An Empowerment Model on Reconstituting the Meanings of Divorce

Discourses and Meanings of Marriage and Divorce in Hong Kong

The Chinese woman’s experience of divorce is of special interest in the Hong Kong context because Hong Kong has developed into a unique society; its 100-year colonial history under British rule and the still-powerful relics of Chinese traditions combine in a distinctive “East meets West” blend. Divorce in Hong Kong is characterized by a strong Chinese cultural tradition that attributes great significance to the institution of marriage, patriarchy in marital and family relationships, and harmony and conformity while strongly condemning divorce. Simultaneously, Hong Kong has experienced an intense degree of Western influence that has shifted the traditionally dominant conception of marriage to a modern, egalitarian, and companionate one (Yeung & Kwong, 1995; Young, 1995). Since the 1980s, the emergence of a feminist movement in Hong Kong has produced a variety of feminist discourses. The most concerning of these discourses have been the ones that emphasize the family as an oppressive environment for married women, the self-worth and autonomy of women as individuals, and the condemnation of divorced women by traditional Chinese discourse. The Western companionate-based discourse on the family has related ambivalent implications for divorce. The feminist discourse in Hong Kong, which is a blend of socialist feminist and poststructuralist discourses, stresses the fluidity of female identities and the empowerment of divorced women (K. W. Chan, Wong, Leung, Lee, & Ho, 2001; Hung, 2002; Hung & Fung, 2003). One concern for the present study is the identification of an increasingly permissive attitude toward divorce that contradicts the traditional, condemnatory attitude. Close to half of the young respondents in the study conducted by the Boys and Girls Association of Hong Kong (1996) agreed that divorce was an option if one was dissatisfied with the marriage—proof of the growing influence of these discourses.

However, local studies have highlighted the gendered values inherent in divorce. Divorced women bear a greater stigma and have more to lose than do men (Yeung & Kwong, 1995). Studies of the meanings attached to divorce held by middle-aged divorced women have revealed a preoccupation with the significance of getting married and the centrality of marriage to the women’s well-being. The meanings attached to divorce by these women are unanimously negative. Despite the existence of Western companionate and feminist discourses, the dominant discourse on divorce, which has its institutional base in the family, school, religion, and the media, remains the traditional Chinese discourse (K. W. Chan et al., 2001; Hung & Fung, 2003). The dominant meanings attached to the identities of divorced women are that divorce is illegitimate and pathological and that divorced women are constituted as psychologically and personally deficient (Hung, 2008; Hung, Kung, & Chan, 2003).

Feminist Poststructuralism and the Constitution of Meaning

Different perspectives on the subject of meaning making, which include the interpretive tradition, constructivism, social constructionism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism, have offered various explanations for the process and structure of the constitution of meaning. Nevertheless, they share the understanding that meaning is socially constructed and contextualized. This article focuses on feminist poststructuralism, particularly that put forward by Weedon (1997b, 1997c), which guides the development of an empowerment model when working with Chinese divorced women in Hong Kong.

Feminist poststructuralist perspectives vary among their proponents. For example, Butler (1990, 2004) stressed the performative paradigm, while Scott (2001) and Weedon (1997b, 1999) followed a more Foucauldian framework (Foucault, 1980; Nayak & Kehily, 2006). Weedon (1997b, 1999) suggested that feminist poststructuralism regards identities as discursively constituted. Different identities offer different meanings assigned to interactions and the products of these interactions, or sets of rights and obligations, among individual women. The produced meanings are temporarily fixed by historically and socially specific discourses that have their material basis in social institutions and practices (Weedon, 1997c). Multiple and even contradictory identities are constituted for individual women because of specific historical and social discourses within society.

Different discourses exist in hierarchical relationships, with “[t]he most powerful discourses in our society hav[ing] firm institutional bases, in the law, . . . or in medicine, social welfare, education and in the organization of the family and work” (Weedon, 1997a, p. 105). Nevertheless, the dominant discourses are under constant challenge by other social discourses. The constitution of the female identity involves the domination and marginalization of competing discourses by the dominant discourse. Individuals become the sites of struggle for these varieties of discourse. However, the domination cannot be complete. As a result, multiple—sometimes contradictory—identities are often constituted for individual women, depending on the specific discourses they are exposed to and the nature of the resultant power struggle. The associated meanings held by individual women are malleable and transitory. Depending on particular contexts and individual circumstances, “[t]he individual who has a memory and an already discursively constituted sense of identity, may resist particular interpellations or produce new versions of meaning from the conflicts and contradictions between existing discourses” (Weedon, 1997c, p. 102). Individuals change their subject positions to their advantage when they become aware that the positions they hold restrain them (Gavey, 1989; Hartsock, 1990; Weedon, 1997b). Different identities involve different assigned meanings, so that a shift in identity allows an individual to adopt alternative meanings. This process is called meaning reconstitution.

