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Gender, immigration, and modernity: A case study of Bosnian Muslim settlement in Vermont

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Gender, immigration, and modernity: A case study of Bosnian Muslim settlement in Vermont

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Content GENDER, IMMIGRATION, AND MODERNITY: A CASE STUDY OF BOSNIAN
MUSLIM SETTLEMENT IN VERMONT
Copyright 2003
by
Kimberly A. Huisman
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY)
May 2003
Kimberly A. Huisman
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UMI Number: 3103905
Copyright 2003 by
Huisman, Kimberly Anne
All rights reserved.
®
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
This dissertation, written by
under the direction of h.z.'C. Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillm ent of re
quirements for the degree of
u/smar)
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
‘Dean of Graduate Studies
D ate msx. 16» ...2.9P.3
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairperson
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Dedication
For my mother, Gail Huisman
and
In loving memory of my grandfather,
C. Andrew Huisman (1915-1991)
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Acknowledgements
Completing this dissertation has been a long journey, during which I have
had a great deal of help from many people. In the early stage of this research I
traveled to Bosnia. One evening at the behest of Safet, a 14 year-old member of
my host family in Sarajevo, I went to see the movie Toy Story 2. During one
scene, the main character, Woody, so as not to awaken his captor, had to tiptoe
carefully around cheese doodles that were scattered on the floor. Safet turned to
me quickly, wide-eyed, and exclaimed, "Look, just like land mines!" As I sat there
speechless, he, without second thought, resumed eating popcorn and watching
the movie. Safet, like many others in this study, has been an amazing teacher.
From the beginning, he helped me to keep this project in perspective and
reminded me never to forget what the participants in this study— and refugees
around the world— have been through.
I would like to thank the Bosnian women and men who graciously gave
me so much of their time and shared their pain and triumphs with me. Because I
have promised them confidentiality, I cannot thank them by name. In addition to
my participants, many people in the Bosnian community have helped me
throughout my research. I am immensely grateful to the F0 6 0 family— Anera,
Erika, Dzavad, Ahmed, and Grandpa, for their friendship, help, and support.
Special thanks also goes to their extended family in Sarajevo for their
overwhelming generosity and for taking me under their wing during my visit there.
In addition, I would like to thank the service providers who took time to share
their observations and experiences with me. I am especially indebted to Tom
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Smith, who went out of his way on countless occasions to assist me with this
project.
I am thankful to several people at the University of Southern California. My
dissertation advisor, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, whose work inspired mine,
proved to be someone I could always count on to read my work closely and to
provide me with sharp, critical feedback. Andrei Simic's enthusiasm, optimism,
and pointed feedback helped guide me out of the fog on numerous occasions.
Prema Kurien was kind enough to continue serving on my dissertation committee
while she was on sabbatical, even though we were residing in different states.
Stachelle Overland, Dora Lora, and Pat Adolph eased my mind tremendously
with their dependable administrative assistance.
A number of individuals at the University of Vermont helped me in various
ways. Thanks to Kelly Clark— a true kindred spirit—for sharing her knowledge
and experiences with me at crucial points in the writing process. I owe
considerable thanks to my dissertation group at the University of Vermont— first,
thanks to Peg Boyle Single for teaching the dissertation writing class that brought
us all together, and thanks to Karen Madden, Sheila Kirton-Robbins, and Chris
Kasprisin, each of whom provided me with honest feedback, advice, and
friendship throughout the writing stages of my dissertation and, most importantly,
helped keep things in perspective with their good humor. I owe special thanks to
Christie Randall, an exceptional student at the University of Vermont, who helped
with library research, data entry, and filing. I am also grateful to Beth Mintz, chair
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of the sociology department, for accommodating the demands of my dissertation
within the assignment of my teaching schedule.
And then there are my closest friends and colleagues, for whom I struggle
to find adequate words to express my appreciation. I am especially beholden to
Claire Renzetti, who, since my undergraduate days at Saint Joseph's University,
has helped me immeasurably in her multiples roles as teacher, mentor, friend,
and colleague. Her steadfast encouragement and unrelenting faith in me were
deeply sustaining over the years; she has helped me both intellectually and
personally, more than she knows. The beginning of this long journey began
many years ago in her classroom, when I was first introduced to the subject of
sociology. Special thanks also goes to Jody Miller. In addition being a wonderful
friend for over a decade, she has invested countless hours reading drafts of my
work and giving me exceptional feedback. Sohaila Shakib was always willing to
take time out of her busy schedule to offer advice and suggestions when I was
struggling with an idea. Also, I am very grateful for her good humor and for
providing me with a place to stay on my many trips to Los Angeles.
I am indebted to Thomas Corcoran and Dee Steffan for their eagle eyes
and painstaking editing skills. Both friends sank their teeth into my dissertation,
reading multiple drafts of every chapter, and giving me pointed feedback.
Thanks to them for their patience and support and for helping me improve my
writing skills. I am grateful to several close friends who were always there for
me, even when I wasn't always available for them: Kendra Pineda-Massari,
Sandy Hamlet, and Beth Agus. Many other friends helped me to complete this
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dissertation by giving me their time, their friendship, and their good humor:
Jessica Charbeneau, Terri Dawe, Joel Agus, Jim Murphy, Deb Eichorn-Behm,
Lee Hulsebos, and Kirstin Isgro.
Finally, I am enormously grateful to my family, for whom the words "thank
you" feel dreadfully inadequate. My mother, Gail Huisman, has always believed
in me and encouraged me to reach for the stars. As I get older, my appreciation
for what she was able to accomplish as a single, working mother of four children
continues to grow. Her unwavering love and support were instrumental in
helping me complete this project. My siblings, Kristen Huisman-Farhat, Heather
Huisman, and Drew Huisman each provided me with much love, inspiration, and
support. I am forever indebted to my paternal grandparents, Andrew and Rita
Huisman, for without them, going to college would have been only a pipe dream.
Thanks to my grandfather (in memoriam) for encouraging me to dream and to my
grandmother for teaching me the importance of taking risks. Many extended
family members have also helped me in their unique ways: Patricia Elxnat,
Samir Farhat, Lisa Huisman, Luke Johnson, Frannie Johnson, Ned Johnson, and
Mary B. Johnson. Finally, I want to thank my husband, Kevin Johnson, for
believing in me and being there for me every step of the way. His sense of
humor, generosity, love, patience, and overall zest for life provided sustenance
throughout this project and served as a continuous reminder of how fortunate I
am.
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Table of Contents
Dedication..............................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ iii
Abstract................................................................................................................................viii
Chapter One: Introduction................................................................................................1
Chapter Two: Shifting Modernities & Research Methodology................................ 28
Chapter Three: Discursive Constructions of Modernity and Equality....................75
Chapter Four: Gender, Modernity, and the Realignment of Public Space.........104
Chapter Five: Gender, Modernity, and the Realignment of Private Space.........132
Chapter Six: Dress, Gender, and Modernity.............................................................169
Chapter Seven: Conclusion.......................................................................................... 205
References....................................................................................................................... 214
Appendix I: Participants............................................................................................... 231
Appendix II: Service Providers...................................................................................232
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viii
Abstract
This dissertation examines the ways in which meanings and practices of
gender are changing for Bosnian Muslim refugees in Vermont, and it argues that
the changes are mediated both by ideals of modernity and by the particular
context of exit and reception this group has experienced. In this study, gender is
viewed as a constitutive element of identity renegotiated and transformed
through processes of immigration. The intersection of modernity and immigration
is examined by considering the changes in four dimensions of gender relations.
These are discursive constructions of gender, bodily adornment and dress, and
gender in both the private and public realms. The analysis is based on a case
study in Northern Vermont involving extensive observations and in-depth
interviews with thirty people from seven families. Interviews were also conducted
with thirteen social providers and community members in the Bosnian Muslim
community.
The findings of this research indicate that changes in gender relations are
marked by varying degrees of accommodation and resistance to the changing
social context. First, operating on the macro level, meta-narratives of modernity
inform the mini-narratives that play out on the micro-level, resulting in a pervasive
discourse of modernity and equality. Changing narratives of modernity are
related to the changing social contexts of exit and reception, the former governed
by socialism and the latter by capitalism. Second, the meanings and practices of
dress—which are viewed as gendered and as evolving out of historical and
cultural contexts— are undergoing transformation in the U.S.; a process
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characterized by varying degrees of accommodation and resistance. Third,
shifting ideals of modernity and structures of opportunity in work and education in
the U.S. have led to a transformation of public space, with women's worlds
generally expanding and men's contracting. Finally, in response to the changing
structures of opportunity and increased involvement in work and school, the
household division of labor has changed. While women continue to maintain
primary responsibility for the household, men's participation in household labor
has increased.
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Chapter One: Introduction
Gender relations among Bosnian Muslim refugees in Vermont are
changing. In this dissertation I analyze how experiences of immigration and
settlement have affected changes in discursive constructions of gender— by
which I mean the way people talk about and display gender— and I examine
reformulations of gender in the private and public spheres. My analysis of these
changing meanings, perceptions, and boundaries of gender emphasizes ideals of
modernity and shifting gendered structures of opportunity. In this study, gender
is viewed as a constitutive element of identity that is renegotiated and
transformed through processes of immigration and settlement.
An overarching goal of this work is to bring modernity into the analysis of
gender and immigration. I approach this by joining together several bodies of
literature. I examine the intersection of gender, modernity, and immigration in
four realms of gender relations: discursive constructions of gender, bodily
adornment and dress, and gender in both the private and public realms.
My findings indicate that changes in gender relations are marked by
varying degrees of accommodation and resistance. I argue that reformulations of
gender are influenced by changing ideals of modernity and changes in gendered
structures of opportunity, which are both influenced by ideals of capitalism in the
U.S.
In this chapter, I aim to contextualize my work within the larger bodies of
scholarship. I will do so by discussing several conceptual frameworks that form
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the backdrop of my dissertation. I will begin with immigration, followed by
gender, and I will conclude the chapter with a discussion about modernities.
Studying Immigration
In two decades, the number of refugees worldwide has grown
dramatically, from 2.8 million in 1976 to almost 20 million in 1994 (Loescher &
Loescher, 1994). The wars in the former Yugoslavia contributed to the recent
surge in refugees in the United States. According to the U.S. Committee for
Refugees, 139,565 Bosnian refugees resettled in the U.S. between 1993 and
2001. In what is central to my study, the Vermont Refugee Resettlement
Program estimates that 1,300 of them resettled in Northwestern Vermont during
1994-1999.1
In academia, the response to the influx of migrants and refugees has
resulted in a body of literature that is vast and interdisciplinary, and contains
many theoretical debates. At the same time, changes in immigration laws, U.S.
foreign policy, and globalization and development in world economies have led to
dramatic changes in the demographics of immigration. For example, the
Immigration Act of 1965, in its repeal of the National Origins Act of 1924 that had
favored European immigrants, paved the way for increased immigration from
Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Since 1981, only 12% of
immigrants have come from Europe, with the majority of immigrants arriving from
Latin America (47%) and Asia (35%) (Schaefer, 2002).
This “new immigration” has raised important empirical questions that have
been the focus of contemporary research in migration. Since European
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immigrants now make up the minority of incoming refugees and immigrants, in
recent years, immigrants from Europe have escaped the attention of many
scholars. This study seeks to add to the immigration literature by focusing on a
recent and unique immigrant group from Europe that simultaneously holds a
position of racial privilege and ethnic/religious marginalization in the U.S. In
order to theoretically situate my study, I will briefly review the different
approaches to studying immigration.
Macro-structural Approaches
Macro-structural approaches to immigration illuminate the broad structural factors
that shape migration and settlement. These approaches show the ways in which
various social institutions and social forces facilitate and constrain gender
relations. These approaches to the study of migration were developed in
response to the limitations of the orthodox, equilibrium perspective, which was
criticized for being one-dimensional, static, and reductionist (Hondengeu-Sotelo,
1990). In addressing such limitations, the macro-structural approaches
concentrate on how structural and historical factors affect migration. But the “big-
picture” approach too has its limitations: it neglects the social dimensions of
migration— including gender, class, race, ethnicity, religion and culture— and
views people as passive recipients of macrostructural forces.
Beginning with the Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s and 1930s,
assimilation, adaptation, and acculturation have been the focus of much
theoretical and empirical work in sociology (Park and Burgess, 1921; Warner and
Srole, 1945; Gordon, 1964; Glazer and Moynihan, 1963). Assimilation,
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adaptation, and acculturation, coined the “triple A’s of conformity” by Pierrette
Hondagneu-Sotelo (1990, p. 11), are terms often used by theorists primarily
interested in understanding how immigrants respond to their new environment.
Recently, feminist scholars have begun to challenge these theories on
numerous grounds (Morawska, 1985; Omi and Winant, 1986, 1994; Hondagneu-
Sotelo, 1990; Eastmond, 1993). Hondageneu-Sotelo (1990) argues that
“adaptation implies that people passively mold themselves to the requirements of
the new social environment, acculturation that they conform to the dominant
culture, and assimilation that they blend in as if they were just one more melting
pot ingredient” (p. 11). In addition, critics argue that these theories are
dichotomous, linear, ethnocentric, and simplistic. They overlook the agency and
resilience of immigrants, ignore contexts of exit and reception, and deny the
centrality of race and gender (Kibria, 1993; Rumbaut, 1997).
Yet, as with many theories, theories of assimilation, adaptation, and
acculturation, while problematic in some ways, do have merit. Their usefulness
reflects more of a checkerboard reality, in which there are both strengths and
limitations.
Situating immigration research in the context of gender helps illuminate
why the “triple A’s” of conformity are insufficient, as shifts in gender relations
highlight the complexities of immigration processes and demonstrate that
immigration is not linear and one-dimensional. While I will be drawing from the
broader immigration literature to lend insight into the macrostructural forces
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affecting changes in gender, this work is primarily grounded in feminist theory
and the gender and immigration literature that views immigrants as agents of
change.
Studying Gender
Gender is defined as a fluid, socially constructed category that organizes
societies at every level. As a social system it structures interpersonal
relationships and dynamics, ideologies, religious beliefs and practices,
economics, politics, and historical interpretations (Indra, 1996). “Gender
relations” refers to the routinized patterns of interaction between men and women
in their daily lives. As Gal and Kligman (2000) point out, “ Attending to gender is
analytically productive, leading not only to an understanding of relations between
men and women, but to a deeper analysis of how social and institutional
transformations occur” (p. 3).
Many feminist scholars have argued that gender is not static and cannot
be examined in isolation because it is intertwined with other structures of identity,
including race, class, ethnicity, and religion (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999; Kurien,
1999; Pessar, 1999). Viewing gender as one of many interlocking systems of
oppression challenges earlier feminist assumptions (i.e. additive and women-only
approaches), paving the way for more inclusive, flexible, and complex analyses
of gender, and dispelling the essentialist myth of a “universal woman” (Smith and
Stewart, 1983; Glenn, 1986; Collins, 1991; Pessar, 1999). There is no
monolithic meaning of gender, but instead there exist many different discourses
on gender, which vary by social location and include race, class, ethnicity, locale,
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sexuality, nationality, and religion (Cohn, 1993; Nguyen-Gillham, 1999). My
study seeks to add to the growing body of literature that addresses itself to the
complex meanings of gender and gender relations. I examine religion, ethnicity,
race, nationality, social class, and age insofar as these aspects of identity
intersect with and influence the four dimensions of gender stated above. By
placing it at the center of the analysis, this study takes an important step in the
continued effort to counter the ghettoization of gender studies in academia. 2
Although my primary focus is on changes in gendered identity and social
practices that have occurred after migration and settlement, I also examine what
they were like before and during the war in order to get a baseline understanding
of pre-resettlement gender norms.3 As Eastmond (1993) points out, “to
understand the different implications of social and cultural changes in the new
country for...women and men, we must look more closely at their social worlds
and bases of identity in [their country of origin]” (p. 36). Such an idea reflects the
methodological strategy of situating the study of gender within multiple sites and
acknowledges the importance of viewing gender as fluid, as something that
evolves over the course of one’s lifetime. By examining gender in this way, I aim
to capture the complexities of gender constructions and the changing beliefs and
practices of gender relations as they relate both to immigration and changing
constructions of modernity.
Conceptualizing Gender. Structure, and Agency
In recent years, many feminist scholars have drawn from
ethnomethodological insights (Garfinkel, 1967) by conceptualizing gender as
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situated action or accomplishment that intersects with other structural inequalities
including race, class, sexual orientation, and generation (West and Zimmerman,
1987; Connell, 1987). This approach to understanding gender recognizes the
interplay of structure and agency in a way that acknowledges that men and
women are not simply passive recipients of structural conditions. Instead, by
conceptualizing gender as situated action, situated/structural theory avoids
structural determinism, challenges “sex role” theory, acknowledges agency, and
places gender within the structural contexts of intersecting inequalities of race,
class, religion, sexuality, and age.
Interactionist/Situated Action Approach to Studying Gender
Several scholars argue that agency has become a confusing concept,
often used in contradictory and overlapping ways. Having examined the
complexities of the agency/structure nexus, they call for a more complex
conceptualization of agency that disaggregates agency and recognizes its
interrelated components (Sewell, 1992; Emirbayer and Mische, 1998; McNay,
2000). Sewell (1992) defines agency as “entailing the capacity to transpose and
extend schemas4 to new contexts” (p. 18). In summarizing the approaches to
agency in various theoretical camps, Emirbayer and Mische (1998) point out that
while agency can be driven by routine, purpose, and deliberation, its full
complexity, in order to be understood, must be “analytically situated within the
flow of time” (1998, p. 963). They conceptualize human agency as:
a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the
past (in its habitual aspect) but also oriented toward the future (as a
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capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a
capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the
contingencies of the moment) (1998, p. 963).
This is a particularly relevant way of examining agency in the context of
my research because, as recently resettled refugees, Bosnians are navigating
between two worlds. In order to understand the nuanced and dynamic aspects
of agency, however, several theorists have pointed out that we also need to
improve the conceptualization of structure. Like agency, structure is used
imprecisely and is rarely defined. Sewell recognizes the multiplicity of structure
and calls for “adopting] a far more multiple, contingent, and fractured
conception...of structure” (1992, p. 16). By structure, I mean the macro-level
social forces that affect people’s lives including politics, economics, and the
institutions of society. This theoretical approach allows a nuanced
conceptualization of human agency and its relation to social structure.
As said before, I primarily focus on “transformations” of gender relations
as opposed to “adaptation.” This is consistent with acknowledging the role of
agency in changing gender relations by moving beyond the adaptation
perspective that views individuals as passive recipients of social structure. The
recent paradigm shift from adaptation to transformation has been echoed
throughout the gender and migration literature. The current research seeks to
build on these contributions to feminist scholarship by studying reconstructions of
gender relations as a central feature of the migration and settlement process;
and it acknowledges the active and vital role women and men play in reshaping
gender relations.
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Rather than just revealing outcomes of migration, the interactionist and
situated/structural approach illuminates the social process of migration and
changes in gender. It recognizes the complexities of the internal worlds of
gender identity and relations, while simultaneously examining how these
changes take place within a larger social context of migration and settlement.
In sum, in this study I examine four specific dimensions of gender—
discursive constructions of gender, bodily adornment and dress, and gender in
both the private and public realms— from a vantage point that reveals the rich,
contextual aspects of gender identity and relations while at the same time
acknowledges the important role of social structure— including modernity and
structures of opportunity— on gender relations. By examining changes in gender
relations on these two different levels— micro and macro— I hope to shed light on
how gender constructions and identities vary by context and are in continual flux
and renegotiation.
Gender and Immigration
Looking at how men and women experience migration differently has
demonstrated the centrality of gender in immigration and settlement processes.
In the gender and migration literature, it is widely accepted that immigration is a
gendered process, with gender serving as a central organizing feature in
migration and settlement (Abdulrahim, 1993; Buijs, 1993; Cohen, 1977;
Eastmond, 1993; Espirtu, 1999; Foner, 1997; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994, 1999;
Kibria, 1993; Mahler, 1999; Menjivar, 1999; Morokvasic, 1984; Pessar, 1999;
Simon, 1992). Feminist approaches to migration, which view immigrants as
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active participants in the migration and settlement process by acknowledging the
role of human agency and the social dimensions of migration, is central to this
study.
