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Immigration, Masculinity, and Intimate Partner Violence From the Standpoint of Domestic Violence Service Providers and Vietnamese-Origin Women

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Merry Morash

Michigan State University

Data from in-depth interviews with Vietnamese immigrant women residing in the United States and both interviews and a focus group with service providers for abused Vietnamese immigrants suggest a complex relationship among job market context, changing norms about appropriate feminine behavior, immigration adaptation, masculinity, and men's violence against intimate partners. During immigration resettlement, men's economic status can worsen, there can be gender role reversals, and men can feel a profound loss of power and social status. Aggression is one way to overcome the perceived loss of one form of masculine identity through a symbolic reassertion of power and privilege as it is constructed in Vietnamese culture and reinforced by aspects of U.S. culture. These dynamics suggest that interventions into domestic violence require not only increasing economic opportunities for immigrants to reduce adaptation stress but also changing gender relations that do not reproduce the belief in male supremacy and men's control of women as part of masculine identity.

Key Words: domestic violence • immigration resettlement • masculinity • Vietnamese • intimate partner violence • service providers • gender identity • hegemonic masculinity

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