While the commonalities of women’s experiences across cultures can be explained by universal gender inequalities, both feminist poststructuralists and postcolonial feminists have emphasized the significance of looking at the specificity of women’s experiences in different cultural locations (Jackson & Jones, 1998). Instead of “grand narratives,” the knowledge of cultural and historical specificity is developed with the belief that the voices of women are valuable in and of themselves and that women should speak for themselves (Weedon, 1997b). Meaning reconstitution through discursively constituted subjects involves discursive resources. “Knowledge of more than one discourse and the recognition that meaning is plural allows for a measure of choice on the part of the individual” (Weedon, 1997c, p. 102). Specific cultural and historical discourses provide the possibility that meaning can be successfully reconstituted. For Chinese divorced women in Hong Kong, the existence of competing discourses provides the possibility for individual women to reconstitute identities other than the dominant one. The goal of the reconstitution process is to expose them to the feminist discourse, particularly the poststructuralist version in Hong Kong, in the hopes that this awareness of the changing nature of female identities will prompt them to adopt positive postdivorce identities for themselves.

The Intervention Process of Meaning Reconstitution

From 1998 to 2002, and again in 2008 and 2009, six workshops, each consisting of seven 4-hr sessions, were organized with 55 divorced or divorcing women. The participants in the workshops were openly recruited in social service centers. This study was conducted within the context of the workshops. The interviewer also served as the social work practitioner who conducted the workshops. To avoid confusion, attempts were made to delineate clearly the role of the research practitioner, such as informing the individual participants about the details of the related research objectives and methodology. The participants ranged in age from 30 to 50, had a secondary-level education, had gotten married between the 1980s and 1990s, had custodial rights of their children, and were living as single parents.

The objectives and contents across all the workshops remained largely unchanged to ensure consistency. A focus group meeting was conducted after each workshop to collect the participants’ evaluations and feedback on the impact of the workshops. All the group sessions and focus group meetings were video- or audiotaped with the consent of the participants. All the tapes were transcribed and became the qualitative data for analysis. Because the data were generated through group interactions, they are presented as being from the group rather than from individuals.

When feminist poststructuralist perspectives are applied to empower women, the purpose of an intervention is to facilitate divorced women in the development of an awareness of the discursive origin of their views and suffering that will encourage them to choose a positive identity for themselves from among the competing discourses and available discursive resources on divorce and divorced women. The social worker is part of the process, introducing the feminist poststructuralist framework as a way for divorced women to understand the discursive base of their suffering and facilitate the reflection and choices that will ultimately result in the reconstitution of the meanings they hold regarding divorce. Meaning reconstitution is a process accomplished through reflection on two interrelated levels—personal and cultural—and in three steps. In the study, the first step was to invite the participants to be aware of more than one discourse while recognizing that the dominant discourse on divorce is entirely negative. Encouraging the participants to propose positive perceptions of divorce that contrast with the debilitating impact of the dominant discourse highlighted the possibility of positive change. In the second step, acknowledging that the individual is the site of discursive struggle helped the divorced women examine the power displayed by traditional Chinese discourses on divorce and divorced women within the cultural and historical context of Hong Kong. Sharing the contradictions, conflicts, and suffering experienced by individual divorced women in the group provided the women with an opportunity to reexamine the implications of the dominant discourse. The participants were invited to challenge cultural oppression. The third step involved examining the contrary and positive meanings of divorce and reflecting on the discursive constitution of identities and meanings through the feminist poststructuralist perspective—a process that allowed the participants to choose positive identities for themselves.

Positive Meanings of Divorce

Reconstituting the personal meanings of divorce begins with the identification of positive meanings of divorce from the knowledge of competing discourses. This process involves the identification of positive gains and strengths that individual divorced women and groups of divorced women exhibit and report.

There are discourses available that identify divorce as a positive experience that leads to personal growth, achieved through a cognitive revaluation of the event. When the participants were asked to examine themselves as women, they were aware of the plurality of meanings. They identified the positive gains they had achieved during the dissolution of their marriage, making the decision to get a divorce, and the postdivorce period. Lists of these gains were collected from the participants and compiled, revealing four major types of gains: increased self-awareness and self-development, improved emotional health, support from others, and an enriched life experience. These gains are discussed in detail next.

Increased self-awareness and self-development includes greater freedom to develop interests, speak out, and perform meaningful work, as well as freedom from shouldering economic burdens, threats of violence, and sexual diseases. Also listed were an increased sense of control, increased awareness of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, increased problem-solving abilities or analytical abilities, increased independence, and an increased ability to self-nurture. A reduction in symptoms of stress, such as sleeplessness and various physical discomforts, was also reported.

The benefits of having a mother’s support were mentioned by the participants who were able to receive assistance from their families of origin. The majority of participants looked to their nuclear families for support during the dissolution of their marriages. Improved relationships with their children were reported, while others mentioned friends as a significant source of support.

In the empowerment workshops, the women were also invited to share what they saw as their strengths. Their lists included the ability to handle their relationships with their ex-husbands and the paternal family, to survive hardships in the divorce process, and to be able to handle the negative emotions that were involved. The participants were also helped throughout the process to realize their strengths in making the decision to divorce and encouraged to make efforts to improve their situations by registering with the workshops and learning from and helping each other.