Unfortunately, within the academic world, the study of gender is still
marginalized; outside of feminist research and theory, it continues to be viewed
as a variable rather than as a theoretical category (Stacey and Thorne, 1985;
Smith, 1987) or paradigm (Lorber, 1994). Despite the central and fundamental
role of gender in all cultures and societies, outside the specific academic domain
of gender and migration, little attention has been directed toward gender relations
within the refugee and migration literature. For example, after reviewing a list
compiled by Loescher and Loescher (1994) consisting of over eighty primary
texts on refugee and displaced persons published over the last fifty years,
Nguyen-Gillham (1999) found that only one text focused specifically on refugee
women. While she acknowledged that the list was not exhaustive, she found that
“the category of woman is either disregarded altogether or treated as mere
footnotes within the majority of the texts” (p. 104).
Studying Gender and Immigration: Theoretical Approaches
It is noteworthy that studies of migration focused almost exclusively on
men, until the 1970s, when, with the rise of the feminist movement, feminist
scholars began to criticize the invisibility of women in sociological research
(Morokvasic, 1983; Buijs, 1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999; Gabaccia, 1992). The
immediate response was to fill in the gap by focusing on the experiences of
women, resulting in a body of “ women-only” literature. Several shifts have
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occurred in the literature since then. Initially, there was a shift away from virtually
ignoring women to adding women and treating gender as a variable, followed by
a shift to conceptualizing gender as a central theoretical category. More recently,
there has been a shift toward viewing gender as a constitutive element of
immigration that affects identities, practices and institutions (Hondagneu-Sotelo,
2003).
From the early 1980s through the early 1990s a considerable amount of
research focused on the experiences of women migrants (Martin, 1992; Buijs,
1993; Afkhami, 1994; Gabaccia, 1992; Simon and Bretell, 1986). Their work drew
attention to the invisibility of women while adding considerable knowledge and
paving the way for more inclusive studies on gender and migration.
However, despite the contribution of the “ women-only” framework, several
scholars have pointed out that this additive approach poses problems
(Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999; Pessar, 1999). First, it has resulted in a body of
literature that treats gender as a variable by focusing on the experiences of
immigrant women and men separately— that is, the experiences of men and
women are compared rather than analyzed as interrelated parts of a system
(Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999). This approach has “retarded our understanding of
how gender as a social system contextualizes migration processes for all
immigrants” (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999, p. 566). Second, the “women-only”
approach reflects dichotomous, linear thinking that views gender as a static
attribute rather than as a fluid and evolving practice.
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These criticisms led to a more complex understanding that recognizes
gender as one axis in a “matrix of domination” (Collins, 1990). Pierrette
Hondagneu-Sotelo captures this well when she argues that:
These correctives in gender and immigration scholarship mirror
general trends in feminist scholarship. In the past decade, feminist
scholarship has replaced the category of woman with a focus on
gender relations, and gender itself has been destabilized by the
recognition that a matrix of social relations structure social life.
(1999, p. 568).5
This represents a significant shift away from conceptualizing gender as
constituting complementary roles of men and women (sex role theory) to viewing
gender as a system that cannot be understood without recognizing that 1) gender
is intertwined with economic, political, and ideological structures; 2 ) race, class,
and gender are inextricably linked, 3) all institutions are gendered; and 4) gender
relations are characterized by an ongoing interplay of resistance and oppression.
It is the difference between viewing gender through a telescope and viewing
gender through a kaleidoscope. This non-linear way of conceptualizing gender
acknowledges that gender relations are not clear-cut; gender does not fall into
either/or categories. Instead, as recent scholarship has revealed, gender
relations are filled with contradictions and inconsistencies: it can simultaneously
be emancipatory and oppressive for women (Espiritu, 1999; Kurien, 1999;
Menjivar, 1999).
My research is aimed at continuing the difficult task of understanding and
unraveling the complexities surrounding gender relations. It responds to the call
for studies that move beyond the “ women-only” approach to locating “gender
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relations as a constitutive feature of the social, economic, and cultural
constellations that structure migration” (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999, p. 566).
Above all, recent scholarship on gender and immigration has revealed that
changes in gender are fluid, evolving, and complex. It is difficult to draw
conclusions about gender because men and women’s settlement experiences
are affected by a multitude of factors including contexts of exit and reception,
race, social class, age, education, language proficiency, religion, and legal
standing. Immigrants today are tremendously diverse.
With that said, recent scholarship, which indicates that gender is a
“constitutive element” of immigration that permeates all facets of life from
individual gendered identities and households on the micro level to gendered
institutions on the macro level, also reveals some distinctive gendered patterns
(Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2003). Many studies have found that male and female
immigrants experience gains and losses after settlement. Men are more likely to
experience downward mobility in their occupations, incomes, and public and
private status. As a result, relative to women, male migrants are more likely to
express a desire to return to their home country (Pedraza, 1991; Pessar and
Grasmuck, 1991). Women, on the other hand, while they tend to take on more
responsibilities in the absence of extended family and kin, often gain through
increased employment and educational opportunities.
Gender and Immigration: New Directions
In the early 1990s, scholars of immigration and gender challenged two
widely held views of the household: the “moral economy model” and the
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“household strategies model.” The moral economy model viewed households as
operating according to principles of consensus, harmony, and reciprocity, while
the household strategies model viewed households as economic units
unconstrained by external forces (Pessar, 1991). Critics charged that these
perspectives ignored the centrality of gender and patriarchy and called for an
examination of the ways in which gender relations in the family are
interconnected with community institutions and social networks (Grasmuck and
Pessar, 1991; Kibria, 1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994). More recently, feminist
scholars have expanded the scope of their analysis beyond the meso-level to
include less visibly gendered institutions on the macro-level (e.g. labor markets,
globalization, and the state) (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2003). This study adds to this
burgeoning body of literature by including macro-level modernity projects in the
purview of the analysis of gender and immigration.
Steve Gold (2003) argues that while much of the current research has
offered tremendous insight into gender and immigration, there are some notable
shortcomings. He argues that one of the shortcomings is that most of the recent
research on gender and immigration has focused on racial minorities from Latin
America, the Caribbean, and Asia, many of whom are working class labor
migrants and/or undocumented. In order to deepen our understanding of gender
and immigration, Gold calls for more research that includes the experiences of
immigrants who benefit from privileged positions derived from race, class, and
legal status.
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The gendered immigration and settlement experiences of Bosnian
Muslims promise to heed Gold’s call. Bosnians occupy an ambiguous position in
the U.S.— as white, European, and Muslim. Bosnians strongly identify as
European and Muslim, yet their authenticity as Muslim and European is often
challenged, as these two identities are viewed as mutually exclusive. Upon
entering the U.S. context, Bosnian Muslims assume a position of racial privilege,
which is very different than their experiences in Bosnia where there were few
racial minorities. However, as Muslims, Bosnians are immediately placed on the
lowest rung of the religious hierarchy in the U.S., occupying a highly stigmatized
status.6 For Bosnians, this religious status is somewhat mitigated by their race,
as common perceptions of Muslims in the U.S. do not include white Europeans.
In fact, Bosnian Muslims were more quickly identifiable as Muslims in the former
Yugoslavia, where their first and last names often revealed their religious
identity.7 Thus, examining the experiences of immigrants who are
simultaneously in a position of racial privilege and ethnic/religious marginalization
in the U.S. will add new insights about the complex processes of immigration.
An additional shortcoming of the gender and immigration literature is its
limited examination of the role of modernity in immigration, particularly how
pertains to gender and the experiences of refugees. In fact, the gender and
immigration literature has said surprisingly little about the intersection of gender,
modernity, and immigration. Modernity is clearly linked to immigration flows as
some scholars have pointed out (Portes and Rumbaut, 1997). However, there
has been little crossover between the immigration and modernity literatures, and
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while each informs the other to some degree, these two bodies of literature
remain largely disconnected. When including modernity in the analysis, the
broader immigration literature has primarily focused on more privileged
immigrants who have experienced dissonance between their aspirations and
reality in their own country. Less is known about the linkage between how
immigration and modernity among refugees who were forced to leave.
To bridge this gap, I converge the contributions from the gender and
immigration literature and the literature on gender and modernity. Both bodies of
literature have been marginalized within their broader fields where leading
scholars still tend to ignore gender when looking at immigration and modernity.
For Bosnians the lure of America certainly played a role. Far from being
strangers to American culture, they were saturated with American film, media,
and music. The majority of participants expressed disappointment over the
dissonance between their expectations of the U.S. and the harsh reality they
were confronted with upon arrival. Fleshing out how modernity and immigration
are linked for Bosnians will contribute to the literature.
Studying Discourse
For a working definition of “discursive,” I primarily draw from the work of
Frankenberg (1993) and Foucault (1972). In her research on the social
construction of whiteness, Frankenberg (1993) defines discourses as
“historically constituted bodies of ideas providing conceptual frameworks for
individuals, made material in the design and creation of institutions and shaping
daily practices, interpersonal interactions, and social relations” (p. 265). Foucault
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(1972) emphasizes power and discourse, defining discourse as practices that
follow social rules. He argues that discourse includes ideas and statements
conveyed through language and “language in action,” and that language
expresses and reveals ideologies. Discursive formations and ways of thinking
and acting evolve from the “epistemes” or the historical context in which one
lives, and are characterized by the institutions, disciplines, rules, and activities
with which one interacts. Things with a similar label do not necessarily mean the
same thing cross-culturally. Foucault argues that epistemes shape world-views
and discourse, and therefore, discursive formations and practices must be
analyzed in terms of their history or context. Both Frankenburg and Foucault
recognize that ideas and language are socially constructed and relational, and
are influenced by the social, political, and cultural structures in society. Thus, as
di Leonardo (1996) argues, in order to understand changes in gender relations,
we must first understand the political economy in which gender relations are
embedded.
Taking a Foucaultian approach acknowledges that knowledge and truth
are produced within “epistemes” and are embedded in power relations. The
groups with the most power in society usually set the dominant discourses.
Bosnian Muslims are coming from a homeland situation where, despite a
prevalent discourse of equality, their lives were often marked by inequality and
discrimination, particularly during the war.8 Similarly, here in the United States,
Bosnians experience prejudice and marginalization and clearly have little power
to influence social norms.
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An important set of discourses that needs to be examined are those of
modernity. I will briefly discuss the various ways that modernity is
conceptualized, and then follow it with a discussion of my position on modernity.
I will illustrate the embeddedness of gender, attempting to disentangle its
complexities.
Defining Modernity
Western theories of modernity, which date back to the Enlightenment,
were the focus of many early European sociologists, including Tonnies
(gemeinschaft and gesellschaft), Durkheim (mechanical and organic solidarity)
and Spencer (militant and industrial social types). More recently, Western
theories of modernity have been theorized by Foucault (1979) and Habermas
(1987).9 The central tenets of this thinking are that all societies, through the
process of industrialization, gradually change from traditional to modern.
Features of this linear, evolutionary model include capitalism, urbanization,
bureaucracy, secularization, science, freedom, universalism, education, gender
equality, democracy, and progress. Practices considered “old-fashioned” and
traditional in certain contexts are often viewed as backwards and inferior in
others.1 0 In this study I focus on several features of modernity that emerged as
most significant in Bosnian constructions of modernity. These include gender,
religion, urbanity, education, and consumption.
Despite the global dominance of the linear, Western model of modernity,
when we look cross-culturally, we find no universal theory; rather there are
multiple “modernities.” As Mills (1997) aptly states: “ The term ‘modernity’ refers
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not to an objective social reality but to a powerful field of popular discourse and
cultural production” which varies across time and space (p. 42). Similarly, Abu-
Lughod (1998), drawing from Paul Rabinow’s work, points out that “it is
impossible to define modernity; rather what one must do is track the diverse
ways the insistent claims to being modern are made” (p. 7). This approach to
modernity resonates with Foucault’s view of discursive formations as highly
variable and relative.
Conceptualizing Modernity: Multiple Modernities
There have been many critiques of the monolithic, evolutionary approach
to modernity. Although a thorough examination is beyond the scope of this study,
I will briefly summarize them in order to situate my position on modernity.
To describe the era following dramatic global changes that have
fundamentally altered societies and challenged popular perceptions of modernity,
many social scientists have adopted the term "post-modernity." As Anthony
Giddens points out, "the condition of post-modernity is distinguished by an
evaporating of the 'grand narrative'— the overarching 'story line' by means of
which we are placed in history as beings having a definite past and a predictable
future...the post-modern outlook sees a plurality of heterogeneous claims to
knowledge, in which science does not have a privileged place" (1990, p. 2).
While Giddens agrees with the post-modern critique of modernity, rather than
inventing a new lexicon, he calls for critical analysis of the global, dynamic, and
discontinuous nature of modernity. In this study I adopt Gidden's perspective.
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Western models of modernity have been sharply criticized for being Euro-
Americancentric— perpetuating “otherness,” assuming a point of “completion,”
ignoring temporal and spatial factors, universalizing, denying differences, and
overlooking instability and inconsistencies (Rofel, 1999). Recently, alternative
theories of modernity have sought to address some of these problems (Ong,
1997; Hefner, 1998; Rofel, 1999; Napolitano, 2002). Aihwa Ong (1997)
describes modernity as “an evolving process of imagination and practice in
particular historically situated formations” (p. 171). In her more recent work, Ong
(1999) argues that the emergence of alternative modernities throughout the world
“indicate[s] more forcefully than ever that modernity ‘is a matter of signification,’
in which forms associated with Western modernization are renamed in local
cultural contexts framed by an East-West opposition” (p. 54).
Rofel’s (1999) analysis of modernity adds to Ong’s by emphasizing the
instabilities and disjunctures contained within forms of modernity. Rofel
challenges the commonly held assumption that global modernity processes result
in monolithic practices and effects. Napolitano (2002) refers to alternative
modernities as vernacular, emphasizing how modernities emerge from an
interplay between state-imposed modernity projects and the multiple
interpretations, contestations, and resistances to it. She argues that "what has
emerged from this process of resistance and reshaping is not only preserved
tradition, but a local reshaping of modernity...which subtly displace[s] dominant
and national narratives" (p. 12).
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Modernity Projects
In their theory of racial formation, Omi and Winant (1994) define racial
projects as historically situated undertakings that are "simultaneously an
interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to
reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines" (p. 56). They
go on to say that "racial projects connect what race means in a particular
discursive practice and the ways in which both social structures and everyday
experiences are racially organized, based upon that meaning" (p. 56). I argue
that Omi and Winant's theory on racial projects is applicable to modernity
projects imposed by the state (e.g., education, gender equality, secularization).
Like racial projects, modernity projects are prescriptions imposed and enforced
by the state that are met with both accommodation and resistance (or as Omi
and Winant put it, clash and compromise). Also, as with race, there is no
universal theory of modernity; rather, there are multiple constructions arising from
particular social contexts.
In his work on Turkish modernity, Michael Meeker (2002) situates projects
of modernity within the apparatus of the state, arguing that such projects attempt
to institutionalize behaviors and practices (e.g., through education) and generate
a collective national identity by drawing together peoples of diverse backgrounds.
In her examination of modernity projects in China, Lisa Rofel (1999) also places
modernity projects within the purview of the state and attempts to tease out the
"gaps, fissures, and instabilities" contained within them. Both Meeker and Rofel
challenge the popular notion that modernity represents a "noncontiguous break
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with what it constructs as the irrationalities of tradition" (Rofel, 1999, p. 11), and
argue instead that legacies of tradition are infused in modernity.
Modernity and Religion: Muslim and Modern?
Secularization theory lies at the heart of Western, hegemonic views of
modernity (Hefner, 1998). It is widely believed that through modernization,
religion is replaced by science and reason. Yet there is an abundance of
evidence to the contrary— in the Western world and beyond. Hefner (1998)
points out that although secularization is a real social force in many Western
countries, a close examination reveals great variations in degrees of
secularization. He demonstrates that religion, widely perceived in modern
societies as a private matter, continues to play a public role throughout the
Western world, particularly in the U.S., where a "marketplace competition" of
religions has "spurred galloping sectarianism and fierce denominational rivalries"
(1998, p. 88). In his examination of the Muslim world, Hefner illustrates the
plurality of modernities and the multiple forms and practices of Islam. As with
practices of Christianity in the U.S., the practices of Islam are marked by
fragmentation and pluralism. Just as it is possible to be modern and Christian,
so one can be modern and Muslim.
Bosnian Muslims strongly identify as modern and Muslim, but most go to
great lengths to prove their modernity. This makes sense in light of the fact that
their religion is continually portrayed as the antithesis of modernity, as well as by
the fact that Muslims have been found by opinion polls to be the most disliked
religious group in America (Hasan, 2002). For Bosnians, this tension of
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modernity is worsened by the knowledge that religion was at the heart of the war
in Bosnia, further eroding their legitimacy as "being modern."
Modernity and Gender
Although on the surface, discourses of modernity do not seem to pertain
explicitly to gender, it has been shown that, in fact, gender is “embedded” within
discourses of modernity (di Leonardo, 1991). Rofel (1999) views gender as
central: “Rather than being one factor to be considered in or added to discourse
of modernity, it is formative of relations of power in visions of what constitutes
modernity” (p. 4).
To take the argument further, gender and the social position of women are
inextricably linked with modernity and modernization (Gole, 1996; Ong, 1997;
Stivens, 1998; Rofel, 1999; Roces & Edwards, 2000), because, as Roces and
Edwards argue, modernity is not gender neutral (2000). Western hegemonic
discourses of modernity include the popular perception that modern societies
feature equality between men and women and that modernity is equated with
women’s emancipation and liberalization, an assumption that saturates both
socialist and democratic ideologies. Deniz Kandiyoti (1997) points out that
“sexuality, family relations, and gender identities came to occupy a central place
in discourses about modernity” (p. 115).
For Muslims, this idea is compounded by the pervasive view in the West
that Islam is a monolithic religion diametrically opposed to modernization and
equal rights for women. In fact, as Watson (1994) points out, “the veil is variously
depicted as a tangible symbol of women’s oppression, a constraining and
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constricting form of dress, and a form of social control” (p. 141). Drawing from di
Leonardo’s analysis, Gole argues that gender is embedded in constructions of
Western modernity and Islamism: “Islamist identity, constructed in gendered
terms, cannot be separated from the perceptions and constructions of Western
modernity” (1996, p. 3). And later: “ The question of women lies at the center of
the modernization mentality, which favored the Western notion of universality in
opposition to tradition, and particularly Islam (1996, p. 29). Gole argues that “the
position of women is the determining factor...framing the existing dualities, such
as Islam/the West, traditional/modern, equality/difference, and
mahrem/namehrem (private/public)” (p. 30).
Modernity. Gender, and Consumerism
Consumerism is one of the primary features differentiating modernity in
the U.S. from that in the former Yugoslavia. Of course Bosnians were
consumers in their home country, but their choices for goods and services and
their access to credit increased substantially in the capitalist, consumer-oriented
culture of the U.S.
Consumption serves several purposes for Bosnians in the U.S. By
purchasing material goods, Bosnians simultaneously use consumerism as a
means of incorporating into American culture and modernity (e.g., purchasing
cars, homes), as a way of maintaining aspects of Bosnian modernity that they
view as superior to U.S. modernity (e.g., dress), and to differentiate themselves
from Bosnians whom they view as lower class.
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Many researchers point out that consumerism is gendered, in terms of
space and activities (e.g., beauty salons, department stores) and products (e.g.,
cosmetics, cleaning supplies, clothes). In her historical analysis of modernity and
gender, Rita Felski argues that "the expansion of consumerism...blurred
public/private distinctions, as middle-class women moved out into the public
spaces of the department store and the world of mass-produced goods in turn
invaded the interiority of the home" (1995, p. 19). Similarly, Mica Nava argues
that historically, department stores have served as a public space in which "the
everyday lives of large numbers of ordinary women were most deeply affected by
the process of modernity" (1996, p. 46). And Haejoang (2002) refers to
department stores as the main playground for young housewives in Korea.1 1
Through massive advertising and commodification, consumer modernity
promises women (but doesn’t always deliver) power, freedom, equality, and
sexual attractiveness. In their research in Korea, Lee (2002) and Haejoang
(2002) analyze the impact of market-driven consumerism on gender and
modernity, specifically the commodification of sexual attractiveness. In her
historical analysis of Mexican Americans in the 1920s and 1930s, Vicki Ruiz
describes the "orchestration of desire" by mass media that infiltrated many
second generation Mexican women and promised middle-class status through
the acquisition of material goods (1993, p. 112).
