Listen to Me! Children's experiences of domestic violence

This paper reports on a study undertaken in the Republic of Ireland during 2005 and is based on the experiences of children and young people who have lived with domestic violence. The objectives of the study were to explore the impact of domestic violence on children, identify their needs and recommend appropriate interventions to be brokered through a centrally based women's support service. Data were gathered from 70 participants, including 37 service providers/volunteers, 11 mothers and 22 children and young people who had lived in violent environments. The data indicated that children respond in unique ways to living with domestic violence, and that services to meet their needs must be tailored to suit their individual situations. The impact of domestic violence on their lives manifested itself with regard to their sense of fear and anxiety in relation to themselves, their siblings and their mothers; their self‐esteem and sense of being ‘different’, their relationships (including ambivalent relationships with their fathers); their experiences of education and their sense of a lost childhood. The final report for the study was based on the total data collection, but this paper will concentrate primarily on the material elicited from the children and young people. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asking for a Child: The Refashioning of Reproductive Space in Post-War Northern Vietnam

In the mid-1980s, population movement, wartime male mortality, and changing notions of marriageability converged to create a radically different marital terrain than that previously encountered by Vietnamese women. Finding themselves without suitable marriage prospects a small number of single women asked men they would not marry to get them pregnant. This paper focuses on three elements that contributed to this refashioning of reproductive space: the women's post-war experiences that prompted them to ‘ask for a child’, state policies that provided a different dynamic for bearing children out of wedlock, and the manner in which the Women's Union sought to provide social acceptance for women who ‘asked for a child’. As a result of the women's agency and the state's decision to incorporate single mothers into society a new reproductive space was forged in which ideologies of motherhood, family, and reproduction took on new meaning in post-war northern Vietnam.     

Mothers matter: A feminist perspective on child welfare-involved women

ABSTRACT

Mothers involved in child welfare services are often marginalized and misunderstood while the system focuses on protecting their children. These women are mothering within a context of poverty, violence, addictions, and racism, leaving them with minimal resources and supports. Using a feminist perspective, this article seeks to shift the common perception that children must always be regarded as needing to be protected from these mothers. Rather, a richer understanding of these women and more focus on attending to their needs may provide an added measure of safety and security for their children. An appreciation for the relationships central to these women’s experiences can provide child welfare workers with the ability to create strong working alliances and move families toward safe reunification.     

Making Milk and Money: Contemporary Mothers' Orientations to Breastfeeding and Work

In most Western industrial nations, gains have been made in women's educational and occupational opportunities as part of a larger gender revolution. At the same time, contemporary mothering expectations have expanded and intensified, especially the renewed focus on breastfeeding as the “optimal” choice for infant feeding. How do women perceive the simultaneous pursuit of these activities? Prior scholarship has identified tensions in cultural models of breastfeeding as well as in women's subjective experiences, emphasizing how breastfeeding is shaped and encountered through sociocultural context, especially ideologies that position work and mothering as incompatible. Building on this, I examine how the current generation of working mothers view working and breastfeeding. Through in‐depth interviews with 32 U.S. women, I show how women espouse distinctly different orientations to breastfeeding: instrumentalist, quasi‐maternalist, and pragmatist. I argue that these different orientations both reflect and reframe existing cultural models and discourses about contemporary women's relationships to work, mothering, and breastfeeding.     

Balancing caring and paid work in the UK: narrating ‘choices’ as first-time parents

Paid work is generally accepted as an important dimension of hegemonic masculinities and men's identities, which can become heightened when they become fathers. Changes in global economies together with educational shifts and other demographic patterns mean that paid work has become a significant feature of many women's lives too. Increasingly across Europe women who are mothers combine caring, domestic chores, and paid work. Using data from a qualitative longitudinal study on women's experiences of transition to first-time motherhood in the UK, this paper will explore how women narrate and reconcile their decisions either to return to paid work or not to, following the birth of their first child (Miller 2005). These findings are considered alongside a companion study on men's experiences of transition to first-time fatherhood (Miller 2011). The comparison shows that women articulate work and caring decisions in narratives which convey a sense of ‘guilt’, whilst the men are able to talk more freely – and acceptably – about ‘career progression’ and the importance of work to their identity and their new family. Even though recent research points to some changes in men's involvement in caring and women's increased activities in the work-place, particular aspects of these arrangements remain seemingly impervious to change.     