Challenging Oppression in Cultural Discourses

Feminist poststructuralism suggests that to examine the power of discourses, one should trace a discourse back to its emergence and question its legitimacy (Weedon, 1997b). To situate an individual’s experience in a social context, rather than individualize a social problem, one must review the social construction of the dominant discourses on divorce to facilitate the questioning of the dominant meanings of divorce. In the workshops, the participants were invited to identify gender power inequalities in marriage and the family and then to conduct a cultural audit of the traditional Chinese discourses on marriage and divorce that they had been socialized to accept. The audits were in two parts: an examination of the discourses and an examination of their effect on women.

Choosing Alternative Identities

During the workshop sessions, the women were confronted with alternative meanings of divorce and divorced women. The dominant discourses’ positions on divorce as abnormal and divorced people as self-indulgent failures were challenged to give way to more positive contrary meanings. Examples of these contesting meanings are presented next.

Revealing the Discursive Roots of Diversified Meanings

In addition to reflecting the discursive roots of the debilitating meanings of divorce, sharing sessions were implemented to highlight the similar roots of the contrary meanings revealed by the practitioner–researcher and proposed by the participants. Despite the prevalence of divorce and, most important, the success stories about divorced women and individuals who have grown up in single-parent families, these messages are rarely interpreted in major institutions, particularly the mass media. The marginalization of these discourses in related institutions was revealed by asking the participants to identify media items with content of a similar kind. The paucity of their responses helped the participants really to visualize the marginalization process. With the nature of the dominant and contrary meanings exposed, the participants were encouraged to experiment actively with the different ways of living that are implied in the positive meanings. The participants’ statements revealed their willingness to try varieties of identities, while still admitting the difficulties involved. The realistic remarks reflect a material base for the overthrow of the dominant discourse, which demands changes in institutional practices. Examples of these statements are listed next.

Adopting a perception of divorce as an act undertaken by brave and responsible women shifts the position of a divorced woman from being that of a passive victim to one who actively sought divorce as a solution to her marital problems and as a way to protect her children. The participants’ courage in taking this responsibility was celebrated in the workshops. These alternative meanings represent a challenge to the dominant, gender-biased discourses of women as subservient, as well as the stigmatization that divorced women are selfish.

Challenging Social Practices and Institutions

When the social construction of divorce experiences was reviewed, some participants were able to identify gender inequalities in existing social policies and laws. Women who were on welfare after divorce because their husbands did not pay maintenance shared their anger toward the laws governing maintenance payments, which were ineffectively enforced. They also challenged the inconsistency of the residual social welfare policy, which attempts to compel single mothers to work, on one hand, and blames them for neglecting their children, on the other hand. Others blamed the government for refusing to set up a maintenance board, a statutory body with the power to enforce maintenance orders as requested by single-parent organizations, which has resulted in an increased number of welfare dependents. At the end of the workshops, the participants were invited to form an advocacy group among themselves and/or to join other policy concern groups at the community center. The fact that oppressive social systems are linked to personal experiences and the significance of bringing about change at both the personal and the societal levels was emphasized in the workshops.

Implications for Social Work Practice

The application of a feminist poststructuralist approach when working with Chinese divorced women in Hong Kong, which this article has documented, serves to highlight the significance of group work that identifies the discursive constitution and reconstitution of the meanings of divorce. Interventions should address knowledge about discourses on divorce and divorced women. The discursive constitution of divorced women is exposed through the creation of a dialogue with the divorced individual on the social level in a particular historical and sociocultural context. The discursive nature of meanings is then exposed, competing discourses are identified, and contrary meanings are revealed (Gergen, 1991; Shotter, 1993). Specifically, giving women the opportunity to become aware of competing discourses and the plurality of meanings through the identification of divorce-driven gains and the exhibition of personal strengths that directly challenge cultural oppression and reveal the discursive nature of the constitution and reconstitution of perceptions has proved to be effective not only in changing personal meanings that are ascribed to divorce, but in revealing the dominance of discourses that are culturally and historically specific in the way they shape gender relations within the institutions of marriage, family, and divorce. It is possible to invite divorced women to challenge the dominant discourses of divorce and adopt alternative identities, challenging the social practices of institutions that are sustaining the dominant discourses. That these discourses have historically been implicated in governmental and social policy (Dale & Foster, 1986; Gottfried, 1996) became explicit when the women began to challenge policies that reinforce gender injustice.

Feminist poststructuralism has offered valuable resources for social work intervention by proposing an understanding of the discursive constitution of identities and their constant reconstitution (Weedon, 1997b). It is particularly valuable when working with people whose identities are constituted by dominant discourses that produce suffering. The strength of this model lies in its cultural sensitivity and local nature, which give it the potential to be widely applicable in different contexts. Yet, the study had limitations. The findings would have been enriched had high and middle-income divorced Chinese women been involved in the workshops along with low-income participants.