Violence Against Racially Minoritized Women

Abstract

This paper presents an integrative approach to working with racially minoritized women who have experienced violence in their relationships. This approach incorporates feminist and intersectionality theories, and community development and participatory education models. A case study is included to demonstrate the application of this integrative approach into social work practice. The goal of this paper is to connect theory and practice, to move beyond the cultural competence model, and to apply an integrative approach for improved social work practice in working with racially minoritized women experiencing domestic violence.

Keywords

violence against women in relationships racially minoritized women integrative approach

The domestic violence movement often names patriarchy and oppression of women as the causes of violence against women in relationships, while focusing primarily on the experiences of white women (Grossman & Lundy, 2007). As such, there is a need to further explore the realities of racially minoritized¹ women. Although all women experiencing violence in relationships encounter similar service barriers, women of color face a unique set of challenges to help-seeking (Kasturirangan, Krishnan, & Riger, 2004). In social work practice and antiviolence work, the cultural competence model is frequently applied when working with racially minoritized individuals and communities (Bent-Goodley, 2005; Kasturirangan et al., 2004). In this article, I will address the limitations of the cultural competence model. I will also put forth an integrative approach that considers the barriers and service needs of racially minoritized women in abusive relationships and demonstrate its application through a case study. This integrative approach incorporates intervention strategies informed by feminist and intersectionality theories, community development, and participatory education. My hope is that social workers will be more equipped to understand racially minoritized women’s experiences of violence, strengthen service delivery, and promote social change in the domestic violence movement.

The Cultural Competence Model

Existing research indicates the need for “culturally competent” social work practice in working with racially minoritized women experiencing violence in their relationships (Bent-Goodley, 2005; Kasturirangan et al., 2004; Krane, 1996). Many of the authors discuss specific strategies for applying the cultural competence model. For example, Kasturirangan, Krishnan, and Riger (2004) suggest hiring staff who share the same cultural backgrounds and languages of the clients being served in antiviolence programs, helping professionals to acknowledge the complexities of racially minoritized women’s experiences, and making prevention “culturally relevant.” Bent-Goodley (2005) argues that antiviolence services can enhance their “cultural competence” when working with racially minoritized women by integrating this model in service provision, by evaluating “culturally competent” programs, by reflecting “cultural differences” in policy making, and by increasing an emphasis on racially minoritized people in the conceptualization, implementation, and evaluation of domestic violence research.

Limitations

It is imperative that social workers move beyond the cultural competence model. The concept of “cultural competence” does not adequately examine nor critically question relations of power, the multiplicity of oppressions, and the Eurocentric roots of social work (Sakamoto, 2007). Whiteness is set as the “default standard,” which strongly influences social work practice (Sue, 2006). The cultural competence model essentializes culture and “Other” racially minoritized people without directly using racialist language (Pon, 2009). Moreover, hidden under the guise of “culturally competent” practice is a blatant disregard for the history of colonialism and racism (Pon, 2009). According to Pon (2009, p. 61), “cultural competence” is parallel to “new racism,” which he describes as “racial discrimination that involves a shift away from racial exclusionary practices based on biology to practices based on culture.” An important step in moving beyond the cultural competence model is recognizing that culture is not made up of static values and traditions (Pon, 2009). Cultural norms and practices are fluid and are a product of time and place. Additionally, when one is stuck in their attempts to be “culturally competent,” cultural “differences” are objectified and Othered, and Western-centric ideas and stereotypes of “non-Western” cultures are perpetuated (Yon, 2000). As such, improving service delivery to racially minoritized women in abusive relationships also requires the elimination of the Western versus non-Western dichotomy. Notions of the “culturally competent” social worker need to be abandoned and replaced with a focus on continual self-reflexivity regarding racism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression (Pon, 2009). It is imperative that social workers and other antiviolence service providers focus on the oppressions and power relations that contribute to the barriers to help-seeking that racially minoritized women in violent relationships frequently face, rather than believing that these barriers stem purely from cultural “differences.”

An Integrative Approach

Theory and Practice

To guide social workers and antiviolence workers to move beyond the cultural competence model, I present an integrative approach to working with racially minoritized women who have experienced violence in relationships. This approach connects theory and practice, as the “central and unique characteristic [of social work] is the way theory and practice are closely interrelated” (Parton, 2000, p. 449). Hence, social workers cannot solely focus on theoretical validity; they must also examine practice validity (Sheppard, 1998). The concept of practice validity refers to the distinctive nature of social work that calls for more than applying theory to practice, and instead, recognizes that theory is generative and that through praxis, theory and practice are inextricably linked (Parton, 2000; Sheppard, 1998). Therefore, my integrative approach to working with women of color who have experienced violence in relationships includes a variety of theories, models, and intervention strategies that acknowledge the complexity of women’s experiences and the interconnectedness of multiple oppressions and identities. The approach includes feminist and intersectionality theories and strategies from community development and participatory education. To better examine its application in everyday social work practice, the integrative approach will be presented alongside a case study.

