Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality, 2024
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Diasporic challenges, Patriarchal norms, and Pakistani immigrant women in Australia
S. Iftikhar, V. Banham , E. Reid Boyd, S. Peter
ABSTRACT:
This article examines the situations and ideologies that constitute the distressing diasporic lives of first-generation immigrant married Pakistani women in Australia. Twenty-one married women were selected for semi-structured in-depth interviews. Twenty of the women were living with their husbands except one woman who was living in a refuge center. Results from the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of data revealed, both the diasporic encounters married Pakistani women face in Australia and the influence of patriarchal ideology on their lives while navigating those challenges. Pakistani married women’s responses to patriarchal norms in their married lives fell on a spectrum of reactions which include conformation, resistance and bargaining against patriarchal familial structures. When it comes to bargaining, opposing, and adhering to patriarchal familial ways of life, this study contends that women make decisions that they consider to be sensible. This is because not all women were passive victims in these situations. Implications of these findings for research, policy, and practice will be discussed.
keywords: Patriarchy; migration; abuse ;Pakistani women; oppression