Opting Back In: The Influence of Time at Home on Professional Women's Career Redirection after Opting Out

Limited research on professional women's labour force re‐entry after a career break (so‐called ‘opting out’) finds that women redirect away from former careers. Little is known about why this occurs. Our study, based on in‐depth interviews with 54 at‐home mothers, extends prior research to address this question. We find that among women who intended to return to work (who constitute the majority), most planned to pursue alternative careers, typically in traditionally female‐dominated professions or were uncertain about their career direction; few planned to return to their former employers. The reasons for this redirection were women's negative experiences in family inflexible occupations, skill depreciation and perceived age discrimination. Equally or more important, however, was their adaptation to new constraints and opportunities at home (such as increased involvement in mothering and community work), which engendered an aspirational shift towards new, care‐oriented professions that were lower paid and had lower status. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.     

Participation for children exposed to domestic violence? Social workers' approaches and children's strategies

This article explores social workers' approaches to children exposed to domestic violence and children's strategies in encounters with these professionals in the context of family law proceedings. Investigator approaches as well as child strategies are reconstructed from children's narratives. Furthermore, possible links between the social worker's approach described by a particular child, and the child's own strategies are outlined. Participation can offer children validation of their experiences and support their recovery after exposure to violence. However, it is suggested that it seems to be a challenging task for social workers to both validate children's experiences of violence and simultaneously offer them participation in the investigation process.     

Preparing,Working, Recovering: Gendered Experiences of Night Work among Women and their Families

The negative physiological consequences of night work are well evidenced, but there has been limited research on the gendered consequences of night work for partnered women with children. This paper examines women's experiences of night work by drawing on qualitative interview and audio sleep diary data with 20 UK female nurses working non‐regular rotating shifts, together with interview and diary data from their male partners and children. The analysis shows how the lived experience of women's night work is characterized by three phases, which we discuss within a timescape perspective. Alongside changes to paid work and sleep during the period of night shifts, the ‘preparation’ and ‘recovery’ phases of women's night work involve intense periods of considerable additional unpaid and unrecognized work and anxiety. Gendered expectations for household management and family wellbeing mean that women night workers undertake considerable responsibility for complex planning before night shifts begin, and re‐enter established domestic routines within hours after night shifts end. Women maintain continuity for their families by actively managing the impacts of night work. This enables the fulfilment and ‘display’ of successful and normative gendered patterns of domestic responsibility, which appears to be central to women's own coping with night shifts.     

Domestic Violence in Nusa Tenggara Barat,Indonesia: Married Women's Definitions and Experiences of Violence in the Home

This article contributes to cross-cultural understandings of gender-based violence by examining women's definitions and experiences of domestic violence in Eastern Indonesia. The research was part of a larger study of human rights in maternal and neonatal health and involved a survey that integrated common anthropological practices in its development and delivery. This survey measured the prevalence of emotional and physical abuse, violence during pregnancy, unwanted sex and fear of violence among a sub-sample of 504 married Muslim women. Standard human rights definitions of violence were adapted to create locally appropriate definitions of economic violence, husband infidelity and unwanted sex within marriage. Survey responses indicated that the majority of women believed verbal abuse, threats of harm, economic violence, physical violence, control of women's mobility and a husband's public infidelity to constitute domestic violence. Our exploration of how Indonesian women understand domestic violence reinforces the salience of cultural specificity for different women's definitions of violence, as well as the applicability of internationally recognised definitions of gender-based violence.     

‘It feels right in my heart’: affective accountability in narratives of attachment

This article makes a contribution to discussions around ‘affect’ in the social sciences (Clough and Halley, 2007; Connolly, 1999; Massumi, 2002). It emerges from a research project involving a network of mothers – in London – who breastfeed their children to ‘full term’. Typically, this would be up to the age of three or four, though ranged, in this case, to between one and eight years old. For many women, the most fundamental reasoning in their decision to breastfeed to ‘full term’ is that it simply ‘feels right.’ The article therefore explores anthropological approaches to the ‘feelings’ that embodied experiences generate, as revealed in the accounts and practices of the people we work with (whether at the physiological, emotional or moral levels). It considers various means of describing the feelings experienced by women during of long‐term breastfeeding – such as ‘hormones’, ‘instinct’ and ‘intuition’– but ultimately argues for a theoretical framework of ‘affect’ to incorporate best the combined physiological and moral aspects of ‘doing what feels right in my heart,’ so critical to women's perceptions of themselves as mothers.     

