Beyond Insanity Muslim Women's Paths of Resistance to Abuse in the Extended Family

• In Event: Experiences and Consequences of Domestic Violence Victimization

Abstract

This qualitative study adopts Foucault's bottom-up analysis of power to examine the resistant strategies of Muslim women who endured in silence severe abuse in the extended family until their mental health deteriorated. Content analyses of the interviews uncovered these women’s points of resistance. After years of silent endurance, with their voice annihilated and their protest discredited when labeled magnuna/insane/uncontrollable, they resisted by fainting, attempting suicide, and exploding with anger. Then the label magnuna changed meaning to refer to women possessed by demons. First, these women were taken to a healer or sheikh, then to a psychiatrist who diagnosed them mentally ill. Feared as magnuna/possessed by demons, they were empowered to resist terror, slavery, and confinement by escaping to neighbors, family of origin, or mental health clinics, thus breaking the silence and revealing the abuse. Some escaped to a shelter or called the police-who only sometimes arrested their husbands. Other women continued to fight by suing the police and for a divorce. No longer caring about norms or family, they continued to resist and escape. However, they were perpetually condemned to go back to the abusive family due to poverty, fear for the welfare of the children, and husband’s refusal to divorce.

Authors

• Michael L. Fischer, Norfolk State University

• Brenda Geiger, Western Galilee College