As it is with gender, consumerism is intertwined with social class and
urbanity. Lee (2002) and Haejoang (2002) argue that symbols of modernity are
used acquire status and to validate membership in a modern middle-class. My
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own research shows that Bosnians use symbols of modernity (e.g., clothes,
modern appliances) to dissociate themselves from those whom they view as
unmodern (e.g., rural peasants).
Overview of Dissertation
In the following chapter I will present an historical overview of modernity
projects in Bosnia and the United States, followed by the methodology. In
Chapter Three I will examine the discursive constructions of modernity and
equality. In Chapters Four and Five, I will examine gender, modernity, and
changes in the public and private realms. In Chapter Six, I will examine gender,
dress, and modernity, and I will summarize the dissertation findings in Chapter
Seven.
1 According to the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, they have resettled
945 Bosnians between FFY 1994-1998, and the total for FFY 1999 as of
10/19/99 was 272.
2 Although I focus exclusively on how gender is changing in the US, I also
recognize that these changes are intertwined with changes occurring throughout
the world, especially in Bosnia, where rapid changes are occurring. To cover the
multitude of factors affecting these changes is beyond the scope of this study.
3 Mahler (1999) argues that reconstructing a baseline after the fact is problematic
because it yields suggestive rather than conclusive data. I attempted to minimize
this by collecting observational data and conducting informal interviews in Bosnia
in May, 2000, prior to beginning my research in Vermont.
4 Sewell draws from Giddens’ (1984) conception of rules when defining schemas
as “fundamental tools of thought, but also the various conventions, recipes,
scenarios, principles of action, and habits of speech and gesture built up with
these fundamental tools” (1992, p. 8).
5 See King (1988) and Collins (1991) for an early analysis of the importance of
moving beyond the additive model to an interactive model of understanding
gender.
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6 The majority of this research was conducted prior to 9/11/01, which may have
intensified the stigma.
7 However, it is important to point out that neither first nor last names always
indicate one's religion or ethnicity.
8 Participants in this study lived in areas occupied by Serbs or Croats during the
war.
9 The modernity theories proposed by Foucault (1979) and Habermas (1987) are
very different, and they disagree strongly on modernity’s potential. See Nancy
Fraser (1989) for an analysis of Foucault vs. Habermas (pp. 35-38).
1 0 Modernity theories have been challenged and deconstructed by postmodern
and postcolonial theories. In this analysis, I am not endorsing theories of
modernity. An examination of this is beyond the scope of this study. See Grewal
and Kaplan (1994) for a pointed critique of modernity theories.
1 1 See Hilton and Daunton (2001, p. 7) for more information about the gendered
aspects of consumption and shopping.
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Chapter Two: Shifting Modernities & Research Methodology
As discussed in Chapter One, there are myriad forms of modernity that
vary by context. In some countries, such as the United States, where modernity
grew out of Enlightenment principles, modernity projects emphasize rationalism,
secularism, capitalism, democracy, education, technology, and individualism. In
others, modernity is primarily about improving the standard of living through
education and technology without compromising tradition or adopting the other
principles. Modernity projects in the U.S. and Bosnia have very different origins
and histories. To understand changing gender relations among Bosnian Muslims
in the U.S., it is important to examine how the shifting terrain of modernity and
opportunity structures are influencing changes in definitions of home, family,
work, and public life.
When comparing the modernity projects in the U.S. and Bosnia/the former
Yugoslavia1, there are notable commonalities as well as differences. In both
countries, the driving force behind state-imposed modernity emphasized
progress through industrialization, urbanization, education and literacy, gender
equality, technology, secularism, democracy, and militarization. In both
countries, antimodernist sentiments and practices challenge the modernity
projects of the state, causing tensions among citizens and between them and the
state. In other words, while modernity projects imposed by the state represent a
powerful structural force which affects the lives of individuals, within these
definitions of modernity, people express agency by challenging them.
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Andrei Simic (1988) argues that beyond the cosmetic similarities of
modern buildings, traffic jams, Western media and fashion, lies different value
orientations in the U.S. and the former Yugoslavia. In contrast to the core values
of self-determination, independence, and individualism ingrained in U.S.
modernity, in the former Yugoslavia the values underlying modernity were more
in line with traditional familial obligations, emphasizing interdependence,
personalism, and reciprocity. Moreover, the differences in the explicit economic
ideologies of the U.S. and Bosnia (e.g. capitalism and socialism) led to immense
differences in the shaping of modernity projects in each country. Thus, “being
modern” means very different things in Bosnia and the U.S. Despite these vast
differences, Bosnia and the U.S. do not stand in direct opposition to each other;
rather modernity projects in the U.S. are overlapping with similarities and
differences.
There are several goals of this chapter. In order to contextualize the
findings of this study, I will first provide an historical synopsis of the meta
narratives surrounding modernity, gender, and religion in Bosnia, as articulated
by policies and practices of the state.2 Then I will provide a summary of
modernity projects in the U.S. and Bosnia. I will follow this with a brief
comparison of modernity project outcomes in Bosnia and the United States, and I
will conclude the chapter with my research methodology.
Modernity and Bosnia
Bosnia, which covers an area of 19,741 square miles, roughly the size of
Vermont and New Hampshire combined (18,893 square miles), is a mountainous
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country in the center of the Balkan Peninsula; it is bordered by Croatia to its west
and north, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to its east, and Montenegro to its
southeast (to its southwest is the Adriatic Sea). From 1945 until the collapse of
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in 1991, Bosnia was the second
poorest of the six republics that made up SFRY.3 Today, Bosnia remains one of
the poorest countries in Europe.
Bosnia has been described as being on the border of two worlds (Europe
and Asia), and as Simic (1983) points out, this juxtaposition of East and West is
so omnipresent in Bosnia that it doesn’t elude even the casual visitor. Indeed,
the very geographic and cultural location of Bosnia challenges the dichotomy
between East and West.
A long period of nationalist struggles and imperial domination in Bosnia
and the former Yugoslavia have left a lasting imprint of diverse languages,
customs, and religions on South Slavic culture. In 1463 the Turkish Ottoman
Empire conquered the Kingdom of Bosnia, which had existed since the Middle
Ages, and remained in power until 1878, when Bosnia was again conquered and
subsumed within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As the site of many political and
ideological divisions, the region has been called “a storm centre for centuries on
the border of Eastern and Western worlds” (Edwards, 1977, p. 7, in Andric,
1977). The unique history of this region has resulted in a complex and unique
form of modernization.4
Modernity is not new to Bosnia. In fact, the Ottoman Empire imposed its
own version of modernity; its legacy can still be seen today throughout Bosnia in
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its mosques, architecture, traditions, food, and language. One need only walk
along the corridors of Old Town Sarajevo (the bascarsija) to observe the lasting
impact of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established in 1945 and
remained a country until its disintegration in 1992. SFRY was led by Tito, a
Soviet-trained communist, whose full name was Josip Broz. During WWII, Tito
led a resistance movement in which he called for the elimination of Serb-
dominated monarchy and advocated that it be replaced with a post-war
communist Yugoslavia consisting of a federation of nations (Rogel, 1998). From
1945 to 1948, the SFRY was a satellite of the USSR, supervised by the
Cominform, the communist international organization controlled by the USSR
under Joseph Stalin (Rogel, 1998).
In 1948, differences between Tito and Stalin led to the expulsion of the
SFRY from the Cominform. From this point on, SFRY began to develop its own
brand of socialism, sometimes referred to as “ Titoism.” The two main features of
Titoism were workers’ self-management and nonalignment in the international
community (Johnson, 1972; Rogel, 1998).5 After the split, SFRY Yugoslavia
retained some of the Cominform policies including the socialist revolution
(referred to as the “people’s revolution” or “people’s democracy”) and the “Five-
Year Plan” (Johnson, 1972). The policies of the SFRY were explicitly modernist:
they included the socialization of agriculture through cooperatives6; land reform;
equality among workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia; modernization of the
Yugolsav army; and rapid and forced industrialization aimed at “closing the gap
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between itself and the advanced industrial nations” (Johnson, 1972, p. 36). In
addition gender equality, secularism, and socialist democracy were emphasized.
SFRY was explicitly anti-capitalist and the policies of the state equated capitalism
with imperialism while regarding socialism as progressive (Johnson, 1972). In
the interest of creating a secular society in which people would identify
themselves as Yugoslav above a religious or ethnic/national identity, certain
religious practices were banned by the government, including the wearing of the
veil by Muslim women (Slapsak, 1997).
One of Tito’s legacies is that he ruled “ with a strong hand, ever mindful of
balancing the country’s political and national elements” (Rogel, 1998, p. 12).
After his death in 1980, the economic and political stability of SFRY began to
erode steadily. This was also the time period when Communism was under
attack throughout Eastern Europe. Beginning with Poland, communist bloc
countries— East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, the
Soviet Union— also began to denounce communism and restructure their
economies and governments.7 With Tito gone, there was no leader to sustain
Yugoslavia through this tumultuous time. Dissension reigned within Yugoslavia
about how to proceed. Unemployment and inflation soared in this precarious
climate. Amidst the bitter tensions and struggles that resurfaced, nationalist
movements gained momentum, which led to independence movements and
eventually to war and the dissolution of SFRY.
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Lingering Traditionalism in Bosnia
Simic (1991) argues that despite the symbols of modernization that had
transformed much of post-WWII Yugoslavia, a “lingering traditionalism” left
Yugoslavia lagging far behind the visible modern economic and industrial
changes. Several scholars have attributed this traditionalism or “partial
modernization” (Adam, 1992) to the relatively recent modernization of the former
Yugoslavia as well as to the cultural codes and value orientations that lie at the
core of Yugoslav culture. The former Yugoslavia has been described as an
intermediate society in which both modern and traditional elements coexist
(Adam, 1992; Simic, 1988). Compared to Western Europe and the United
States, Yugoslavia’s social and economic transition occurred radically and rapidly
(Simic, 1988; Crnkovic, 1999). Simic (1988) argues that “the result of this rapid
demographic and economic metamorphosis has been that the outward symbols
of urban industrial life have proven much easier to acquire than the underlying
values that we Americans usually associate with it” (p. 39).
The recent wars devastated much of the progress that had been made,
and almost a decade later, the modern infrastructure of Bosnia— schools,
mosques, museums, libraries, roads, bridges— remains largely in ill repair. In
May 2000, while I was driving into Sarajevo on the main artery into the city, the
streets were lined with bombed-out buildings.8 The economy, in transition from
socialist to capitalist, is struggling, with unemployment estimated to be 35-40%.
As of this writing, Slovenia is the only republic of the former Yugoslavia that is a
candidate for membership in the European Union.
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Gender. Modernity, and the State
Several scholars have argued that practice lagged far behind the rhetoric
of gender equality in modern Yugoslavia. Morokvasic (1986) maintained that,
while the socialist revolution in Yugolsavia brought industrialization and
modernization, “the gap between the achievement and recognition of women in
public life and the position of women in the private domain remain[ed] very large”
(p. 121). This perspective is echoed by Ramet (1999) who points out that the
socialist rhetoric emphasizing gender equality was filled with contradictions.
Gender inequality was a pervasive problem despite the fact that just the opposite
represented a formal and explicit policy of the modernization projects in post-
VWVII Yugoslavia, and was guaranteed by the first postwar constitution in 1946:
Women enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of state economic and
social life. Women are entitled to a salary equal to that of men for the
same work, and enjoy special protection in the labour relationship. The
state particularly protects the welfare of mother and child by the
establishment of maternity hospitals, children’s homes and day nurseries,
and by ensuring the right to paid leave before and after confinement
(Djuricand Dragicevic, 1965, p. 10, quoted in Ramet, 1999, p. 9 4 )9
The “lingering traditionalism” in terms of gender can be explained in part
by the legacy of patrimonial social and economic relations (zadruga) that were
common throughout Yugoslavia (except Slovenia), in which upon marriage, the
woman moved into her husband’s extended family household (Adam, 1992;
Simic, 1983; Morokvasic, 1986). While the zadruga family structure has virtually
disappeared as a result of rapid modernization, scholars point out its underlying
value orientations (e.g. collectivism) underlying this family structure remain in
place (Simic, 1983; Morokvasic, 1986; Adam, 1992). The reciprocal ties linking
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family members are intense and differ substantially from family ties in the U.S.
Simic points out that, “ As the product of a long history of corporate and anti-
individualistic ideology, the contemporary Yugoslav family thus stands in sharp
opposition to the ideal of the independent nuclear household so familiar to most
Americans” (1983, p. 70).
Simic (1983) argues that one would be shortsighted to conclude that the
former Yugoslavia was a pure patriarchy. In fact, he argues that upon closer
inspection, Yugoslav familial relations illustrate that it is problematic to
dichotomize patriarchy and matriarchy. Consistent with other anthropological
research in the former Yugoslavia, Simic found that “the apparent patriarchal
nature of the family and the society as a whole is more a public than a private
fact, and because of this the important affectual power of women is obscured”
(1983, p. 68). Denich (1974) refers to this as a “patrilineal paradox” in which the
formal sex/gender system “denies the... existence of women, while at the same
time group survival depends on them” (quoted in Simic, 1983, p. 80). In other
words, while Yugoslav culture appears overtly patriarchal on the surface (e.g.
overt public displays of masculinity), in reality women wield considerable power
within the private realm, and this power increases throughout the life course as
they marry, bear children, and become grandparents. Women’s ascendancy in
status as they age relates to the mother/son bond, which is traditionally much
stronger than the husband/wife bond. Upon the death of a husband’s mother,
wife’s status increases substantially.
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The tenacity of the traditional sex/gender system in the face of state-
imposed modernization highlights the important role of culture and agency in
shaping gender relations. Modernization led to the demise of the zadruga, yet
the cultural patterns on which it was based remained intact. Simic (1983) found
evidence of these traditional patterns even in urban settings, where families
experienced the most rapid change and disruption.
Similarly, Morokvasic (1986) argues that while women’s lives have
improved as a result of socialist policies, “the old inequalities and values in the
relations between men and women have persisted” (p. 121). For example, in the
post WWII years, state policies and practices led to dramatic increases in
women’s rates of literacy, education, and work force participation. For example,
the illiteracy rate, which stood at 84% in 1931, had dropped to 28.8% by 1961. In
addition, the Yugoslav government introduced liberal policies regarding divorce,
abortion, and paid maternity leave (Ramet, 1999). But, although the
institutionalization of gender equality did result in advancement for women in
these areas, evidence suggests that women still lagged far behind men in both
public and private realms (Morokvasic, 1986).
Islam and the Yugoslav State
When examining modernity in Bosnia, it is essential to include a
discussion of Islam. In the U.S., as in many parts of the Western world, Islam is
viewed as the antithesis of modernity, and Muslims are assumed to be anti
modern on the basis of their religious identity.
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Before the recent war in Bosnia, many Americans were not aware that
Islam was practiced there. Mark Pinson (1994) points out that this lack of
awareness extended to other countries as well, including many in the Arab world,
even persisted among some scholars of Islamic studies. In my research, I found
that a majority of the texts on Islam did not include the Balkans. The widespread
perception is that Bosnians are not “real Muslims”— they are often described
either as European but not really Muslim or as Muslim but not really European
(Bringa, 1995); an attitude which gives salience to the East/West dichotomy.
Another reason for the misconception may lie in the policies of Yugoslavia itself,
by which “the postwar government seemed to expect Muslims to declare
themselves as either Serbs or Croats” (Friedman, 1996).1 0
As Werner Schiffauer points out, “An underlying notion in the sociology of
religion of Weber (1973a, b) and Troestsch (1922) is the idea that religion is a
dynamic phenomenon. Religion is not to be understood as a static and coherent
system of symbols, but rather as an ongoing process of constructing a world
view” (1997, p. 156). To understand the meaning of Islam for Bosnians,
therefore, we must examine the historical, geographical, social, and political
contexts in which they lived. One must acknowledge that religion is socially
constructed and that, as with gender, so its meanings and manifestations vary by
context and are subject to change. Bringa points out that this rigid
dichotomization of who is and who isn’t a real Muslim reflects “the views of
people who are in a position to define what is ‘correct’” (1995, p. 229). Similarly,
in his critique of “essentialist” views of Islam, Eikelman argues that such an
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approach “neglects attention to the historical conditions, which favor the
emergence of particular institutional arrangements or beliefs over alternative
coexisting ones” (1989, p. 262 quoted in Bringa, p. 229).
One element of the unique practice of Islam in Bosnia resulted from the
socialist ideology towards religion there. Bringa points out that while Tito was in
power, “Bosnians were discouraged from experiencing the dynamics and
relevance of Islam in their everyday lives and community” (1995, p. 197).
Although the practice of religion was not forbidden (and was even supported by
the government in some ways), religion was seen as a private matter, secondary
to one’s loyalty and commitment to the state and to being a Yugoslav citizen
(Bringa, 1995). This is illustrated by remarks by a political representative at a
ceremony commemorating the opening of a new mosque: “During Ramadan,
whenever a person was faced with a choice between fasting or working, s/he
should work, because this would benefit the wider society” (Bringa, 1995, p. 200).
I am interested in religion insofar as it affects changes in gender relations
among Bosnian Muslims who resettle in Vermont. In order to understand the
relationship between gender and religion, I must also consider changes in
religious identity and practices. Bringa states that “ war changes people and that
it changes their perception of who they are. As a reaction to and part of the
process of war and the politics behind it, many Bosnian Muslims are redefining
both the content and function of their collective identities, and identifying with a
wider world community of Muslims than ever before” (1995, pp. 197-198). That
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said, I am going turn to a discussion about what “being Muslim” means for many
Bosnians, and then I will discuss gender and Islam in Bosnia.
Islam and Bosnian Muslims
Islam was brought to Bosnia with the Ottoman Empire, and most Bosnian
Muslims can trace their roots to South Slavic ancestors who converted to Islam.
With such deep roots in Bosnia, Islam is the “moral system on which a Muslim
collective identity is based” (Bringa, 1995, p. 7). Yet the practice of Islam in
Bosnia does differ from that in other regions around the world in some significant
and interesting ways.
Bosnian Muslims do not typically reflect or adhere to traditional Islamic
codes in speech or dress. With the exception of religious leaders and scholars,
most Bosnian Muslims knowledge of Arabic is limited to some prayers, and they
are more likely to know Turkish than Arabic. Although many have Arabic-derived
first names, their names have been filtered through Turkish and sometimes Farsi
(Simic, personal communication) In terms of dress, there is a big difference
between generations and rural and urban styles. Young, urban Bosnian Musilms
tend to dress in accordance with Western standards. This stems from
modernization projects of the socialist government and the country’s geographic
location, and their exposure to Western media and popular culture. In addition,
contrary to many Muslims in Middle Eastern countries, Bosnian Muslims come
from a secular society where there is a formal separation of religion and state.
Similar to the way that Yugoslavia has formulated its own brand of
socialism (Titoism), so it has with Islam. In her research Bringa (1995) found
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considerable overlap in how Muslims, Serbs, and Croats celebrated religious
holidays. For example, many Muslims in the mixed Muslim/Catholic villages in
central Bosnia celebrated the Christian feast day of Jurjev (St. George’s day).