Case Study: Ashna’s Story

I met Ashna² 5 years ago when she came into my office with her outreach worker and her 1-year-old daughter, Cara, looking for safe and supportive housing. Ashna was 27 years old, had immigrated to Canada from Malaysia when she was 12, self-identified as Canadian, Indian, and Malaysian, and was fluent in English, Punjabi, and Malay. Ashna grew up in a Hindu household and she shared with me that she believed in “a mix of religions” and identified as more spiritual than religious, incorporating Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Aboriginal values and traditions into her spiritual practice. Ashna had a 6-year-old son with whom she no longer had contact with, as her ex-husband had sole custody and did not allow her access. Cara’s biological father is Aboriginal, from Cree ancestry, and he was no longer involved in their lives. Ashna had been in a relationship with Cara’s father for 1 year and before that she had been married to her son’s father for 5 years. Both were abusive relationships. Before coming to the house, she had been staying at a second-stage transition house, a first-stage transition house, and various shelters. She had been kicked out of the second-stage house due to conflict with a group of other residents. When we first spoke, she told me her story about experiencing racism and discrimination at many of the places she had stayed, from both workers and other women residing in the houses. Soon after losing her place at the second-stage transition house, Ashna called the housing outreach worker at British Columbia Housing and he called the supportive housing program that I worked in. Although we had a wait-list, housing was offered by need, and an apartment unit had just become available. One week later, Ashna moved in.

When Ashna moved into the house, I overheard two other workers saying, “Yeah, another East Indian woman in an abusive relationship. She probably felt that she had to stay with him because of her culture.” As the social worker in this program, I completed the intake process with Ashna and soon began to see her in my office 1–3 times a week. Over the first couple of weeks, Ashna began to share her life narrative with me, and she talked about the abuse in her family during her childhood and the violence in her adult intimate relationships. She called herself a “recovering addict” and had been clean for 6 months before I met her. The last time that Ashna had relapsed was when the Ministry of Children and Family Development³ became involved, due to the domestic violence in her relationship with Cara’s father.

One of the things that I noticed with other workers was that they seemed stuck in the cultural competence model, or at least in what they believed to be “culturally sensitive.” However, a lot of assumptions, generalizations, and stereotypes were brought up. As I built a therapeutic relationship with Ashna, she discussed the discrimination that she had experienced being Indian in Malaysia, and of the racism she experienced in Canada. I could see that through the guise of “cultural sensitivity,” cultural “differences” were being objectified and I witnessed practice that constituted “new racism” (Pon, 2009). Furthermore, she talked about the ways in which people focused on her racial and cultural background and did not acknowledge that her daughter had Aboriginal ancestry, which was important to Ashna as she wanted Cara to grow up knowing all of “the cultures that she [came] from.” As Ashna had stated several times to me, her ethno-racial identity was part of who she was, but it was only one piece of her identity. When working with Ashna and other racially minoritized clients, I observed that practitioners often become stuck using a specific framework, theory, model, or set of intervention strategies without hearing how clients position themselves within the many intersections of identities that have been formed through a multitude of life experiences and structural influences. As social workers, when we only define our clients as part of a specific population—for example, substance-using, racially minoritized, women, marginalized, and/or living with mental health challenges—we sometimes fail to see each client with their unique narratives and service needs. Stereotypes, generalizations, and assumptions are often made. To prevent myself from falling into this trap, I began to form an integrative approach to guide my work. I explored how practice and theory connected through praxis, how I could move beyond “cultural competence,” and how to apply this integrative approach into social work practice with racially minoritized women who had experiences of violence in their relationships. Below, I will present the various theories, models, and intervention strategies of the approach alongside my work with Ashna.

Feminist and Intersectionality Theories

Integrating feminist theory into a practice approach to working with women of color experiencing domestic violence is essential. On a micro level, feminist social work practice uses empowerment and validation (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010), which builds on each woman’s strengths and acknowledges the challenges and barriers that she has faced. On a macro level, feminist social work uses consciousness raising (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010), which will be addressed later in this article. Because feminist theory is broad and evolving, encompassing a diverse range of theoretical viewpoints, this article focuses on poststructural feminism, specifically intersectionality.