Aboriginal Women's Perceptions and Experiences of a Family Violence Transitional Accommodation Service

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative study of Aboriginal women's perceptions and experiences of a transitional housing program in South Australia that was established to assist long-term homelessness and family violence. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences and service outcomes for Aboriginal women and their children and to identify both facilitators and barriers to the effective operation of the program. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 13 Aboriginal women and thematic analysis was used to report their collective stories. The women's stories showed individualised, flexible, and open-ended support as well as practical outcomes of stable, safe housing for themselves and their children were particularly valued. The women reported that these features of the program augmented feelings of strengthened confidence and self-efficacy. The authors argue the domestic and family violence sector has the opportunity to learn from the perceptions and experiences of Aboriginal women, particularly allowing time and commitment to working long-term with families.     

Combining Dyslexia and Mothering: Perceived Impacts on Work

Previous studies have provided an insight into the lives of disabled mothers, but little attention has been paid to disabled working mothers. This paper draws on interviews with women who had a formal diagnosis of dyslexia, to discuss: particular difficulties when combining work and mothering; the perceived positive impacts on work and education, of becoming a mother; unsupportive managers; what some mothers found helpful in order to maintain work; and the diversity between experiences. We conclude that for those already on a career path before having children, some of their experiences could have been seen as an amplification of what other working mothers face. However, a difference was that the added time taken up with mothering meant they became more vulnerable to ‘exposing’ their impairment at work. In contrast, for dyslexic women who were yet to attain a high status in education and work, motherhood encouraged them to initiate their career.     

Complexity of domestic violence in a South Asian context in Hong Kong: cultural and structural impact

With the dearth of empirical research related to the experiences of domestic violence among South Asian communities in Hong Kong, this study engages with migrant South Asian women’s subjective understanding and experience of domestic violence. Presenting women’s narratives of their experiences with domestic violence allow for a better understanding of the complexities that inform and shape women’s experiences and decision-making in the face of partner violence. This empirical study investigated South Asian women’s experience of domestic violence in the context of Hong Kong through in-depth interviews with 14 South Asian women who had experienced abuse and 6 helping professionals from 4 social service agencies. Analysis of the data revealed that the nature and context of abuse posed as a barrier in their help seeking. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the influence of cultural and structural conditions and the difficulties and complexities women face that increases women’s vulnerability to abuse. This paper offers an analysis of how structures thereby come to impact on women’s distress and vulnerability. The study also highlights the need for inclusive service provision for minority ethnic women experiencing domestic violence.     

Working mothers,injury and embodied care work

In this article, we examine how mothers respond when injury interrupts maternal care, using the lens of embodied care, which we conceptualize as a form of ‘body work’. We draw on findings from a qualitative research project with two organizations in Australia that help people with injuries to return to work, examining the experiences of workers who are also mothers of dependent children. Mothers' inability to care for children during periods of injury was a significant concern for our interviewees; constraints on physical labour and physical affection were particularly troubling, indicating the importance of embodied maternal caregiving to maternal roles. Yet, while these mothers inhabited the spheres of paid work and unpaid care work simultaneously, service providers did not consider embodied care work or its relevance to injured women's ongoing needs for support. While our findings reflect the experiences of injured women, they also suggest the need for a materialist analysis of the ways that both paid work and care activities are deeply enmeshed in and through the bodies of those doing the work. Employers and service organizations still fail to recognize maternal ‘body work’, and this may be typical of social attitudes more widely.     

Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia

Abstract There is heated debate in contemporary Indonesia about the rights and regulation of transnational women migrants, specifically about the ‘costs to families’ of women working overseas, but little attention has been given to women migrants' own views of family or women's own motivations for migration. In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant‐sending community in West Java, I focus on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low‐income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam.     