“Bosnian Muslims were (and are) familiar with all the holy days celebrated by
their Orthodox and Catholic compatriots. They used both the hijri (Islamic)
calendar and days the Christian one, and often reckoned time according to
Christian feast days” (Bringa, 1995, p. 225). Yet the Muslim practice of Jurjev is
constructed as both a Muslim and Christian custom. Although many Bosnian
Muslims, critical of “mixing religions,” would disapprove of such practices, the
existence of it demonstrates the fluidity of the meanings and symbols attached to
religion. When showing me pictures from Bosnia, the majority of families in this
study had pictures of decorated holiday trees and pictures of children with Santa
Claus.1 1
Similarly, Bringa found that a Muslim identity is not always an Islamic
identity. This can be compared to the experiences of Jews in the U.S. For some,
being Jewish is a religious identity, centered around religious doctrine, beliefs,
and practices. By contrast, for secular Jews, their Jewish identity, although it is
every bit as strong, may center around their cultural and ethnic heritage. In a
similar way, Muslim identity in Bosnia is intertwined with a national identity, which
has created an element of ambiguity over the term Muslim.1 2 Some consider
themselves Muslim in a secular, national way that distinguishes them from Serbs
and Croats; being Muslim for others is adherence to the doctrines of Islam.
Besides being intertwined, these identities can also be fused and can vary
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according to context. Bringa describes the two levels of Muslim identity in
Bosnia:
In Bosnia Islam attaches people to two symbolic communities, each
different in content, function, and scale. On the one hand Islam (as
cultural heritage, historical legacy, a set of practices and moral
values) binds people together in a community of Bosnian Muslims
(with the emphasis on Bosnian, as opposed to Serbian, Croatian,
and the like, and on Muslim as opposed to Catholic or Orthodox
Bosnian). On the other hand it unites them with a community of
Muslims worldwide (the Islamic umma) as opposed to non-Muslims
(1995, p. 197).
With the exception of a small minority of elite Bosnian Muslims who would
send their children to be educated in Middle Eastern Islamic schools, Bringa
found that the majority identified with the first symbolic identification. However,
there is some evidence of a revival of Islam among Bosnian Muslims worldwide.
This may be in response to years of marginalization in the former Yugoslavia, as
well as to persecution during the recent wars.
Gender and Islam
Much has been written about gender and Islam, in general— in large part,
the misogynistic practices of this religion (e.g. veiling of women, polygamy), but
also its positive aspects (e.g. the veil as a way to avoid objectification, the
benefits of arranged marriages). The treatment of women within Islam is beyond
the scope of this paper. Unfortunately, and because of the factors already
discussed, little has been written about its application to Bosnian Muslims. For
example, in the highly acclaimed work about gender and Islam by Mernissi
(1987), she includes “ A Note to the Western Reader” in which, assuming that
such a reader is not Muslim, she treats Muslims and Westerners as mutually
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exclusive. Moreover, little of the academic literature on Islam includes European
Muslims, and that little essentially ignores gender. Even among the recent
research that has focused specifically on Bosnian Muslims, with some
exceptions, most of this literature has also ignored gender. In this section, I will
discuss the limited research that has addressed the role of women in Islam
among Bosnian Muslims.
In traditional Islamic practice, strict rules regulate the separation of men
and women within the mosque. In Bosnia, it was common for women to enter
through the front door with the men and to sit with them during the religious
service. However, only men attended the Friday prayers, in some mosques men
and women were segregated, with men in the front and women in the back
(Bringa, 1995). Bringa (1995) found some variation in the expectations and
behavior of men and women depending on whether the mosque was located in a
rural or urban area, but in both areas men were more likely to be in leadership
positions. Although women were not always treated equally, in general Bringa
(1995) found that “Muslim women in Bosnia have access to the mosque to an
extent which would be unusual in most of the Islamic world” (p. 201).
Bringa also noted that among children, girls and boys would both attend
religious school, but that only boys were expected to learn to pray dzuma (Friday
noon prayers in the mosque). Observing that the most common religious symbol
in Islamic homes was a picture of a girl in a head scarf praying, Bringa suggested
that it “was a girl and not a boy who thus represented Islam as the moral and
ideological counterpart to areligous ‘Yugoslavism’” (1995, p. 10). Furthermore,
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women and girls played a pivotal role “in the construction and maintenance of a
collective Muslim identity anchored in Islam” (ibid.).
Interestingly, Bringa (1995) found that following WWII, women were
permitted to attend the secondary schools (medresas) that prepared men and
women to become Islamic teachers, but women and men were trained to perform
different tasks, and upon graduation women often encountered obstacles finding
employment as bulas (female religious instructor). Bringa claims that “the local
hodzas [a male Islamic teacher] and the village mosque councils doubtless
perceived these women who refused the marginal status of their female
predecessors as a challenge to learned male authority in local religious life” (p.
211).
Based on Bringa’s research it appears that the practice of Islam in Bosnia,
while more egalitarian than elsewhere, is rooted in patriarchal practices and
beliefs. The findings should be read with caution since Bringa’s research is
based on a small village in Bosnia. It is possible that Islam is practiced differently
in more urban areas.
Gender Relations in Public/Private Space in Bosnia
Several scholars have noted that when studying gender and immigration,
it is important to study the cultures of origin and the way gender is constructed
within them (Buijs, 1993; Simon and Bretell, 1986; Phizacklea, 1983; Morokvasic,
1983). Buijs advises that we should “distinguish between status and roles at the
level of ideology and status and roles in practice as the two do not always
coincide” (1993, p. 10). Morokvasic (1986) discusses the gap between socialist
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ideology and the actual conditions of women in the former Yugoslavia, and
argues that although women had gained legal rights, and access to an education
and career through the socialist revolution, gender inequality and patriarchal
gender relations persisted, particularly in the private sphere where women often
worked a “double day.”1 3 For Bosnian Muslim women who practiced Islam, this
inequality may have been compounded by the patriarchal belief system of Islam.
For example, Zalihic-Kaurin (1994) suggests that the adherence to traditional
Islamic beliefs prevented some Bosnian Muslim women from pursuing a higher
education or career.
However, several scholars point out that there are many variations of
women’s status within Bosnia, depending on geographic location (rural or urban),
age, and commitment to socialism (Simic, 1983; Morokvasic, 1986; Zalihic-
Kaurin, 1994; Nguyen-Gillham, 1999). For example, Morokvasic states, “[In
1971] Yugoslavia had one of the highest rates in the world of university-educated
women; yet at the same time, a quarter of the female population was illiterate....
In such a context, any attempt at generalization may appear misplaced and
useless” (1986, p. 121 ).1 4 Some scholars, noting the geographic factor, have
pointed out that with increased urbanization and modernization, many of the
youth of Bosnia migrated to the cosmopolitan urban areas, where they are
exposed to a more secular, urbanized, and consumer-oriented Western way of
life (Mertus and Tesanovic, 1997).
In the same way, Simic (1983) points out that power dynamics between
men and women in Yugoslavia took many forms, and that to “speak simplistically
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of male dominance and female submissiveness obscures the intricacies and
subtleties of the sociocultural process” (p. 84). Simic (1983) also calls attention
to the pitfalls of constructing patriarchy and matriarchy as mutually exclusive
categories; he asserts that male and female power relations change throughout
the life course in Yugoslavia, with men possessing more power in their younger
years, and women gaining more power later in life in their roles as mothers and
grandmothers. Findings from this study suggest that the dynamic of women
gaining power and men losing power as they age continues after migration;
however, the means through which women gain power relative to men have
changed. Men's power decreases in the U.S. largely as a result of downward
mobility and a loss of public life while women's power increases through
language acquisition, education, and work.
Nguyen-Gillham found that following the war, “segments within Bosnian
society have shown considerable interest in preserving Islamic patriarchal
traditions and are following more closely the teachings of the Koran” (1999, p.
42). Under the communist government in the former Yugoslavia, gender
relations were shaped by a multitude of factors including the socialist and
modernist ideologies, traditional patriarchal ideologies with deep roots in the
Balkans, and Western media. The research to date suggests that there were
huge variations in gender relations and gender equality in Bosnia prior to the war.
Regarding the question of patriarchal values, Svetlana Slapsak (1997)
examined the ways in which women were invented and depicted in oral
traditions. Some scholars have focused on the legacy of the zajednica or
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zadruge, a patrilineal extended family system in which women were expected to
live with their husbands’ families, where they acquired the lowest status in the
household, and were expected to obey their mothers-in-law (Simic, 1983;
Mokovasic, 1986; Bringa, 1995). While the patrilineally-based household
composition has eroded dramatically in Bosnia over the last fifty years with the
advent of wage labor, modern education, and the decline in agriculture, its legacy
remains. Mokovasic (1986) and Simic (1983) argue that while people are far less
likely to live in an extended family system today, the patriarchal values on which
the zajednica was based are still alive in the nuclear family.
Bringa (1995) found that one of the most important responsibilities of
women was to sustain the moral values of the home. While men were viewed as
the builders and material providers of the home, women were seen as the moral
guardians who sustained the household and socialized the children. The
external structure of the home represented the men’s hard work, while the
interior of the home represented women’s moral worth, with an emphasis placed
on morality, industriousness and cleanliness (Bringa, 1995; Nguyen-Gillham,
1999). Women were expected to take care of the household, and for those
women who worked outside of the home, this resulted in working what
Morokvasic (1986) calls a “double day.” These values were passed on to the
children; girls were socialized to help their mothers with household chores while
boys were given more privileges and were not expected to do much around the
house (Bringa, 1995).
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Bringa (1995) found that there were two major status changes in a
woman’s life: becoming a wife and becoming a mother. Although men
experienced a shift in status upon marriage, Bringa found that the change in
status and the accompanying expectations were more dramatic for women. “The
bride occupies an intermittent status between a girl and a woman. She only
becomes woman when she has proven herself as a wife and above all mother”
(Bringa, 1995, p. 100). Women gained more power as wives and mothers, they
were expected to dress more conservatively, to represent the moral unity of the
household, to be knowledgeable about sex and sexuality. They were expected
to be virgins when they married, and to engage in ritual washing after sexual
intercourse. Simic (1983) also found that the improved status of wives and
mothers was reflected in three important dyadic relationships: husband/wife,
mother/son, and mother-in-law/daughter-in law.
Bringa (1995) found that many of the women married at a young age,
often at seventeen or in some cases, even earlier. In contrast, a young man was
not considered to be marriageable until he completed his service in the Yugoslav
People’s Army, which he was required to join at the age of eighteen. Thus it is
common for a husband to be several years older than his wife.
Bringa (1995) and Nguyen-Gillham (1999) found that Bosnian Muslim
culture was marked by strict codes that regulated the sexual behavior of
unmarried women, and Simic (1983) found that a double standard existed
between men and women:
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On the one hand, the mother surrounds herself with an aura of
martyrdom and virginal purity giving visible expression of the “pain”
associated with sexuality and childbirth. At the same time, a
mother sometimes tacitly encourages her sons to associate with
“profane” women outside of the home. The implicit message is that
women other than family members and kin are potentially “ whores”
to be freely exploited (p. 79).
Bringa (1995) found that married women were often outspoken about their
sexuality and sex lives but there was very little discussion among women about
contraception or abortion. She found that the most common form of
contraception was withdrawal, which resulted in a very high number of abortions.
Bringa (1995) found that abortion was an accepted practice. However,
Morokvasic (1986) reported that although abortion was legal in the former
Yugoslavia, abortions performed after the tenth week of pregnancy required
women to undergo a humiliating and distressing experience of having to obtain
permission from several doctors. In addition, Bringa (1995) found that when a
woman became pregnant with an unwanted pregnancy, the man was blamed
rather than the woman. Bringa points out that this stands in contrast to the
common attitude in northern European societies (and I would add the U.S.), but
that it also implies that men should have control over women’s reproduction and
“ultimately over women”(p. 104).
In her research in post-war Bosnia, Nguyen-Gillham (1999) found that
men resumed their roles in the public sphere as economic providers and builders
while women resumed their roles in the private sphere taking care of the children
and the household. This makes sense, especially when one takes into account
that postwar situations are periods of:
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gendering activity, one that ritually marks the gender of all
members of a society... .During total war, the discourse of
militarism, with its stress on “masculine” qualities, permeate the
whole fabric of society, touching both men and women. In doing
so, it draws upon preexisting definitions of gender at the same time
that it restructures gender relations. When peace comes,
messages of reintegration are expressed within a rhetoric of gender
that establishes the postwar social assignments of both men and
women (Higonnet, Jenson, Michel, and Weitz, 1987, p. 4).
In addition, after war, many women are left without husbands, and those
whose husbands have returned safely may have been struggling without them for
months or even years. In a war or postwar climate where survival and
sustenance are of primary importance, people may be more likely to cling to
normality and continuity. My findings suggest that when asked directly, Bosnian
women tend to deny that gendered changes have occurred and go to great
lengths to present their relationships with their husbands as harmonious and
equal; there is a strong resistance among women to openly examine gender
relations. However, my observations suggest that for most Bosnians, gender
relations are undergoing dramatic transformation.
U.S. Modernity
As aforementioned, U.S. modernity projects evolved out of European
Enlightenment principles, which emphasized science, capitalism, individualism,
secularism, democracy, equality, and education. Popular perceptions of Western
modernity dichotomize modernity and tradition, portraying modernity as superior
to and opposed to tradition. Embedded within the traditional/modern dichotomy
are several others, including the East/West dichotomy (in which Western
hegemonic models of modernity have portrayed Eastern cultures as traditional
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and unmodern) and the Judeo-Christian/Muslim dichotomy (depicting Muslims as
anti-modern and oppressive toward women). I argue that these dichotomies are
false. Just as there are multiple modernities, gender and religious identities are
not immutable, but instead vary by context.
In this section, I will provide a brief overview of modernity projects in the
U.S. I will then discuss the ways in which modernity and processes of
modernization have shaped modern ideas of gender and public and private
space in the U.S.
Key Features of U.S. Modernity
Although each of the features of Western modernity outlined above is
embedded in U.S. modernity, capitalism and the attendant culture of
consumption are the most omnipresent characteristics of U.S. modernity. This is
perhaps most evident in role of the U.S. in processes of globalization, where the
U.S. is the leading player in the economic domination of global financial markets.
The culture of modernity in the U.S. is shaped by the ideology of
capitalism, which emphasizes production and consumption. Thus, work is a
cornerstone of capitalism and U.S. modernity, and a central focus in the lives of
most Americans. In this economic system, progress is tied to an accumulation of
capital, and one's value is measured by levels of productivity. However, further
examination of this aspect of U.S. modernity reveals contradictory and competing
versions of modernity that vary by race and social class.
One example of competing and contradictory versions of U.S. modernity is
reflected in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act
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(PRWRA). This legislation aimed to "end welfare as we know it," by placing strict
time limits on welfare benefits (two-year consecutive benefits, five-year lifetime
benefits), imposing work requirements, and deeming certain groups, such as
immigrants, as unworthy or ineligible for benefits. Under this legislation, work
was defined as paid, productive labor, thereby relegating the unpaid labor of
raising children as illegitimate work, and deeming poor women who value staying
at home to raise children instead of working, as irresponsible.
Moreover, this legislation is largely anchored in conservative ideology that
calls for more traditional "family-values." In fact, a central aim of PRWRA was to
legislate family structure and family values. As Finegold and Staveteig (2002)
point out, two of the state objectives are to encourage marriage and reduce
childbirth outside of marriage.
I argue that there are racist and classist undercurrents of this legislation
that illustrate the ways in which state-imposed definitions of modernity vary. Poor
women who stay at home with their children are viewed as backwards, lazy, and
unmodern, whereas these labels do not apply their class-privileged counterparts
who opt (and are often encouraged by conservatives) to stay at home to raise
their children. As women entered the workforce in higher numbers in the U.S.
(an outcome of U.S. modernity), welfare policies became increasingly unpopular
which resulted in bipartisan efforts to put welfare mothers to work (Weil and
Feingold, 2002).
This effort to put welfare mothers to work and to legislate family structure
is a clear example of one group imposing their values upon another, while
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ignoring cultural differences in attitudes towards marriage, working mothers, and
childbirth outside of marriage. For example, Wertheimer, Long, and Vandivere
(2001) report that attitudes towards mothers working outside the home vary
considerably by race and ethnicity, with 60% of Hispanic mothers holding
negative views towards working mothers compared with 50% of white women
and 35% of black women. Surveys also indicate that there are significant
differences in attitudes about childbirth outside of marriage, with whites
expressing more negative views than African Americans and Hispanics
(Wertheimer et al., 2001).
In sum, PRWRA is a state-imposed modernity project that was designed
to change the behavior of certain segments of U.S. society (i.e., poor women,
women of color) to conform with the dominant group's vision of modernity (white,
middle-class). On the surface, this legislation claims to be simply requiring poor
women to do what middle-class women have been doing for a long time
(Solomon, 2001), which includes working outside the home, caring for families,
and having fewer children. However, it fails to take into account the cultural
biases embedded within the legislation. This illustrates the ways in which
modernity is differentially applied to groups. Moreover, it highlights the
relationship between power and definitions of modernity— clearly, those with
more power in society have the power define who is modern and who isn't.
A related contradiction is the notion that modern societies are secular.
Much of the anti-welfare rhetoric is couched in religious ideology. Many
conservative welfare opponents argue that modern secularization has eroded
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53
family values and societal norms against illegitimacy, pre-marital sex, and
adultery. Many scholars have observed how religious institutions play a
substantial role in public politics around the world. In the U.S., religion has
fundamentally shaped U.S. culture and institutions, as illustrated by the fact that
every U.S. bill and coin is inscribed with, "In God W e Trust" (Hefner, 1998;
Munch, 2001). Moreover, as Hefner (1998) points out, religion and capitalism
are intertwined in the U.S., as evidenced by a "marketplace competition that
spurred galloping sectarianism and fierce denominational rivalries" (p. 88).
Modernity is not monolithic in the U.S. In addition to the fragmented
versions of modernity outlined above, there is a growing social movement that
challenges the centrality of capitalism and consumerism in the U.S. and
advocates for a more humanitarian version of modernity. Moreover, there is
increasing discontent about the blurring of boundaries between politics and
economics, which has spurred concern about the erosion of democracy at the
hands of capitalist interests.
Public and Private Space in the U.S.
The separation of public and private space into men and women’s
domains has long been a subject of theorizing about modernity in the U.S., and
more recently, about postmodernity (Stacey, 1990). For example, as early as
1830, in response to modernization and industrialization, Alexis de Tocqueville
was one of the first social thinkers to draw attention to a new family form
emerging in the U.S., which he called the “democratic family” (Aulette, 2002).
Central to this new family form was the separation of family and work into
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gendered private and public realms. Scholars have argued these shifts occurred
in response to structural changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and
the advent of the Modern Era, which eroded the economic self-sufficiency of
households and propelled a massive rural-urban migration.
Although there is evidence that processes of modernization contribute to
substantial changes in private and public realms, these changes are not
homogenous, uniform, or linear. Rather, the gendered private/public split varies
by social and historical context as well as by race, ethnicity, and social class. In
fact, ample evidence suggests that historically, the public/private split has been
more imaginary than real. For example, at its peak in 1965, the gendered
public/private split only pertained to 55% of American families, and today this
type of family represents a minority (25%) of U.S. families (Aulette, 2002).1 5
Modernity. Consumerism and the Public and Private
One outcome of modernity, particularly in capitalist societies like the U.S.,
has been a massive culture of consumption. The culture of consumption is
profoundly gendered and has contributed to the fracturing and realignment of the
spatial categories of public and private.1 6 Felski (1995) argues that "consumption
cut across the private/public distinction that was frequently evoked to assign
women to a premodern sphere" (p. 61).
Many feminist scholars have examined the impact of consumerism on
gendered spatial categories (Felski, 1995; Finn, 2001; Hilton and Daunton, 2001;
Kendall, 2002). An examination of the complex intersections between gender,
modernity, and consumerism has led to the realization that modernity and
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55
consumerism can be both liberating and manipulative for women both in the
public and private realms (Felski, 1995; Kendall, 2002).
Some scholars, such as Felski (1995) and Finn (2001), have argued that
the advent of the department store triggered the realignment of gendered public
and private space in the U.S. For example, in her historical analysis Rita Felski
states: "Not only did the department store provide a new kind of urban public
space which catered primarily to women, but modern industry and commerce
encroached evermore insistently on the sanctity of the private and domestic
realm through the commodification of the household" (pp. 61-2). Others have
noted that in modern societies women represent the "archetype consumer," and
some have gone as far as saying that "women's consumption of items of
domestic beauty... represent the aesthetics of the nation" (Hilton & Daunton,
2001, p. 29).1 7
As with modernity, configurations of public and private space are
perpetually constructed and reconstructed. The boundaries and meanings of
public and private space are highly variable and arise out of different social and
historical contexts.
