
The interviews reveal women's struggles to define themselves in
ways that do not reject their culture or accept society's
definitions of "traditional" women. Rather, South Asian women are
attempting to construct new models of ethnic and gender identity.
However, their politics are tempered by the need to maintain a
"web of relationships" within their ethnic community and in
women's organizations.