Crenshaw (1991) coined intersectionality to represent more adequately the lived experiences of African American women, who were not adequately represented in feminist or antiracist discourse. This theory illustrates how intragroup differences are often overlooked, which contributes to the marginalization of women of color, and it describes the concept of interlocking systems of oppression (Hill-Collins, 1990). Davis (2008) defines intersectionality as the “interaction between gender, race, and other categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power” (p. 68). As the key message of the feminist movement has been that violence against women in relationships is based on gender inequality and that domestic violence affects women of all social standings, incorporating the concept of intersectionality into antiviolence work is relatively new (Nixon & Humphreys, 2010). The notion that domestic violence cuts across boundaries of oppression minimizes women’s differential experiences of, and potential increased vulnerabilities to, being in a violent relationship (Bograd, 1999). As mentioned earlier, feminist theories are constantly evolving. Alongside these changes, there has been an increase in the acknowledgment of other forms of oppression such as, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and ability. In addition, the domestic violence movement has begun to integrate a deeper and more critical understanding of how these different forms of oppression influence the experiences of women in abusive relationships (Nixon & Humphreys, 2010).

Successful antiviolence coalition building requires a view of violence grounded in intersectionality. It demands critical self-reflection by social workers regarding their own social locations, roles in perpetuating oppression, and the ways in which they may contribute to maintaining the status quo. It is necessary for workers to act as “institutional reformers by monitoring police, prosecutorial, and judicial responses as well as be advocates for the particular needs of individual battered women from marginalized communities” (Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005, p. 55). Practitioners must start their analyses and responses to domestic violence at the sociopolitical level and then move to the family and individual levels (Bograd, 1999). There is a great need to expand therapeutic possibilities by collaborating with underrepresented and marginalized communities, addressing multiple oppressions while confronting personal responsibility, and creating public structures of accountability to address the ways in which mainstream institutions fail to provide safety for racially minoritized women.

When working with Ashna, our conversations ranged from exploring her trauma, triggers, and ways of coping, to talking about feminism, racism, and systemic violence. She stated that through her own experiences and through our sessions, she gained a better understanding of what relationship violence was and how systemic barriers had impacted her experiences. By applying feminist and intersectionality theories into my work with Ashna, we were able to connect the personal and the political and use this connection to provide tools for empowerment. Furthermore, as we talked about systemic violence and abuse in relationships, Ashna claimed that she felt validated in ways that she had not previously experienced. We discussed how her identity was often defined and ascribed by her skin color, which she had internalized. However, as she further explored her trauma and experiences of violence, she began to examine how the intersections and interconnections of her identities and experiences of oppression had informed who she was, how she had responded to violence, and the barriers she had faced in seeking safety and support. She stated that the complexity and uniqueness of her identity had been largely ignored, which produced feelings of confinement in who she was expected to be and how she was seen by others. She talked about feeling Othered and about how assumptions were made about her service needs without her input.

As Sokoloff and Dupont (2005) assert, social workers need to act as “institutional reformers.” My conversations with Ashna propelled me to become more aware of my own positioning within structures of power, both as oppressed and oppressor, and how I could better address the barriers that my clients faced by working on micro, mezzo, and macro levels within the antiviolence sector of social work. Feminist social work practice utilizes consciousness raising as an important tool in working with clients and communities (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010). Through my own personal and professional self-reflexive processes, I progressively desired more social action strategies in my work. Thus, I included community development and participatory education models into my integrative approach to social work with racially minoritized women.

Social Action: Through Community Development and Participatory Education

Feminist and intersectionality theories acknowledge the systemic inequities and the divisions in society that both shape and are shaped by our complex identities. These theories highlight the need for social workers to intervene at micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Therefore, when working with racially minoritized women experiencing domestic violence, it is necessary to address individual and group needs and also to promote institutional and structural changes. As such, I have incorporated elements from Freire’s (1997) community development and participatory education models in my integrative approach. Through participatory education, people can learn to use reflections on their everyday experiences to analyze the sociopolitical systems in which they live, and to develop a sense that they can work collectively to change these systems. Using a participatory approach can prevent instances in which antiviolence workers will assume that they know what is “best” and the “safest” choices for women of color in abusive relationships. This connects back to feminist theory, which places importance on consciousness raising (Heinonen & Spearman, 2010). Additionally, feminist and intersectionality theory include the concept of positionality, which entails actively and honestly exploring oneself, what one stands for, and where one is situated in terms of social location (Arber, 2000). Both consciousness raising and positioning tie closely together with participatory methods in social work practice.

In working with women of color who have experienced violence in relationships, community development and participatory education should include community collaboration, capacity building, education, and outreach. Implementing such intervention methods can guide social workers in moving beyond “cultural competence” and in strengthening their service delivery. Workers at antiviolence organizations should engage in cross-training, share expertise, and develop formal plans for collaboration (Raj & Silverman, 2002). These alliances provide a context for the collaborative development of outreach and education strategies, access to translators trained in domestic violence, and the development of protocols and resources to provide accessible services to all communities (Raj & Silverman, 2002). Training and dialogue facilitated by racially minoritized women with experiential knowledge may more likely impact cultural norms, attitudes, and the understanding of domestic violence, which can encourage help-seeking by reducing fears of stigmatization and discrimination (Raj & Silverman, 2002). Receptivity to these messages may be enhanced when they come from within racially minoritized communities, as this minimizes common perceptions that the information presented is based on Western-centric ideologies (Raj & Silverman, 2002).