Comparison of U.S. and Bosnia
There are several components of U.S. capitalism that make the U.S. stand
in stark contrast to the socialism of the former Yugoslavia. These include radical
laissez-faire, highly specialized bureaucracy, social Darwinism, and staunch
individualism.
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Modernity projects in the U.S. and Bosnia have different origins and
histories. One notable disparity is that American modernity is anchored in
capitalism, whereas in Bosnia/the former Yugoslavia, modernity is deeply rooted
in ideals of socialism. Although no society is purely socialist or capitalist—for
example, the United Nations estimates that 7.5% of capital in pre-war Bosnia
was privatized— the underlying principles of each stand in stark contrast to each
other. Under capitalism, core values include individualism, private property,
personal profit, competition, and minimal government intervention. The
fundamental principles of socialism are egalitarianism, community, collectivism,
government intervention, and public ownership. Another area where the former
Yugoslavia and the U.S. differed was in the ideal of universalism in the U.S.,
which contrasts with the ideal of personalism in the former Yugoslavia.
There are striking similarities and differences also in comparing outcomes
of modernization, although for Bosnia, some of the outcomes of modernization
have been adversely impacted by the war.1 8 The similarities include high life
expectancy and relatively low fertility rates. The female life expectancy in Bosnia
is 76 years compared to 80 years in the U.S, while the male life expectancies are
71 and 74 years, respectively (World Bank, 2002). According to the United
Nations, life expectancy rates in Bosnia are 15% higher than the world average
and 9% lower than the European Union average. Fertility rates in Bosnia are
slightly lower than those in the U.S.; in the year 2000, Bosnia’s fertility rate was
1.6 compared to 2.1 in the U.S. (World Bank, 2002).
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Bosnia is classified by the World Bank (2000) as a lower-middle income
country with a GNP of $1230 compared to the high-level income status of the
U.S. with a GNP of $34,100. According to the 2002 United Nations Human
Development report on Bosnia-Hercegovina, the Human Development Index
(HDI) for Bosnia is 27% lower than the European Union average. Three
indicators are used to calculate the HDI: life expectancy, education (literacy and
enrollment), and gross domestic product (GDP). The high life expectancy in
Bosnia may primarily be the result of pre-war living conditions. Educational
access has been on the decline, and GDP is alarmingly low.1 9 Because GDP is
essential for maintaining human development levels, falling GDP levels adversely
impact education and living standards. For example, recent research suggests
that 19% of people in Bosnia are living in absolute poverty, with women living in
poverty more than men (United Nations Human Development Report, 2002).
The U.N. regards education as fundamental for human development.
Education is measured in terms of literacy and access. The literacy rate in
Bosnia increased dramatically after WWII and is currently estimated to be 86%,
compared with a literacy rate of 97% in the U.S. (World Bank, 2002). However,
when gender, age, and geographic location are taken into account, it becomes
clear that rural Bosnians and the elderly (mostly women) are disproportionately
represented among the illiterate. In 2000, the literacy rate for men was estimated
to be 16% higher than for women (94.1% and 78%, respectively) (UN, 2002).
Pre-war statistics indicate that younger generations of women are obtaining
higher levels of education than their foremothers, but a substantial gender gap
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remains in educational literacy and access. According to the United Nations
(2002), in 1991, almost 70% of women in Bosnia-Hercegovina had no more than
the eight years of compulsory primary education, compared with 47% of the men.
Again, when age is taken into account, the picture improves for girls: “In 1991,
girls were 49% of the secondary school population and 47% of the student
population at the technical colleges and universities” (UN, 2002). However, the
gender gap widens considerably when graduate education is included. For
example, women earned only 20% of the PhD degrees in Bosnia between 1996
and 1999 (UN, 2002). In addition, occupations remain highly segregated by
gender, and unemployment rates are higher for women, who have a more
difficult time finding jobs in the struggling economy (UN, 2002).
The U.S. has experienced more urbanization than Bosnia with 77% of the
population residing in urban areas compared to 43% in Bosnia (World Bank,
2002). Women in Bosnia and the U.S. constitute 51 percent of the total
population. The U.S. economy is capitalist with the service sector dominating
(80%) and agriculture accounting for just a fraction (2%). In contrast, Bosnia is in
transition from a socialist to a capitalist economy, with the service sector
accounting for 55%, industry 30%, and agriculture 15% (World Bank, 2002). One
result of socialism was that Bosnia was not nearly as stratified as the U.S. in
terms of social class. Simic (1983a) points out that the class system had been
destroyed twice in the last century so that, by the end of WWII when SFRY was
established as a nation, Yugoslav society was relatively unstratified. This stands
ip sharp contrast to the stratification system in the U.S.
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The unemployment rate in Bosnia soared before and during the war and is
still very high, estimated by the World Bank (2000) to be between 35 and 40%,
while the current unemployment rate in the U.S. is between 5 and 6%. According
to official UN unemployment statistics, women account for 37% of the labor force
in Bosnia, compared with 46% in the U.S.2 0
The majority religion in Bosnia is Muslim (40%) followed by Orthodox
(31%), Roman Catholic (15%), and Protestant (4%) (other religions make up
10%), whereas in the U.S., Protestants constitute the majority (58%), followed by
Roman Catholic (28%), Jewish (2%), and other religions, including Islam (4%).
In the following chapters I will examine how gender relations and identities
have changed for Bosnian Muslims in relation to the changing modernity and
structures of opportunities in the United States. In doing so, I will examine how
new definitions and meanings of gender are evolving in four areas: discursive
constructions of gender, bodily adornment and dress, and gender both in the
private and public realms. First, I will discuss the methodology of the present
study.
Methodology
This research is an ethnographic case study involving extensive
participant observations and in-depth interviews with thirty people from seven
Bosnian Muslim families (24 adults and 6 children). In addition, 13 interviews
were conducted with social service providers, community leaders, and
community members who work directly with Bosnian families in some capacity.
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To gain access and develop trust and rapport, I spent one year in the field
(1999-2000) during a preliminary stage of the research before conducting any
interviews. During this time, I worked as a volunteer English tutor through the
local refugee resettlement program and I traveled to Bosnia in May 2000. The
second phase of the research (2000-2002) incorporated intensive observations,
in-depth interviews, community involvement, and informal conversations.
Observations took place within the homes of the participants, often over meals or
coffee. During the observations, it was common for extended family, friends and
neighbors to stop by, providing me with an opportunity to expand my networks
and crosscheck my observations. I attempted to interview all participants
individually and in private settings, usually at their homes, but occasionally at
other locations, depending on their preferences. With one exception, all
interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. My involvement in the
community included starting a Bosnian women’s group with three other women,
writing a grant to obtain funding for community gardens for twenty Bosnian
families, and securing a table at the local farmer’s market for Bosnian women to
sell baked goods. Throughout the research I had numerous opportunities for
informal conversations with many members of the Bosnian community, including
friends of participants, students, women who attended the monthly women’s
group, and families who participated in the community gardens project. This
allowed me to further crosscheck my data and observations.
Participants for the study were recruited in several ways. Through my
work as a sociology instructor at the local community college and as a volunteer
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English tutor for the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, I had direct access
to members of the Bosnian Muslim community and ancillary contact with
educators and social-service providers who worked directly with the Bosnian
Muslim community. I established a trusting relationship with several key people
within the Bosnian Muslim community, and my interactions widened considerably
over a three-year period. Most of the research participants came from these
contacts, and to recruit additional research subjects, I used the method of
snowball sampling.
I began the participant observations before doing the interviews to try and
gain the trust of the participants. I decided to focus on a smaller sample size in
an effort to gain depth. Because I engaged in cross-cultural research it was
important for me to spend a lot of time with the participants to increase my own
understanding about Bosnian culture and to try to bridge any cultural
misunderstandings. I conducted observations of the research participants in their
homes and at social events such as religious holiday celebrations and parties.
During these visits, I observed everyday activities, interactions, conflicts,
decision-making processes, division of household labor, and gender displays. As
expected, the participant observations complemented the interviews by providing
me with an opportunity to observe what people do, rather than relying solely on
what they say they do (Hochschild, 1989; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994). In addition,
interviewing thirteen social-service providers enabled me to triangulate my data.
By far, the most interesting data have come from spending time with
families in informal settings. This is particularly the case for the men, who were
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less inclined to commit to a formal interview with me. However, in informal social
settings, many of the men shared their perspectives with me, sometimes with the
help of their wives or children translating.
Strengths. Limitations and Challenges
The quality of the data I gathered was influenced by a variety of factors.
First, although I interviewed and observed women and men, I spent more time
with women, who were more willing to share time with me and to open up to me.
(However, over time, several of the men in the study did become quite
comfortable with me). Second, all of the interviews were conducted in English,
which presents a limitation in the findings. The intent and purpose of this study is
not to generalize and explain the experiences of Bosnian Muslims. Rather, the
goal is to capture and illuminate the gendered experiences in the lives of seven
families through a detailed and contextual analysis. By illuminating the processes
of change and transformation, I expect to raise more questions for future
research. Third, the social distance between myself and the participants both
constrained and facilitated the research. For example, most of the women were
surprised and perplexed when they learned that I am in my thirties, married, with
no children. Many women would ask me why I did not have children yet and
when I was going to have them. This highlighted the vast differences in our
experiences, for most of the women had had their children in their early twenties.
(None of the men asked me questions about this). In addition, the fact that I am
not Bosnian or Muslim increased the social distance, though this was somewhat
mitigated by the fact that I had traveled to Bosnia.
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On the other hand, in many instances it became clear that I was a safe
person to open up to precisely because I am not Bosnian. Finally, my status as
an adjunct professor and researcher influenced the research process. People
were often surprised upon first learning about my background; invariably, it lead
to a discussion about the importance of education, with participants pointing
proudly to the superiority of Bosnia’s education system vis-a-vis that of the US.2 1
This research experience has been emotional and intense. Compared to
my interviews with service providers, my involvement with Bosnian families
affected me emotionally. Although I did not ask questions about people’s
traumatic experiences, these stories inevitably come pouring out, particularly with
women. Several women told me that they did not have anyone to talk to about
what has happened to them and their families, and a few mentioned that their
husbands do not want to talk about what happened to them. Clearly, their stories
need to be told. Most of the women in this study reported that they do not have
many, if any, close friends in the U.S. Several women said that their husbands
don’t like to talk about what happened, and that their experiences during the war
are rarely discussed even with friends.2 2
As many scholars have pointed out, people often reveal personal and
important information about their lives when they are not relating to one as a
researcher. This was certainly true in my experience, when participants (almost
always women) would disclose information in social contexts in which I was
viewed as a friend or confidant— driving a woman to the doctor’s office, talking
informally with women at the women’s group or the community gardens, or
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running into women in their place of work. As a result, I became increasingly
concerned that my “reciprocity” at times contributed to the exploitation.
For most of the female participants in this study, I became a confidant,
someone with whom they could share their stories. While some researchers
have found that talking about sensitive and painful topics can contribute to the
healing process (Renzetti, 1992), this also presented an ethical problem for me
throughout the research. Judith Stacey (1988) has argued that when researchers
act as a friend or advocate to their subjects, it may lead to exploitation,
abandonment, or betrayal. While this was certainly not my intent, I did find
exploitation and betrayal to be real possibilities, and in response to this I
decreased the sample size and continued my efforts at reciprocity.
On another level, I was concerned about misunderstandings and
confusion that emerged over my role as a researcher/friend. The participants in
this study were extraordinarily generous with their time and made many efforts to
welcome me into their homes. Even when traumatic experiences were not
shared with me, family members expressed high expectations about my
involvement in their lives and often referred to me as being part of the family. I
have found that this is at least partially attributable to cultural patterns specific to
South Slavic culture. In my research I learned that in the former Yugoslavia,
there is less of a distinction between instrumental and personal relationships
compared with the United States. Since I was going to the homes of Bosnian
families, crossing into the personal threshold of their lives, I was viewed primarily
as a personal friend rather than as a researcher (personal communication with
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Andrei Simic, 2000). In fact, on most occasions, participants tried to brush aside
the consent form. Often, participants thought it strange that I wanted to tape
record our conversation.
One way that I tried to assuage these ethical concerns was through
reciprocity. I made continued efforts to substitute a colonialist approach of
“taking” for one of mutual exchange. I tutored family members in English, helped
with forms, provided assistance and advocacy as situations arose, made
appropriate referrals, and worked on the development and funding of several
community projects. The most rewarding form of reciprocity has been my
involvement in initiating a Bosnian Women’s Group with three other women, two
of whom are Bosnian Muslim.
Over the course of this research, several participants were reluctant to
participate in the formal interview, even after agreeing initially to do so. Typically,
I would go to someone’s home to conduct the interview at the agreed upon hour
and would find that they had prepared an elaborate meal and invited over guests
or extended family members. Initially, I attributed this to unexpected
circumstances or miscommunication. However, over time, as the pattern
persisted, I began to realize that something else was going on. There was a
strong resistance to engaging in a formal interview, and it appeared that several
strategies were employed to avoid it, thereby maintaining the social, more
relaxed nature of our interactions. On several occasions, participants expressed
concern that they would not see me again after I did the formal interview. At the
conclusion of one such interview, Mirsada asked, “Does this mean you will not
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come to visit me anymore?” I found that I had to spend much more time than I
had anticipated with families. This is consistent with Simic’s observations when
he paraphrases Yugoslav sociologist Dr. Olivera Buric: “ The cultivation of social
relationships constitutes a kind of ‘national vice,’ and it is evident to even the
most casual observer that a great deal of time and energy is invested in their
cultivation" (1988, p. 44). It was not until I spoke about this with Andrei Simic that
I learned that in Bosnian culture there is a general resistance to engaging in
formal interviews. In addition, many newly arrived Bosnians have a different
orientation to time than Americans. Simic argues that “in polychronic cultures
there is a stress on interpersonal involvement, many things occur simultaneously,
people are easily distracted, and stress is placed on completing human
transactions rather than holding to schedules” (1988, p. 52). This stands in stark
contrast to the monochronic orientation to time in the US, where stress is placed
on schedules and outcome rather than process.
The reluctance to participate in interviews and the approach toward time is
related to the struggle I experienced over the expectations for me to visit on a
regular basis and spend many hours in the homes of the study participants. I
found these expectations to far exceed my own as a researcher and at times, to
exceed even my own family obligations. The more time I spent with families, the
more social obligations I accumulated. While this has certainly led to rich data, it
has increased my concerns about exploitation and betrayal because once I was
“in” I was often considered a member of the family and to “leave” would be
considered a betrayal. It is also important to point out that many, if not all, of my
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participants experienced betrayal during the war. Many talked at length about
how difficult they find it to trust people now. Thus, I decided to stop interviewing
after seven families.
The Setting
This study was conducted in Chittenden County, Vermont during 1999-
2002. Bosnians have been resettling in Vermont since 1994, primarily with the
assistance of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. While many came
from refugee camps, more recent arrivals have come through the INS family
reunification program via Bosnia and Germany. Bosnian Muslims who come to
Vermont under refugee status are eligible for temporary and limited government
assistance, and although refugees fare better than other types of immigrants
since the passage of the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996”, the assistance is still inadequate.
Bosnian families have been resettled in five counties in Northern Vermont,
with the majority (80%) in Chittenden County in and around Burlington, Vermont.
Slightly more women have resettled than men (53%), and the majority of
Bosnians who have resettled in Vermont are over 18 years old (85%) (Vermont
Refugee Resettlement Program).
At this time, no clearly bounded ethnic enclave exists, partly due to the
policies of the Refugee Resettlement Program, by which no efforts are made to
resettle families together, and partly due to the current housing crisis in
Chittenden County. However, several self-selected clusters have developed in
neighborhoods, apartment buildings, and condominium complexes. In addition to
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these clusters, two Bosnian grocery stores, a mosque, and two Bosnian
restaurants (one of which recently went out of business) have increased the
visibility of Bosnians in this geographic area.
Bosnians living in Vermont include Serbian, Croat, Muslim, and mixed-
religion families, although the majority of families are Muslim. Bosnians with
different religious backgrounds live in close proximity to each other, shop at the
same stores, and interact in some social settings. The seven families in this
sample tended to befriend other Muslims and have much less social contact with
Serbian, Croat, and mixed-religion families, although there were some notable
exceptions. I suspect that due to the size and density of Burlington, the level of
interaction across religion may be higher than in larger metropolitan areas.
At this point, there seems to be little political involvement and organization
within the Bosnian community. In fact, most of the participants spoke with
disdain about politics, saying that they had no interest in being involved.
Presently, the most cohesive association for Bosnian Muslims is the Islamic
Society of Vermont.
Sample Characteristics
Six out of the seven families in my sample are from North and Central
Bosnia and one family is from Eastern Bosnia. Three of the families migrated to
the U.S. via Croatia, where they had been living as refugees— two via Germany,
one via Spain; and one directly from Bosnia. Many of the more recent refugees
are coming from Germany (where their refugee status has expired and they have
been required to leave), through the family reunification program. The ages of
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the women range from 24 to 50, and the ages of the men range from 31 to 53.
Family size is fairly small, with many families in the Bosnian community having
two children. In my sample, six of the seven families have children; three
families have two grown children, two families have two young children, and one
has a two-year old child. All of the women married young, in their late teens and
early twenties, and almost all had their first child within a year. With one
exception, all of the husbands were older than their wives. This was the case in
my sample and in the larger Bosnian community.2 3 The family composition is
nuclear with the exception of one family where the grandfather lives in the home
(although at the time of this writing, he recently moved to his own apartment). All
of the adult children who are not married live at home with their parents,
contribute to household expenses (patchworking), and intend to continue living
there until they get married.2 4
The length of time in the U.S. spanned from two to six years, and all
except one family reportedly came from an urban background. In each family,
both spouses eventually worked outside the home after resettlement. In the
majority of the families, the men obtained jobs first, with the women following
later. Currently, two of the participants (one woman and one man) are not
working because of work-related injuries. The remainder worked in entry-level
jobs in the areas of manufacturing, food service, custodial/janitorial, retail and
other services. Five men and two women indicated that they experienced
occupational downward mobility after migrating to Vermont. All of the working
participants experienced upward mobility in jobs and pay scale since initially
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moving to Vermont. Seven of the participants have attended or are attending
college; most have attended some kind of trade school in Bosnia.
All of the families live in or near the city of Burlington, which has a
population of 39,000. Four of the seven families own their own home, and the
remaining families are saving money for this purpose. According to the Refugee
Resettlement Program, Bosnian families are buying homes more rapidly than
other refugee groups. Six of the seven couples have been back to Bosnia to
visit, mostly within the last year, though most do not intend to return there to live
in the near future. Some said that if the economy improves they will return, and
several hope to retire there. I noticed a slight difference between men and
women’s desire to return, with men being slightly more likely to express this
desire. The two families who have not been back have no intention of returning
to visit anytime soon.2 5
All of the participants identify strongly as Muslim, but there is wide range
of how Islam is practiced in the families. For most, as discussed earlier, like
ethnic Jews in the U.S., their identity as Muslim is grounded in cultural rather
than religious traditions. As several South Slav scholars point out, the Muslim
identity of Bosnians is both religious and ethnic (Simic, 1990; Bringa, 1995).
Simic asserts, “ While there are significant numbers of Slav Muslims who practice
their faith to varying degrees, for others, this identity tends to be secular and is
based primarily on ancestral traditions and ethnic loyalty” (1990, p. 644).
Moreover, as Kurien (1999) discusses in her research on Hindu immigrants, my
data indicate that religion serves as a conduit for the transmission of cultural
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values and practices within the Bosnian Muslim community. All of my
participants celebrate the two traditional Bosnian Muslim holidays,26 all take their
shoes off before entering their home (which is also common among Catholic and
Orthodox families), and most abstain from eating pork. During Ramadan, I
observed several of the men but none of the women fasting and abstaining from
drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes 2 7 Every family but one is involved in the
mosque to some extent, and in most cases the men are more visibly involved.
1 Most of the available data pertains to the former Yugoslavia. I will use the term
“ former-Yugoslavia” when using aggregate data about the former-Yugoslavia and
1 will use the term “Bosnia” when using data specific to Bosnia.