Mothering,Guilt and Shame

Even as research continues to explore mothering experiences and social psychologists consider the costs of guilt and shame, few empirical works have examined the relationships among mothering, guilt and shame. The idea that guilt and shame are necessary components of mothering is widespread. A few sources take seriously the emotions of guilt and shame nor has considerable thought been given to the social nature of guilt and shame. Rather than accept a purely psychological explanation of guilt and shame, I investigate the institutional and interactional dynamics that fuel women’s drives to perform as ‘the good mother’. In particular, I explore the ‘good mothering’ ideology that places mothers at risk of guilt and shame and then two social and institutional spaces where guilt and shame are likely to be prevalent.     

Broadening the Intersectional Path: Revealing Organizational Practices through ‘Working Mothers’ Narratives about Time

This article is concerned with the complex inequality experienced by mothers in employment, and applies ‘strong intersectionality’ to women's narratives about time to reveal the intersecting inequalities women experience and gendered organizational practices. Drawing on empirical research with 30 Irish ‘working mothers’, this article explores the way time is ordered and managed to create gendered inequalities for women at the intersection of maternity with paid work. By conceptualizing gender, maternity and class as simultaneous processes of identity practice, institutional practice and social practice, following Holvino, women's narratives reveal that organizations manage and order time to fit with notions of ‘ideal workers’, which perpetrate older hierarchies and gendered inequalities, and which create regimes of inequality for women at the intersection of maternity with paid work.     

Sexual Harassment in Small‐Town New Zealand: A Qualitative Study of Three Contrasting Organizations

This research investigates women's experiences of sexual harassment in three different organizations in the same New Zealand town. Women working at the local meat‐processing plant, a retail store and a local bank were interviewed about their personal experiences of sexual harassment. The interviews revealed that sexual harassment took different forms and was interpreted and responded to differently in each organization. Women at the meatworks were often socially isolated from other women and had few effective strategies for combating the verbal and physical harassment collectively perpetrated by male employees. In contrast, women at the store had a range of collective coping strategies which enabled them to regard harassment from fellow‐workers and customers as an irritant rather than a serious threat. Women at the bank also had various collective coping strategies, but were more constrained by customer service norms in the organization. These findings are discussed in relation to three key themes; firstly, the influence of the local environment on organizational life; secondly, the effects of differing organizational structures and cultures on the expression and interpretation of sexual harassment and thirdly, the effectiveness of the various ‘communities of coping’ which women develop to combat sexual harassment in the workplace.     

The mental health problems of mothers experiencing the child protection system: identifying needs and appropriate responses

This article presents the findings of a small pilot study which examined the needs of 13 mothers with severe mental health problems whose children were involved in the child protection system. The use of the diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’ in relation to this group of women is discussed and the finding that all these women had experience of domestic violence is considered in the context of other research findings. The extent to which child protection social workers and mental health professionals worked together on these cases was explored and only limited evidence of good communication and collaboration was found. The need for effective inter‐professional and inter‐agency coordination is argued, but differing conceptions of maternal mental health problems and their relationship to children's needs may make for difficulties in professional communication and decision‐making. The article seeks to identify the differing approaches to maternal mental health problems which appear to be developing out of different groups of research studies and argues that practitioners need to be explicit in identifying their perspectives on the associated issues of maternal mental health problems and child protection. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Therapeutic Responses to Domestic Violence in Australia: A History of Controversies

This paper reviews controversies about domestic violence occurring in heterosexual relationships discussed in the Australian context by practitioners and academics and published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy over the past three decades. Controversies arose in relation to the provision of therapeutic interventions for domestic violence, primarily in individual and couple counselling and group programs. After a literature review, the following controversial issues are identified: (1) the role of patriarchy: Is a patriarchal culture the main cause of domestic violence? (2) Systemic family therapy and gendered violence: Does systemic family therapy hide men's responsibility for domestic violence? (3) Therapeutic and educational interventions for domestic violence: Does therapy turn a ‘crime’ into a ‘psychological problem’? (4) Men as victims: Do both men and women perpetrate domestic violence in equal measure? (5) It takes two to tango: What part do women play in eliciting men's violence?