One of the major barriers to help-seeking for racially minoritized women is systemic racism, which the cultural competence model does not adequately address. Moreover, as mentioned in the section on the limits of the cultural competence model, services are often delivered in a manner that represents the dichotomy of Western (the “norm”) versus non-Western (Other) service needs. It is crucial that service providers continue to practice self-reflexivity and counter this binary notion of “white culture” and “Other,” as this perpetuates Othering and racial discrimination. Through community development and participatory education, social workers and other antiviolence workers can fight to combat Western-centrism and racism. Furthermore, the voices of minoritized and marginalized women can be better heard. As a result, more opportunities can emerge, where they have power over the changes that they want to effect. The inclusion of community development and participatory education in the integrative approach promotes learning from experience, dialogic education, praxis (the continuous cycle of reflection and action), critical consciousness, collective action, leadership development, and empowerment (Freire, 1997).

My experience working with Ashna furthered my pursuit to develop a more integrative approach that included social action as an intervention strategy. As Ashna became increasingly involved in the support group I facilitated for mothers in my program, as well the psychoeducation/therapeutic group called “Seeking Safety,” a group developed by author Lisa Najavits (2002), I began to see the need to follow more of a public/dialogic education format in some of my groups. In the support group, we began to discuss feminism, racism, and colonialism, and we examined how the women reexperienced violence after leaving abusive intimate partner relationships through systems and services, such as child protection services, health care, and the criminal justice system. I aimed to facilitate a safe space where my clients could use their reflections on their everyday experiences to analyze the sociopolitical systems in which these experiences occurred within. These group sessions seemed to help the women feel that they were not alone and that change could take place if people worked collectively to challenge these systems. The ideas of solidarity and collective resistance promoted empowerment. Through the discussions that I had with Ashna in our one-to-one sessions and in the various groups, I provided information on community activism taking place in Vancouver, such as the annual March Against Racism and the Downtown Eastside Women’s Housing March. As Ashna’s interest in community capacity building emerged through our work together, she became involved in community events and started volunteering as a peer mentor at a nonprofit agency for low-income and marginalized women. In my role, I learnt just as much from my clients as they did from me and from one another. I could see more hope in them, and I felt more hope within myself. I also saw the power that education, collaboration, and shared reflection had on my clients.

In addition to working with clients individually and in group sessions, I increased my efforts in community collaboration, such as networking with other organizations that my clients accessed and meeting with relevant stakeholders to reevaluate our program model. Furthermore, as I increased my work in community collaboration, other agencies, child protection offices, and university social work programs requested workshops, lectures, and presentations on the work that I did, how to better collaborate to improve accessibility and quality of services, and to talk about antiviolence work in social work practice.

Using principles and strategies from feminism, intersectionality, community development, and participatory education bring together the strengths from each theory and model, as well as filling the gaps that exist in each of them. The integrative approach addresses barriers and service needs on individual and group levels by providing a space for validation, empowerment, increased self-awareness and reflection, education about interpersonal and systemic violence, and acknowledgment of multiple intersecting oppressions that impact individual experiences of violence. In addition, the approach addresses the issues impacting clients on a structural level, with tools such as dialogic education, activism, peer mentoring, community collaboration, and outreach. (See the Appendix for the connections between the theories and models leading to the integrative approach.) These intervention strategies complement one another to form this integrative approach to working with racially minoritized women who have experienced violence in their relationships.

Conclusion

In the last 20 years, positive changes in the domestic violence movement have contributed to better services provided to women experiencing violence in their relationships (Grossman & Lundy, 2007). However, until recently, much of the attention has been focused on white women and has been based on Western-centric values (Nixon & Humphreys, 2010). What has frequently been pushed aside are the voices of many marginalized women. Racially minoritized women in violent relationships face a multitude of oppressions that affect the ways in which abuse manifests in their relationships and contribute to additional barriers to help-seeking. Women of color experiencing domestic violence face sexism and racism, which are embedded in wider social structures. The unique characteristics of their experiences of violence in their relationships and the obstacles that they encounter are important to understand, as by doing so, workers and programs can improve the support and resources that they provide to racially minoritized women. This article has provided an integrative approach to working with women of color in abusive relationships by connecting theory and practice methods that recognize these barriers and experiences. As critical self-reflexive practice and ongoing social analyses are essential components of social justice-oriented social work, the goal is for social workers to implement an approach that incorporates these values and that meets the needs of the clients and communities that they are working with. My integrative approach aims to address the issues that racially minoritized women in abusive relationships face by working on micro, mezzo, and macro levels, and by acknowledging the interlocking oppressions that exist in people’s everyday lives and experiences.

Footnotes

Appendix

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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