2 Drawing from Vaughan (2000), I define states as “administrative, legal,
extractive, and coercive organizations that attempt to structure relations within
civil society and between civil society and public authority” (p. 194).
3 The six republics included Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia,
Serbia, and two autonomous provinces within Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina.
4 See Simic (1983) for a more extensive analysis of modernization in the former
Yugoslavia. Also see al Azmeh (1996) for an analysis of Islam and modernities.
5 The three-pillars of Yugoslavia included self-management, non-alignment, and
brotherhood and unity. Self-management referred to workers’ autonomy and
independence; non-alignment grew out of Yugoslavia’s isolation and emphasized
fierce independence from the Soviet Union and the U.S., while emphasizing
cooperation with developing countries (Ramet, 1999).
6 However, because of the nature of the landscape, Bosnian did not lend itself
well to the collectivization of agriculture and the majority of land remained in
private hands. In most places individual holdings were limited to 10 hectacres of
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productive land plus forest and pasture (Andrei Simic, personal communication,
November 16, 2002).
7 Yugoslavia’s concept of socialism was different from the socialism practiced in
the Soviet Union as well as other Eastern European countries. See Johnson
(1972) for an analysis of these differences.
8 Among the bombed out buildings were a television studio the offices of an
award winning newspaper. Also noticeable was the absence of trees along the
streets, which had been cut down during the war for survival purposes.
9 Ramet (1999) also points out that although the reality of gender relations fell
short of the ideology, the communist governments did a much better job than any
other political party at emphasizing the importance of gender equality and
deserve some credit.
1 0 In the early 1960s, the Yugoslav government began to change the census
categories, beginning with the 1961 category “Muslim (ethnic membership) which
did not acknowledge religious affiliation and also fell short of a national
membership accorded to Serbs and Croats, followed by the 1971 category of
“Muslims in the sense of nationality” which was still deemed insufficient by
religious Muslims.
1 1 Bosnians refer to the decorated trees as "New Years Trees." This tradition of
celebrating New Years instead of Christmas was propagated by the communist
government to replace Christmas (Simic, personal communication, 11/16/02).
1 2 The term “Bosnjak” is now being used and refers to Bosnians who are Muslim.
1 3 Please note that the research by Simic (1983 and Morokvasic (1986) was done
prior to the breakup of Yugoslavia, and does not focus exclusively on Bosnian
Muslims.
1 4 These statistics may be inflated because they also include the literacy rates of
Albanians and Gypsies, who as a group have higher rates of illiteracy than most
Yugoslavs.
1 5 Judith Stacey (1990) distinguishes between modern and contemporary families
by defining the modern family as “an intact nuclear household unit composed of a
male breadwinner, his full-time homemaker wife and their dependent children” (p.
5). She argues that there is no single type of contemporary family; rather, she
defines contemporary families as postmodern, characterized by a multiplicity of
household arrangements. In this study, the language I am using is different, as I
taking a postmodern approach to modernity. When using the term, “modern” I
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am using it in its colloquial sense rather than referring to the period of U.S.
history known as the Modern Family era (1800s-1950s, see Aulette, 2002, p. 33).
In fact, Judith Stacey reported that her students did not associate “modern” with
traditional “Ozzie and Harriet” type of families, but were more inclined to think of
postmodern families.
1 6 Another dimension of U.S. modernity is the increased privatization of public
space, further blurring the distinctions between private and public realms.
1 7 Hilton & Daunton (2002) are specifically referring Auslander's (1996) analysis
of nineteenth century France.
1 8 Since there has been no post-war census yet, statistics on Bosnia need to be
read with some caution because many of the official figures are based on pre
war data.
1 9 The UN points out that GDP may be as much as 20% higher because
revenues from the grey economy and transfers abroad are not included in the
calculation of GDP.
2 0 Female labor force participation in Bosnia has remained unchanged since
1990 and has increased slightly from 1980 when women constituted 33% of the
workforce (World Bank, 2002).
2 1 Interestingly, because all of the participants worked in entry level jobs that did
not require a college degree, my participants were primarily exposed to working
class Americans who did not earn a college degree, which appears to have
influenced their perceptions of all Americans.
2 2 Simic’s (1983) research suggests that marriages in South Slav families are
typically characterized by a lack of emotional communication between husbands
and wives.
2 3 One participant attributed this age difference to the one-year of compulsory
military required of all men in the former Yugoslavia following high school.
24 This is consistent with Simic’s (1983) finding that in South Slav culture, adult
children typically live at home with their parents until they are married.
2 5 Importantly, this family is from a region of Bosnia that was partitioned to Serbia
as a result of the Dayton Peace Accord.
2 6 The two holidays celebrated by the participants are Ramadan Bayram, a three-
day holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan, and Hadiz Bayram, a three-day
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74
holiday honoring the prophet Abraham, celebrated seventy days following the
end of Ramadan. During Hadiz Bayram, traditionally a lamb is roasted and
shared with people who are less fortunate.
2 7 Six out of the seven men and three out of the seven women smoke cigarettes
(most often Marlboro Reds), and most of the men drink alcohol regularly (I
observed very few women drinking alcohol)
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Chapter Three: Discursive Constructions of Modernity and Equality
Discourses of modernity and equality were embedded in personal
narratives throughout my interviews and observations. Meta-narratives of
modernity, operating on the macro-level, inform the mini-narratives that play out
on the micro-level, resulting in a pervasive discourse of modernity and gendered
discourse of equality.
First, I will illustrate the salience of the theme of modernity. Second, I will
seek to explain the factors that shape the narratives of modernity. Third, by
examining the discourse of equality, I will demonstrate how gender, modernity,
and immigration are intertwined. In doing this, I will discuss how gender is
communicated and revealed through the discourses and how these discursive
formations are undergoing change through migration and resettlement.
Focusing on discursive constructions of gender has been criticized as too
abstract, as overlooking the concrete and material inequalities between men and
women (Walby, 1992). In the next three chapters will examine discursive
constructions of gender and the concrete, material reality of gender in the day-to-
day lives of participants.
Narratives of Modernity
When I began this research, modernity was the furthest thing from my
mind. As is often the case in ethnographic research, I found something that I did
not anticipate. In the beginning of the interviews, when I asked participants
about their lives in Bosnia, they typically took the opportunity to veer the
conversation in a different direction. They described Bosnia as an advanced,
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modern society with an excellent education system, which most of them regarded
as superior to that of the U.S. In fact, when describing modern Bosnia, the most
prevalent themes among participants included Bosnia's superior education
system, former class and urban status, and material acquisitions (e.g., homes,
washing machines). Participants often reminded me that the 1984 Winter
Olympics had been held in Sarajevo. People shared stories about having
everything in Bosnia before the war, often using their homes and childhood to
illustrate their former class status. This discourse is illustrated by Jasna, when
she described her life before the war:
My parents had a really new house...really huge with a huge yard
and a huge, huge garden. My parents were really rich, really rich.
They had everything. They had a bathroom, a dishwasher, a
washing machine...They had everything before the war, and then
suddenly, everything was gone. You know...we used to have that
same life and now we are trying to have these things again.
Similarly, Nadjad said, “ W e had everything before the war in Bosnia. Everything.
My father owned his house, as did maybe 90% of the Bosnian people. They
didn’t pay rent like here, and we had a car— not everyone did, but we had a car.
W e had everything.” On several occasions, showing me pictures and videos of
their cities and towns and their houses in Bosnia, participants went out of their
way to point out the modern buildings.
Several social service providers whom I interviewed also observed the
tendency. For example, Sheila, an Employment Services Specialist who worked
with Bosnians for two years and whose partner is Bosnian Muslim, stated:
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They want to impress upon you that Bosnia is European. That’s the most
important thing to remember is that it’s Europe, it’s everything that we
think of when we think of Europe, you know, the culture and the small
cafes and the coffee and the dressing, appearance, all of those cool
things.1
Explaining Discourse
Over time, it became evident that the discourse of modernity is deeply
rooted in socialist ideology and in participants’ layered experiences with
marginalization and discrimination in both countries; marginalization and
discrimination as Bosnians, as Muslims, and as women. In addition, it was
evident that Bosnian's insistence on being European and modern was rooted in
feelings of cultural and material inferiority. Before turning my attention to the
ways in which these experiences are gendered, I will briefly review the social and
political context which impacted the experiences of marginalization and
discrimination, which shaped both the discourse and the resistance to being
defined as “other.” I was interested to observe that these two factors are in
themselves contradictory: the experiences of discrimination and marginalization
contrast sharply with the socialist rhetoric of “brotherhood and unity.”
Tito’s vision of a socialist Yugoslavia was based on unity, harmony,
equality, and co-existence. The discourse was so powerful that even after
harmony was shattered in the wake of the recent war, many of the participants
still embraced the ideology to some extent. Gal and Kligman (2000) point out
that, particularly in the early years of the communist regime, East Central
European countries had a tendency to valorize modernity by attempting to
stabilize the meaning of modernity, and in doing so making the "new" seem
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natural. That the ideology was apparently mythical was revealed through
contradictions that came out in my interviews and observations. Ramet aptly
noted this, when commenting that “the Titoist system was famous for its
contradictions,” particularly on gender equality (1999, p. 30).
As stated earlier, participants’ experiences of marginalization and
discrimination were multi-layered and occurred in both Bosnia and the United
States. In their homeland, Bosnians suffered discrimination for being Muslim,
whereas in the United States, they experienced discrimination on the basis of
their Bosnian and Muslim identities. In his research in the former Yugoslavia,
Simic found that for non-Muslim South Slavs, “Yugoslavs have a tendency to
rationalize all inefficiencies, backwardness, and primitivism as the inevitabie fruits
of a ‘benighted’ Moslem rule” (1983a, p. 205). In both countries, being Muslim is
viewed as backwards and old-fashioned, and they are relegated as an inferior
status as “other.” Rofel (1999) argues that modernity plays a central role in
constituting “otherness.” Participants expressed their resistance to these
stereotypes throughout the interviews and observations.
All of the participants described being discriminated against in the former
Yugoslavia for being Muslim.2 The discrimination was both individual and
institutional, often intertwined. As individuals, discrimination meant ridicule, while
stories of institutional discrimination centered on experiences in schools and
other agencies under control of the state. Fused throughout were accounts of
internalized oppression, forms of resistance, and expressions of human agency.
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Several participants described being taunted by other children in a variety
of contexts. Faris recalled: “I remember when I was going .back home from
religion school...the kids, they would laugh at [us]... [Under communism],
Muslims were at the bottom and even our parents weren’t able to help us out.”
Fatima spoke of her husband’s experience when he was a young boy in Bosnia:
“He felt something when he was young— 10 or 15 years old— because the other
kids bothered him and made fun of him because he went to prayer during the
Communist rule in Bosnia. Very few people did it, they were scared to go to
mosque and pray. Everybody hid [their religion], prayed at home or only during
special holy days like Ramadan.” Jasmina related that many of the Muslim girls
would not put their headscarves on until they were inside of the mosque. She
said that even though she grew up sometimes feeling ashamed about being
Muslim, she would purposely leave her scarf on her head when she was walking
to the mosque:
Walking like this (wearing a head scarf), I heard everyone who passed by
me saying thing like, ‘Wow, look at this redneck, this Muslim.’ They called
us gypsies, and I would -think io myself, ‘I don’t care; I am what I am and, I
don’t know, I’m strong.’
Two of the women suggested that many Muslims were ashamed to call
their fathers “Babo,” the traditional Islamic way of addressing one’s father in
Bosnia. As Zahra recalls:
If you say “ Babo”, you’re 100 percent Muslim. In Bosnia, and there’s this
word, “Tata”, that everybody else uses, so a lot of Muslims wanted to call
their fathers “ Tata”, because calling them “Babo” meant that you were
Muslim, or you’re just this old-fashioned person; it meant something bad.
My father made us call him Babo. I always felt ashamed if I had to say it
in front of my friends. And it wasn’t just me. A lot of kids were like that.
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And Jasmina pointed out, “ When you say “Babo”, everybody knows that
you’re Muslim, and many people are ashamed of that, because they know that
when people say it, it means you are a redneck, you’re a Muslim. If you are a
Muslim, you are a redneck... It’s like that. I don’t know why, but I was never
ashamed.”
Most of the participants gave accounts in which Muslims were viewed as
inferior to Orthodox and Catholic Yugoslavs. Examples of this included attitudes
towards Muslim names, the exclusion of Muslim literature in education, and
governmental practices and policies that excluded or marginalized Muslims.
Zahra talked about names:
If you say a first name in Bosnia, you pretty much know a person’s
religion. There are some names that everyone uses, and there are a lot of
cases where Muslims gave Catholic of Protestant names to their children,
but never the case where Catholics or Protestants give Muslim
names...never, ever...because it’s considered bad to be a Muslim.
Everybody considers Muslims names ugly, they’re old fashioned...and
then when you read literature and stuff, Muslims, they never sound that
good.
Zahra went on to describe the exclusionary practices in schools: “ W e were
forbidden to read, not forbidden, but we were not pushed in schools to read
Muslim literature. Some really good Muslim authors were never read in school.”3
Several participants also discussed the contribution of communist policies
to discriminatory practices and attitudes. Describing his experiences, Faris
recalled:
From the end of the Second World W ar until God knows, I mean, until the
1970s or so, there was the birth certificate. If you were a Muslim, you
weren’t allowed...There wasn’t space for us almost from the Second
World War until the 70s... And then, I think it was Tito, he decided to give
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us the choice to say fhat we were Muslims for the first time back in 1976.
And that’s the first time we were able to say who we were.
In the same way, Zahra recalled that the communist government informally
sanctioned discrimination:
As Muslims we were humiliated a lot during communism because, I don’t
know, like everyone is aware of it, everybody knows it. They didn’t like us
going to mosque. Communism doesn’t support religion that much,
especially Islam, and if you wanted to get a good job, most of the time you
had to be a communist or sign that you were in the communist party, and
you know, in that case, you couldn’t go to the mosque.4
Describing his experiences as a chef in the Yugoslav army a few years before
the 1990s war, Faris told me that the government made it difficult for practicing
Muslims to abstain from pork. Even when pork was not served, the food was
often cooked in pork lard. For practicing Muslims, the only option was to go
hungry. Many of the Muslim men would whisper to Faris, asking him if there was
any pork-free meat. He would lie to them, telling them it was pork-free even
when it wasn’t because he didn’t want them to go hungry.
Marginalization in the U.S.
Describing their experiences with Americans, all of the participants in this
study spoke of encounters in which the Americans viewed them as uneducated
and uncivilized, as though they had come from an undeveloped country. Ahmed
said, “[People] don’t know where I came from...they would question me, have
you ever seen a TV in your life, and things like that.” Zahra recalled some people
asking her if there are bathrooms in Bosnia and other participants told of being
asked if they had running water. Several pointed out that many Americans don’t
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even know that Bosnia is in Europe. Mediha said that people think Bosnia is a
jungle and that there is no civilization there.
Many also observed that these negative perceptions of Bosnia are
compounded by adverse stereotypes of Muslims in the U.S.5 Zahra stated:
I feel that when I say la m Muslim, some discomfort, you know, with them,
they don’t like the idea generally, like the reaction is never a smile ...very
often just no comment... what bothers me is just when you say you’re
Muslim, people have a negative picture on it and it bothers me that on
American movies, you’re always represented as these awful people, you
know, who kill.
Narrating Gender and Modernity
Because urbanization is intertwined with modernization, “being urban” was
emphasized repeatedly by the participants of this study. Most of the participants
differentiated themselves from rural Bosnians, whom they often described
(showing their own discriminatory attitudes) as backwards, rednecks,
uneducated, and sexist. For example, one day at the community gardens, J had
a conversation with Faris shortly after a Bosnian man illegally parked bis car on
the grass. Faris’s sentiment is illustrated in an excerpt from my fieldnotes:
Faris said to me, in a joking manner, “ Ah Kim, you know, Bosnian people
are going to be washing their cars here; they’re going to be bringing their
cars in by the gardens and washing their cars.” He laughed and said, “Do
you understand what I mean? Look at that guy; he just pulls his car in
here. You can’t see everything 1 can see because you are not Bosnian,
but that guy, he’s a redneck.”
All but one family self-identified as urban. The family from a rural area
emphasized that they had been educated in Sarajevo. However, even the
participants who strongly identified as urban tended to be first-generation
urbanites, and so were only one step away from rural and traditional influences.
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All of the participants’ parents grew up in rural areas. The participants’ mothers
seldom drove or worked outside of the home, and many of their mothers and also
grandmothers practiced Islam and wore the traditional head covering.
Several women expressed sadness about the dearth of opportunities for
their mothers. Speaking about her mother, Jasmina said: “She never worked.
She wanted to, but my father didn’t like her going to work because, like ail men
and most women in the past, they thought that mothers needed to stay home
with their children and take care of them, their husbands, lunch, and those
things.” Describing her mother as a “very, very smart woman” she related that
her grandfather wouldn’t let her mother go to high school “ just because-she was
a girl. She needed to learn about food, to make lunch and dinner and bread and
clean the house, take the children to school, keep them clean, and things like
that.” Zahra noted that her mother did not work or drive a car: “Seeing my mom,
she had so many chances in her life but she didn’t care. She never got a driver’s
license... like she didn’t even care about it, she didn’t want to [work orxlrive],.. 1
would say a lot of women over there are like that, especially older.” Women in
this study, while expressing deep respect and gratitude for their mothers, were
quick to differentiate from them, emphasizing that their lives were vastly different
from both their rural roots and contemporary village life in Bosnia.
Changes in traditionally gendered ways of thinking and acting centered
around several themes: driving, working, childcare, marriage, reproduction,
aging, and homosexuality. Generational differences were evident throughout the
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research, with younger Bosnians embracing modernity more than older
Bosnians. I will address these themes in subsequent chapter.
Discourse of Equality
Woven into the discourse of modernity was a gendered discourse of
equality. The focus of this section is on perceived fairness in gender relations
expressed in interviews and conversations. First, I will present the findings, then
seek to explain them. I will concentrate primarily on the discourse, using
examples to illustrate my points and to highlight contradictions. In the following
chapters, I will address the specific ways in which gender relations are changing.
During the interviews and conversations, several themes emerged from
the discourse of equality. All of the women described themselves as equal to
their husbands and so resisted my questions about equality and household
division of labor. Husbands were less likely to emphasize equality or to express
resistance; in fact, men were more likely to joke with me on the subject. Both
husbands and wives expressed similar perceptions of fairness based on
traditional gender arrangements emphasizing “natural” differences between men
and women. Despite the women’s insistence that their relationships with their
husbands were equal, many contradictions in the conversations provided
evidence that gender hierarchies still exist.
All of the women claimed status in the U.S. equal to their husbands and
the “same” as American women. They insisted that they had a similar status in
Bosnia. There, they typically identified themselves as urban, differentiating
themselves from rural Bosnian women whom they described as unequal to their
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husbands.6 For example, Fatima, 31, fiercely contended that she is equal to her
husband: “It’s the same, really!...I had that right in my country, too. 1 arrived with
that right, and it’s the same for me now.” She went on to say that in Bosnia, “it
depends which social level people are coming from.” Emira described her
relationship with her husband in similar terms: “It’s the same for me, the same
because I am a city woman.” This was also echoed by Zahra, who stated, “The
older, and even some young people in villages, oh my God, you would be so
surprised at the way they think and act, and how that say that, you know, the
man has the last word.” One exception to this was Mirsada who said that
although she and her husband currently have an equal relationship, gender
relations are different in Bosnia: “Oh, it’s still very much unequal between men
and women in Bosnia. It’s very different from here.” She was among a minority
of participants who said there has been a substantial change in attitudes about
equality since resettling infhe U.S. In describing how her own attitude has
changed, she stated:
When I come tiome after work, I don’t have to stay in the kitchen and
make something for dinner. I don’t have that responsibility... He’s [her
husband] an adult man, he can go and prepare something if he’s hungry. I
think like that now [emphasis added].
With a few exceptions, the men’s depictions of marital equality in Bosnia
and the U.S. contrasted sharply with those of their wives. Faris said:
I trying to image what that person could be if they could move the person
to Bosnia. She...all the women, she will be nothing. In Bosnian society,
it’s just not really good. But that’s reality, 1 mean she will be just the home,
the housewife, she will be most in the home during her marriage and
everything, not just seems but everything is definitely different right here
[in the U.S.],
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Omar stressed that many women didn’t work in Bosnia, but he argued that it was
because they didn’t have to: “Before the war in Bosnia, most of Bosnian women,
they didn’t have to go for a job, not because of religion or culture, but because
they don’t have to. The men earn enough money that they can afford
everything.” When describing his relationship with his wife in Bosnia, Haris
laughed, and using his hands, placed one above the other to demonstrate how
he was above his wife, Mirsada, and said, “I feel no guilt about that. Men should
be head of house. Every state needs governor, every country needs a president,
every house needs head of house and that’s a man’s job in Bosnia, and here,
too.”
Humorous Discourse
Among most of the men and women, joking was a common medium used
to emphasis the natural differences between men and women and was
sometimes used by men to show themselves as above their wives, often in their
presence. Robinson and Smith-Lovin (2001) found that particularly for men,
joking often serves to “help structure local interaction hierarchies” (p. 125).
Women also told jokes about gender, but in my observations, they tended to tell
jokes about men most often when men were not around, which is also consistent
with Robinson and Smith-Lovin’s (2001) research.7 For example, at the
International Women’s Day celebration, where no men were invited, one woman
showed up with a phallic cake— one of the big jokes of the evening. Cristina, a
caseworker at the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program also observed joking
patterns among Bosnian men and women:
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I have worked with a lot of Bosnian women and on many occasions they
make reference to their husbands in a way... where there they joke about
how they are expected to be— like “1 gotta go home now and feed the
husband,” that kind of thing. It’s really funny because you know they are
joking about it as if it is something that they don’t necessarily want to do,
but because it is expected of them, they will go ahead and do it...There is
definitely a sarcastic tone to it.
In several situations joking revealed the way in which gender differences
were viewed as “natural.” One such occasion occurred when I was leaving
Emira and Samir’s house; Samir, laughed and said, “Please come back anytime.
You can find me in the garage and Emira in the kitchen.” Another day, at his and
Jasmina’s home, Faris excitedly told me that we have the same joke in the U.S.
as in Bosnia. Faris and Jasmina had just moved into a new apartment, and his
male physical therapist asked Faris if he had a washing machine. Faris
responded that he did not, and the therapist laughed, and said, “Oh, but I thought
you said you have a wife!” This sentiment was echoed in findings by Andrei
Simic, in which a visiting Yugoslav professor in California stated: “In America
you don’t need a wife, just a pocketful of quarters!” (1983, p. 74).
Another area where joking was used to emphasis gender differences was
the topic of sports. The following exchange between myself, Omar, and Fatima
was typical:
Omar: I played soccer a long time.
Kim: Did you play soccer also, Fatima?
Fatima: [laughs] NO! In Bosnia, women don’t play.
Omar: [laughing] No, No.
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Several people reported that Bosnian men have formed two soccer teams in a
local league. Although there are co-ed teams in the league, no Bosnian women
play on either team; it is common, however, for them to attend as spectators.
Once, Emira and Samir proudly showed me a video of a traditional sporting
festival that takes place annually on a river in their Bosnian hometown. I noticed
that no women participated in the events, which included boating, swimming, and
diving. At my asking about it, they both laughed and replied that women are not
strong enough to participate. As Judith Lorber aptly notes, “sports illustrate the
ways bodies are gendered by social practices and how the female body is
constructed to be inferior’’ (1994, p. 41). Through joking about women’s
involvement in sports, gender ideology was revealed.
Some of the joking about natural differences included subtle posturing;
occasionally the posturing was more blatant. The most extreme example
occurred during a visit to Mirsada and Haris’s house. Although presented in a
joking manner, it felt more like a power struggle held in check by norms of
hospitality. As Mirsada and I were sitting on the couch looking at pictures, Haris
insisted on showing me a scene from a Montenegran film (Lepota Poroka, "The
Beauty of Vice") that, according to him, depicted the truth about marriage there.
Mirsada seemed embarrassed and annoyed and kept saying no, she didn’t want
me to see that. Haris finally got his way and put in the video, all the while
laughing and joking around. The first scene depicted a husband coming home
and finding his wife in bed with another man. This was followed by a scene of
the wife making bread and then one of the husband leading her up to the top of a
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mountain where he put the bread on her head and hit it with a sledgehammer
until she collapsed and died. During this scene, Mirsada was shaking her head
and Haris was very excited and laughing. Haris turned the TV off after this scene
and told me that husbands have control over their wives in Montenegro, and that
women are not allowed to leave the house without their husbands. The incident
had another layer: While posturing as the head of his household and referring to
himself as “ the general" Haris was using this film to express his view that Bosnia
is more modern than Montenegro.8 It wasn't until much later that I became
aware that Haris selectively showed me the first scene in order to portray
Montenegro in a negative light relative to Bosnia. Had he shown me the entire
film, I would have learned that a main point of the film is that the scene depicted
is no longer representative of Montenegro today (Simic, personal communication,
11/16/02).
Although women used humor to emphasize the “natural” differences
between men and women, I did not observe women using jokes to communicate
that they had a higher status than men. In recalling that Bosnian men typically
lose status after migration while Bosnian women either gain or at least do not
lose as much, its seems probable that for men joking is a mechanism of
compensation.
Shifting Attitudes
Omar, 31, who is exactly the same age as his wife, Fatima, (they share
the same birthday), described their relationship as equal both Bosnia and in the
U.S.: “It’s the same, because she worked and went to school in Bosnia and I
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[helped with] cooking and cleaning, support’ [emphasis added], A few men said
that their attitudes and behaviors have changed since moving to the United
States. Faris said:
“Definitely, four or five years ago, I wouldn’t have agreed to have Jasmina
work... When I came here, all of the women were working and had their
independence. For some of them, it’s not good; for others, it’s good, and I
was discovering, I mean, I realized since I’ve lived here, that it’s a good
thing. It’s a good thing for every human being to have the right, no matter
who or what they are.”
Several of the men revealed the opinion that too much equality was not a
good thing. Faris attributed the increased divorce rate among Bosnians to
women’s increased independence. Haris lamented the fact that his daughter and
her husband did not invite him and his wife to live in their new house; he blamed
this on the influence of American values and the increased independence of his
daughter, saying that if they were still in Bosnia, they would all be living together.
Mirsada attributed rising rates of domestic violence in the Bosnian community to
men’s resistance to women’s increased freedom and independence:
Yeah, about incidents [of violence] in the family, the man beating the
woman...This is with people who haven’t worked before, especially the
women who haven’t worked before coming over here. They got this first
job, they’re making money and think that they can do— that they are equal
to their husbands, now they are equal and can do the same things that
men do, but Bosnians...think that women are a little less than they are,
you know, and they (can’t) let the women do whatever they want here, you
know, and this is very sad.
Despite these gendered differences in perceptions of equality, the
perceptions of fairness in gender relations were strikingly similar between men
and women. Both husbands and wives tended to view their marriages as fair,
and these perceptions were usually based on traditional views of appropriate
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gender arrangements. Like their American counterparts (Lorber, 1994), most
Bosnian men and women emphasized natural gender differences that were used
to justify doing different household tasks and having separate responsibilities.
The language people used to describe household responsibilities revealed
that the interior of the home is largely considered to be women’s space while the
outside is viewed as men’s. This attitude corresponds with Tone Bringa’s findings
about gender in Bosnia that “the building itself represented men’s hard labor
white the interior of the house was the expression of the woman’ s moral worth”
(1995, p. 87). Ahmed, who said that he believes in equality, stressed that:
I expect Zahra to clean the house a little bit more because in general I
think that— I might be wrong— but I think the responsibility of the bills and
of the cars, you know, other things that need to be done... She doesn’t
have to fix the car and change the brakes or rotate the tires on the car.
And so because of that, I think she is supposed to pull a little harder in the
house because... I think, you know, the woman is more likely to clean
house better than I do. [emphasis added]
Several women highlighted the natural differences by describing their husbands
as “strong” and “real men,” both physically and mentally. “Natural” differences in
strength were used to explain gendered division of labor. Lorber (1994) argues
that “men’s supposed greater strength rationalizes the gendered division of work”
(p. 49). Emira complained that American women “like to be like men, strong. I
don’t want to be strong.” She went on to say that:
I never did hard labor. I never painted my house, you know... that’s
something I don’t like in America, is that women like to be men. I say, NO,
I don’t want to do it. I much prefer to make lunch than to do something
that’s very hard... I’m really happy if I do lunches and the house and my
husband does the outside work and the hard work... I like to feel more as a
woman.
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Jasna’s response about her husband’s involvement in the home is also revealing:
He doesn’t do anything, [laughs] I’m just joking, you know, sometimes you
don’t feel like doing something that day. Okay, I don’t feel like doing that. I
don’t need to do it today, I can just wait. I can, you know, he’s tolerant. If
I didn’t get to something, if I left too much stuff around and then I didn’t
clean up, it doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t say, 'You should do that, you
should clean.’ No. I think I’m more self-critical because I know what I
should do as the mother. I know that I should finish a task because of my
children; they need to have a clean house. I have this belief.
Describing how her husband found a house for them to live in during the war,
Fatima added: “I learned how to be brave, but he was better at it. He was like a
man about that stuff, like a real man. if he wants to do something, he knows how
to do it. He finds a way, he’s a man of action.” Jasmina stated about her
husband, Faris, “He’s just a stronger person than me.”
Regarding the tasks that men do within the home, men and women
typically referred to men’s household labor as “helping” or “supporting” their
wives. These traditional depictions of men and women were supported by
Bosnian culture, and were subject to criticism or ridicule when challenged.
Jasmina and Faris both spoke about the response to Faris’s taking on more
“ female” responsibilities. Faris spoke of Bosnian people’s reaction to his taking
care of his daughter:
It’s just other Bosnians, they just laugh... It seems to them they are
watching a comedy or something, you know, like big father and the small
daughter or something....it’s actually like all the people around us were
laughing because it’s funny to see the father and the daughter together
running from the credit union to the bank to the grocery stores or
whatever.
His wife, Jasmina, said these reactions are not surprising because Bosnians are
not used to seeing husbands take care of the children and doing “women’s” work:
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“[In Bosnia], nobody ever sees the husband making lunch for the wife. He’s [her
husband] cleaning house, and if he needs to, he’s going to clean our clothes.”
Perceptions of “natural” differences between men and women were also
revealed through attitudes regarding household division of labor and work
outside of the home. Although Bosnian men have taken on more household
responsibilities in the US (which I will explore in the following chapter), certain
tasks were viewed by men and women as “ women’s work,” namely cleaning the
bathroom and doing the laundry. In responding to my question about cleaning
the bathroom, Faris laughed and said, “No, I never do, never clean that.”
Explaining why her husband does not clean the bathroom, Jasna stated:
He doesn’t need to clean the bathroom, because if he did, I wouldn’t like it.
I’m sure about that! [laughter] Because the bathroom, it’s a special place,
really, that you should take care of and use— I never want him to do it
because I know that he’s never gong to do what I want, [laughter] I want
to clean the bathroom because I think of it as mine, I should take care of it,
nobody else.
As I will discuss at greater length in Chapter Six, men did “help” women
with the laundry when that meant going to a laundromat. Whenever there was a
washer and dryer in the home or apartment building, men did not participate.
Washing the clothes at home was the women’s responsibility.
Another way “natural” differences between men and women were
highlighted was through the expressed opinions that the man is and should be
the primary breadwinner. In the way that men’s participation in household labor
was viewed as “helping” women, women’s income was usually viewed as
supplemental to their husbands.9 Both husbands and wives tended to view the
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husband as primary breadwinner, and both expected husbands to work more
hours. The majority of Bosnian men I spoke with reported proudly that they
worked more hours than their wives, often giving the number of their overtime
hours. Only one woman worked more hours than her husband and that was
because he had recently suffered a debilitating accident at work. Both men and
women perceived these arrangements as fair.
Shortly after Haris showed me the video about a husband’s vengeance in
Montenegro, Mirsada told me, “He can think whatever he wants, but he knows
that we are equal, he knows that. He can talk, he can make jokes, but he knows
that we are equal, he knows that through our life together that I take care of
things more than he does, more care of everything, fie knows that.” Mirsada
said that she does more than her husband but that their relationship is equal.
My research points to a different conclusion. Despite women’s insistence
that their relationships with their husbands are equal, and despite men and
women’s roughly similar perception of fairness, interviews and observations
provided evidence to the contrary.
Several women reported that household labor was equally divided
between them and their husbands. Yet in both Bosnia and the U.S., the majority
of the men worked outside of the home and, in households where both spouses
did so, husbands worked more hours than their wives. In Bosnia even the
women who did not work outside of the home tended to report that the household
division of labor was equal.
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In the same way that they needed to present Bosnia as a modern country,
it seemed important to women to present their relationships with their husbands
as equal and harmonious. Much of this discourse was defensive and protective
of their husbands as well. Consider the following conversation between Jasna
and me, in which she describes the division of labor:
Jasna: In Germany it was easy for me. I was home and my husband
used to work first shift and also another part-time job.
Kim: Now that you are both working different shifts in the U.S., have
things changed around the house in terms of household chores?
Jasna: I don’t think so. If I have something to do, I do it. If he has the
time, tie can aiso cook, tft don’t have the time, he can do that. Sometimes
he does it and sometimes I do.
Kim: Is it different now than it was in Bosnia?
Jasna: Oh no. It was the same. He’s really good person. He’s really good
about family about everybody.
When I was interviewing Jasna’s husband Sanel about this, Jasna interrupted
before he could respond to my question. Emira, who like Jasna did not work
outside of the home in Bosnia, professed that she and her husband, Samir,
divided things equally in the home both in Bosnia and the U.S. When I probed
this topic with Emira, who seemed ready to move on to other topics, she
responded firmly:
Kim: Did the division of household labor change at all after you moved
here, after you started working?
Emira: No, not a lot, because Samir like to help me, but now I am not as
obsessive about cleaning the house and everything inside it. I’m not
anymore and I think I was stupid for it before. Now, you know, I just do
what I can. That’s life.
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As well as hearing them during the interviews, I observed these
contradictions in practice. On a typical visit when both spouses were home, the
women would cook, serve coffee and food; set and clear the table; and do the
dishes. It was not uncommon for men to relax in the living room, watching
television. When I attended parties in participants’ homes, I observed women
engaging in traditional “woman’s” work: setting the table, preparing food,
clearing the tables, and so on. On almost every occasion, women tended to
congregate in the kitchen and help each other with food preparation and
cleaning. The main exception was during summer barbecues, when grilling the
meat fell under the men’s responsibility. During one visit, when I was invited to a
traditional Muslim funeral service at a Bosnian family’s home (which took place
forty days after the death), I was asked to wear a head covering and help serve
the food.
Although, in general, I observed women having primary responsibility for
household tasks, certain exceptions demonstrated that there are substantial
changes in household division of labor. I will explore these changes in Chapter
Six, but for the most part men who participated in household labor tended to help
with these tasks when their wives were at work. When both spouses were home,
the primary responsibility for household tasks fell again to the women.
Explaining the Discourse of Equality
Like the discourse of modernity, the discourse of equality is grounded in
socialist ideology and experiences of marginalization and discrimination. In
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addition, the discourse of equality and perceptions of fairness are also related to
cultural values, experiences during the war, trauma, and resettlement.
As stated earlier, socialist ideology in the former Yugoslavia emphasized
modernity and gender equality. Consider the language used in Yugoslavia’s
constitution, drafted in 1946, regarding equality: “ Women enjoy equal rights with
men in all spheres of state economic and social life. Women are entitled to a
salary equal to that of men for the same work, and enjoy special protection in the
labour relationship.” (Djuricand Dragicevic, 1965, p. 6, quoted in Ramet, 1999, p.
94). This ideology was so pervasive and compelling that Gal and Kligman (2000)
argue that one of the legacies of socialist ideology is the tendency for women in
East Central Europe to view themselves as unequivocally equal to men.1 0 This is
striking since there is ample evidence that full equality was never achieved in the
former Yugoslavia and East Central Europe (Jancar, 1978; Ramet, 1999; Gal
and Kligman, 2000).1 1
As Muslims too, Bosnians were subject to this discourse. There is a long
history of them being defined as “other”: from Europe’s “oriental other” to
Bosnian and Muslim “other” in the U.S. (Hayden and Hayden, 2000). My
findings suggest that this is a response to the repeated experiences of
discrimination and marginalization. Research indicates that gender inequality
sometimes pales in comparison with other forms of discrimination; when people
experience marginalization and discrimination outside of the home, they may be
less likely to acknowledge inequality that occurs inside the home and more likely
to present their families as strong and unified (Glenn, 1986; Zinn, 1987; Kibria,
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1993; Pessar, 1995). My findings indicate that Bosnians go to great lengths
(especially women) to present their families as unified and harmonious. I argue
that this is partly related to their experiences of marginalization and
discrimination in U.S. society, but also a result of war experiences. While
Bosnians are marginalized in the U.S., relative to other immigrant groups, this is
somewhat tempered by the fact that they are white and experience racial
privilege in the U.S., and also because they are not visibly Muslim. Another
reason why gender inequality may be less important is related to their
experiences of trauma and loss, which for many, led to increased family loyalty
and preservation, which is of paramount importance. A related factor is that in
the U.S. husbands and wives have become more dependent on each other in the
absence of extended family members and friends.
To understand the contradictions between women’s assertions of equality
and their incongruous descriptions, it is also important to examine the discourse
within the larger social context of the United States. Ample research on U.S.
families demonstrates that gender inequality is pervasive. (Hochschild, 1989;
Lorber, 1994; Coltrane, 2000). For example, research indicates that women do
at least twice as much housework as men (Lennon and Rosenfield, 1994;
Coltrane, 2000); and that despite this inequality, the majority of American women
perceive the division of labor as fair (Pleck, 1985; Blair and Johnson, 1992;
Lennon and Rosenfield, 1994). In this way, the discrepant patterns are not
unique to Bosnian families but are embedded within a global context. Due to their
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lack of exposure to American families, Bosnians are largely unaware of the
persistence of gender inequality in American families.
In Bosnian culture the family is corporate, a “closed system,” which may
contribute to participants portraying themselves equally regardless of the reality
(Simic, 1983). Family roles, as Simic argues “are conceived as interdependent,
reciprocal, and complementary rather than replicative” (1983, p. 72). This
suggests that perceptions of equality and fairness are relative terms, that the
definitions vary cross-culturally.
My data indicate that the experiences of war, trauma, and resettlement are
gendered. This conclusion followed several intermediate steps but was
compelling. First, like other groups persecuted for some aspect of their identity,
Bosnian Muslims seem to have emerged with a stronger, heightened sense of
identity and pride. Although they are accustomed to negative portrayals as
Bosnians, refugees, and Muslims, they are quick to challenge these
characterizations. Some participants expressed regret and anger over having
internalized some of the discrimination, which led to strengthening their
resistance to such stereotypes. Zahra said:
It changed during the war, and a lot of people feel as I do about this.
Before, you were ashamed of your religion and wished that you were
Christian. Their life seemed easier for them and they were more popular
and cool. You weren’t looking at the good sides of your society, but during
the war, you just got rid of all of those shadows, you know, and then we all
just realized why we’d been thinking that way. We realized that we’d been
made to read and learn things that they’d been saying against us, you
know, against Islam, without any good reason. I was 15 when the war
started, and I was thinking about it a lot. I became more religious and felt
sorry because I ttadn’t learned more when H was a kid, when I’ d had the
chance. I felt bad because nobody was there to actually open my eyes
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and tell me that, yes, despite what they say that it’s not popular and not
good, it’s fine, it’s fine to be what you are. After what happened in Bosnia,
I’m very proud to be Bosnian Muslim, very much so.
Human agency and resistance were echoed throughout the interviews; Fatima
said that during the war, “after summer, 1994, I found myself and life changed for
the better for me. I found self and learned how to fight for self and my life
changed.” Her husband, Omar, who spent several months in the Prejedor
concentration camp, echoed this sentiment, saying, “I have experiences.
{laughs] I can do anything.”
It was here that the sentiment figured in our conversations about equality.
When I asked questions about household division of labor and responsibilities, I
was often met with the response that husbands and wives share household
responsibilities, and that it is the same, they are equal. In these conversations,
many of the women invoked their experiences during the war to illustrate how
strong they are. Bringa points out that “ war changes people in profound ways. It
changes their perceptions of themselves and who they are, and it changes their
perceptions of others and who they are (1995, p. 5). As an example of this,
Sadmira described her experience in the war and how it changed her:
With only twelve years of age, I ended up in a concentration camp, where
I went through situations I never even thought were possible to happen. It
was as horrible as being allowed to use the restroom only three times a
day, live off a slice of bread for twenty-four hours, and undergo the
pressure of being locked in a small chamber with thousands of others who
were also captured. Thinking about it today I can tell that the war has
taught me a lot. I learned to be patient, to appreciate, to be responsible,
and to adjust to changes easier. I have a feeling that my view on life
overall has changed dramatically since the war experience.
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This realization of profound change was echoed by many of the women.
Jasmina stated, “I am not his doll anymore; I can do whatever I want and he
sees that.” And she also suggested that “maybe Bosnian women changed
because of the war, because they have seen that they could very easily die, and
why sit around in the house all day, or something like that. I want to go to school,
I want to work, I want to drive a car.” Eldina told me that the war affected her and
her husband, Dejan, differently. She said that he became more religious and she
became very determined in fighting for her rights by standing up for herself and
her family. Jasna, who was separated from her husband, Sanel, for three years
during the war, said she learned that “only you can help yourself.” When talking
about her educational goals, Emira said, “I think now maybe I can do something
for myself.”
Finally, cultural beliefs and attitudes may contribute to the discourse. In
his research, Simic found that “there is an expectation that close personal ties
will be distinguished by both cooperation and parity. In the latter respect, where
there is a perceived lack of equality, there is a strong presumption that a balance
will be struck” (1988, p. 45-46). In addition, my position as a representative of
the larger American culture that has marginalized Bosnians and treated them as
“other” may have influenced their desire to portray themselves to me as modern
and equal.
I will explore the gendered differences of equality in more depth in
Chapters Five and Six when I discuss changes in the public and private realms.
To summarize this chapter, my findings suggest that there is a strong discourse
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of modernity and equality, portrayed more by women than by men. I argue that
this is partly rooted in experiences of discrimination and marginalization and in
experiences during the war, which have strengthened self-determination and
human agency for women. In addition, as others have argued elsewhere, when
a group experiences discrimination in society because of race, ethnicity or
religion, other aspects of their identity are sometimes strengthened, and the
gender inequality that may exist within the home pales in comparison to the
inequality they may experience outside of the home. I believe that some of the
protectionism concerning equality is due to this issue.
1 Throughout my research, there was some indication that there was a racialized
subtext to the discourse of modernity (e.^., strongly identifying as European,
differentiating oneself from gypsies). However, additional research is needed to
explore this theme.
2 It is important to also point out that Serbs and Croats also claimed
discrimination under Tito; those who didn’t were largely party members (Simic,
personal communication, 11/16/02).
3 While there is much evidence that both Serbs and Croats looked down on
Muslims as symbolic of the Turkish occupation and as apostates, there were
Muslim authors who were well known and widely read in the former Yugoslavia
(Simic, personal communication, 11/16/02).
4 However, it is also important to point out that some Muslims did benefit from
Tito's political and economic ties to the Arab world, and Catholics benefited from
the influence of Western powers and the Vatican, whereas Orthodox had little
external support (Simic, personal communication, 11/16/02).
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5 The majority of the interviews took place before 9/11/01; after 9/11 reports of
discrimination on basis of religion increased.
6 During the NATO involvement in Kosovo, when Kosovar refugees were moving
to Vermont, Bosnians often made an effort to differentiate themselves from these
refugees, describing them as rural and illiterate. Many Bosnians were very
offended when people assumed they were culturally similar because they were
from a nearby region and were Muslim.
7 However, Robinson and Smith-Lovin (2001) also point out that this finding is
inconsistent in the literature.
8 Andrei Simic (1983) discusses how gender ideology is revealed through
Yugoslav folklore and proverbs.
9 Paradoxically, this arrangement often resulted in women having more
opportunities to learn English and become more integrated in the community,
which will be examined in chapter five.
1 0 Interestingly, Gal and Kligman (2000) also argue that this ideology of equality
and its attendant self-confidence has enabled women from post-socialist
countries to experience upward mobility under new circumstances.
1 1 See Ramet (1999) for an excellent, detailed discussion on how “Titoism” failed
to live up to the promise of gender equality.
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Chapter Four: Gender, Modernity, and the Realignment of Public Space
Changing ideals of modernity and shifting structures of opportunity after
arrival in the U.S. have led to a reformulation of public space for Bosnian men
and women. Although men and women are equally exposed to U.S. modernity
and structures of opportunity, gender relations shape their responses to the
receiving context. I argue that adherence to some traditional gender
arrangements— namely, men as primary provider, women as primary caretaker—
leads to an expansion of public space for women and a contraction for men.
My findings indicate that language serves as the conduit between the
private and public realms, and that because women are acquiring English skills
faster than men, women are more adept at navigating the new public realm than
men. As a result, women’s public worlds have expanded with increased work
and school opportunities, while men’s worlds have contracted. In this chapter I
will describe the changes and the accompanying gains and losses that have
occurred in the public sphere, and I will seek to explain why these changes have
taken place.
The Public Realm in Bosnia
All of the participants described public life in Bosnia as vibrant and
interactive. When people left their homes for work or school or to run an errand,
they encountered a bustling street life. Walking or riding the bus as most of them
did, they were at once in the public sphere, where, because their activities
tended to be near their home, they interacted with neighbors, friends,
pedestrians, and co-workers. Neighborhoods were tight-knit, often consisting of
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extended family and friends who had lived there for generations. People did not
have to travel far to do their grocery shopping, to work, or to visit with friends and
family. Jasmina knew everyone in her neighborhood and would interact with
many of them on a regular basis, on her way to school, work, or the grocery
store. She said, “Before the war on every street you had about three grocery
stores.” This idea is captured by Faris’s description of his neighborhood: “ We
knew each other really well, by names, by who people are, where they work, I
mean we knew so many things about others.”
Yet public life in Bosnia was structured both by cultural norms about
gender and by the socialist modernity projects described in Chapter Two. Tovi
Fenster (2000) argues that despite common perceptions, modernity planning
projects are not gender-neutral, and that upon inspection, the designation of
public space is based on constructions of gender. In the former Yugoslavia
gender equality in the public realm was the stated policy of the government, but
in reality, men dominated and controlled most public space. According the
United Nations (2002), politics and decision-making in pre-war Bosnia were
dominated by men, with women’s involvement largely symbolic. This was
illustrated by their minimal presence in the parliament— in 1990, they constituted
just 2.92% of elected representatives.
Although gender inequality is prevalent in both the U.S. and the former
Yugoslavia, the latter had a higher degree of sex-segregation in the areas of
work, school, and involvement in public life. Women’s participation in the work
force increased substantially following World War II, but occupational sex
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segregation was the norm, and women generally had more difficultly finding jobs
than men did because men were regarded as the main provider while women
were viewed primarily as the housewife and mother (UN, 2002). Similarly, while
the gender gap in educational enrollment narrowed significantly in the decades
following World War II, men and women were concentrated in gender-specific
fields, and men were more likely than women to graduate from college.
The recent war in Bosnia exacerbated this situation, for, in the interest of
safety, boundaries of public space and spatial mobility were reduced
substantially for women, and more and more often they were confined to the
home.
This is not to say that their lives were utterly confined. Gendered
boundaries between private and public space in Bosnia were far less rigid than in
many Muslim societies, where the public realm is largely sex-segregated and the
boundary between public and private space for women is delineated by the
wearing of the veil or hijab or both.1 However, compared to the experiences they
would have in the U.S., women’s participation in Bosnian public life was certainly
more limited.
In addition, modernity projects in the former Yugoslavia were less
individualistic than modernity projects in the U.S. Some of the modern features
of public life in Bosnia included efficient public transportation, free higher
education, and densely populated urban communities. Several features of U.S.
modernity contrasted sharply with public life in Bosnia, such as the reliance on
automobiles, expensive higher education, and dispersed, suburban community
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life. The four areas— driving work, school, and social life— that experienced
substantial changes for both men and women were shaped by the gendered
responses to U.S. modernity and by the opportunity structures.
Changes in the Public Realm in the U.S.
When Bosnians arrived in Vermont, they discovered a vastly different way
of life. Most women said that they were initially afraid of life in the U.S., a feeling
aggravated by the unsafe environment in which they were placed. For those who
experienced trauma during the war, the situation may have been exacerbated by
post-traumatic stress. In fact, a few families I visited kept their shades drawn and
their windows and doors locked at all times. Women’s fear may have contributed
to men taking on more responsibility as the provider and protector.
In addition, families found themselves initially living in isolation, in run
down areas of the city. Without friends and family nearby, they had to rely on the
immediate family more than ever before. Even those who did have extended
family and friends in the area, found themselves, because of conflicting work
schedules and decreased geographic proximity, spending little time with them.
On top of this, most had minimal English skills and were pushed by their
caseworkers at the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program to start working and
taking English as a Second Language classes (ESL) right away.
The new environment, with its different structures of modernity than in
Bosnia, led to shifts in public and private space for both men and women, with
men generally experiencing more constriction than women. This is illustrated by
Mirsada’s description of the changes in her husband’s life compared with hers:
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“ When we were in Bosnia, Haris had much more freedom. He went out too much
with friends. Here, he just goes to work and then comes back and does things
around the house. In Bosnia, he had much more free time to spend with his
friends in bars or somewhere else. Here, he doesn’t do that.” As other women
did, Mirsada said that the change in public life is more dramatic for her husband:
“For me, my life has changed here, but I didn’t go out like he did, I never went out
like he used to.”
Spatial shifts in the public realm for men and women were most
substantial in the areas of driving, work, school, and social life. First I will
describe these changes and then I will explain why the changes have occurred.
Driving
With one exception, the women in this study reported that they did not
drive in Bosnia; in contrast all but one man did drive. This is partly due to
structural factors. Driving was not a necessity as most people lived and worked
within walking distance of their homes. Thus, the primary modes of
transportation were walking and taking the bus. Also, several participants stated
that it was expensive to obtain a driver’s license. However, many of the
respondents acknowledged that culture also played a role, in that it was not
normative for women to drive; among those families who did own a car, it was
normative for the husband to drive.
Driving patterns changed dramatically after resettlement in the United
States. All but one woman and one man obtained licenses, and all seven
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families had at least two cars. In most families men received their driver’s
licenses first. Some participants did not like being dependent on their cars, but
several of the women said how much they enjoyed the sense of freedom and
independence that driving a car brought. Jasmina, for example, waited for over a
year to get her license because she was afraid to drive. When she finally did get
her license, she said it felt great, and that she liked the feeling of freedom that
accompanied it; she reported that she would sometimes get in her car and “ just
drive and drive.”
Work
The demands of work have had the biggest impact on spatial mobility,
placing the most severe restrictions on time. The majority of participants report
working more hours in the U.S. than in Bosnia, with husbands working more than
their wives. In the U.S. women are more likely to work the first shift, men the
second or third shift; this places more restrictions on men’s time and makes it
difficult for them to participate in activities such as school. Men often described
their lives in the U.S. as working around the clock, a sharp contrast to their lives
in Bosnia, where they had more time for family, friends, and personal interests.
When I discussed their work with men, often they calculated for me the number
of hours they had put in during the past week, sometimes citing 60, 70, or 80
hours. Describing his life in the U.S., Haris smiled and said, “ All I do is work,
sleep, eat, and work.” Faris said that in the U.S., Bosnians “give themselves
over to some job” whereas in Bosnia, “you’re not going to do any overtime like
we do right now... W e like to have spare time to spend with our families or
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whatever we liked, playing, reading books... but not work.” Zahra said, “ Women
don’t work very much in Bosnia...everybody in general always had more time for
their life besides the job and career.” It is easy to seem them becoming more
isolated and individualistic as, alone in their cars, they transported themselves to
work and school.
Return trips to Bosnia entailed further sacrifice. Most families worked hard
to save money for the trips, often skipping vacations for the first year or two. Yet
the trips were so costly that, after they were over, the families had to work even
harder to make good the loss. The situation of Mirsada and Haris was typical. In
order to save for the return, they did not take a vacation for the first year and a
half. But because their extended family in Bosnia assumed that they were rich,
they were expected to bring everyone gifts and to pay for many expenses while
they were there. As a result, the three-week trip cost $10,000, far more than they
had saved, so that they don’t plan on taking another vacation for a couple of
years.
Work and Language Acquisition
In addition to pushing refugees to work right away, the Vermont Refugee
Resettlement Program stipulates that they must attend ESL classes. Most
Bosnian men and a few women scoffed at this requirement, saying that it was
close to impossible to add English classes to their full-time work schedule. Upon
arrival, the majority did try to fit in English classes because they thought they
would get in trouble otherwise; however, all but one man stopped attending
shortly thereafter. Women were more likely than their husbands to stay enrolled
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in the classes, and for some couples, like Fatima and Omar, a conscious
decision was made for the women to work fewer hours in order to learn English:
“ When we came we decided that I stay at home for awhile and take care of the
kids and learn English” (Fatima). In the majority of families the men chose not to
attend ESL classes. Haris’s experience was typical. When I asked Mirsada if he
attended ESL class with her, she said, “Just couple of times, he don’t want to
taking any classes, no.” Similarly, when I asked Emira if her husband went to
ESL class with her, she replied, “No, he didn’t. He said he learned already what
he needs for work and I don’t blame him.” Emira’s brother stopped attending
ESL classes shortly after starting, saying it was “a waste of time.”
Since men tended to work inconvenient hours at second and third shifts,
they had less time for school than their wives, and as a result women often
learned English faster. The following conversation with Omar and Fatima
illustrates this:
Fatima: When people come from Bosnia, women have more time than
men. Men usually go for work the first couple of weeks or maybe the first
couple of days and they don’t have time to learn English. But the women,
they did, they fight for, they become active. They want to learn. They
have more possibility than men do.
Kim: Why do you think that is?
Fatima: Because men have to work.
Omar: Usually men be working and woman stay home with kids and they
going to school. Women have more time for school.
Men worked more to fulfill their role as primary breadwinner and to regain
status and authority. Rather than invest time in English classes, most men opted
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to work in jobs that required minimal English skills. They tended to take jobs in
factories where they did not have to speak much English or interact with the
public. It is ironical, therefore, that because women had more time to take
advantage of language classes and other educational opportunities, their power
and autonomy in the household often increased. Consequently, women often
talked about feeling more freedom and independence in the U.S. whereas men
never described their experiences in this way.
Language Acquisition Strategies
ESL was the most common means for women to learn English, but other
strategies included watching TV, reading the newspaper, and applying for
English-speaking jobs (in fact, women often sought jobs or employed other
strategies that would require them to speak English). Jasmina, who has a two-
year old daughter and found it hard to fit in ESL classes, applied for a position at
Wall-Mart: “Everyday somebody asks me— you know, Wall-Mart is a store full of
everything from food to hardware and everything— I don’t know the names of
everything and I am not ashamed to ask a customer to explain to me. I say I
don’t speak very well...can you explain for me...that’s the way I’m learning
language...and I learn from the TV. The closed captions helps me a lot.” When
Emira first arrived she obtained a custodial job at the local university, where she
worked alongside several Bosnian women. She said that it was frustrating to
work in an unchallenging job, that “it felt like a disability.” In the period of a year,
she persistently applied for new jobs that required English, stating, “I would like
to move up, it’s very important for me...and it’s very important for me to speak
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113
English.” She took the rejections in stride, finally securing a higher position that
met her language requirement.
Several women described themselves as more motivated than their
husbands to learn English. Mirsada said that she thinks Bosnian women are
acquiring English skills faster than men and attributed this to men’s resistance.
Referring to her husband, she said, “He doesn’t have a wish to learn English. I
have a wish to learn English, to speak, to have conversations... I like to watch the
news. I like to read books, newspapers, everything I get from my mailbox,
everything. I like it... in my spare time, when I’m taking a rest, I’m just reading,
could be a couple hours, everyday I forget what I’m doing. I have too much to
do, but I’m just reading.” My observations indicate that women are more likely to
employ proactive means to learn English. However, over the course of this
research, three of the men who refused to remain enrolled in English classes
initially, have now said that they want to start taking classes. One has enrolled
already and two are planning on registering in the near future.
School: ESL as a Gateway to Educational Opportunities
For many women, ESL served as a gateway to more advanced
educational opportunities. As discussed earlier, the Freeman Foundation
provides grants for immigrants to attend community college. I found that more
women than men took advantage of educational opportunities, and as a result
their worlds expanded more rapidly than those of their husbands. In order to
cross-check my observations, I obtained a list of immigrant students enrolled at
the local community college through the Freeman Foundation grant program.
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According to the grant administrator, over 90% of Bosnians who attend the
community college do so through the grant program. In fall 2002, women
represented 58% and men represented 42% of Bosnians enrolled in the grant
program. Upon closer examination, however, I found that women over 30 were
almost twice as likely as men in the same age bracket to attend classes, and
were also more likely than men to be enrolled in more than one course.2 These
observations were corroborated by my interviews with case workers and ESL
teachers who said that in their experiences, women were more likely to attend
ESL and college classes than men. For example, Cristina, a former caseworker
at the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, observed that:
I know of more women than men that are in school currently... I think it has
a little bit to do with the fact that women seem to be feeling a freedom that
they don’t have necessarily in their country and an independence that is in
American society... I know of a couple of Bosnian men that actually started
going to school, but gave up on it and it just wasn’t something that they
wanted to pursue.
Women were more likely to express enthusiasm about their involvement
with school and about their future careers. Women were more likely to talk about
their dreams: of becoming a teacher, a nurse, an artist, a restaurant owner, a
day care provider, a clothes designer. Perhaps the most vivid example of the
contrast between the aspirations of women and men, were Fatima and Omar.
After Fatima fervently described her dream of becoming a teacher, I asked Omar
what his dreams were. He replied indifferently, “I have no dreams.” Although the
two younger men in this study (both in their early 30s) talked about their
ambitions, none of the older men did.
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The two younger men described wanting to go to school primarily to gain
practical skills that would enable them to make more money. This seemed typical
of the men’s motivations. For example, when I asked Faris what he was
interested in studying, he said he wanted to learn how to either build houses or
fix cars: “It’s not really about studying, I mean it’s basically maybe half of the
time you are going to spend directly on practicing the things right there and then
maybe half the time with the books and the homework.” Ahmed stated, “The first
reason why I want to go to school is to be literate, to be able to not just to talk but
to be able to write and read... I’m thinking about business and finance. I like
finance. I might go in there, and then there’s also a couple other possibilities like
drafting, computer-aided drafting.”
In contrast to this, women tended to place more value on learning and
helping people. Jasna stated: “I’m interested in taking German and English
classes to speak both languages. This is really what I want. I would like to learn
just languages. And also what I’m most interested in, I like to work with people,
but not people in business but work with people who need help.” Emira said, “I
love school and I just want to learn, learn, learn...and work with people.” This
finding suggests that adherence to traditional gender arrangements— with men
as the instrumental, breadwinner role and women as the expressive, caretaker—
led ironically to an expansion of women’s worlds relative to their husbands.
Women’s motivation to learn may have been related to the opportunity
structure, as most women described having more work and educational
opportunities in the U.S. than in Bosnia. Most women in their 30s and 40s
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embraced educational opportunities, telling me that it would be unacceptable for
them to go to college in Bosnia at their age. Emira stated: “ You know, I can go
to school again, and that’s a really big deal for me because I’m 4 0 ...here, you
can go to school anytime if you feel you can do it, but in Bosnia, if I go right now
over there, I couldn’t continue college...they think I’m too old for that because
they had specific time how you should finish your school.” This was echoed by
Jasna, 34, who said: “I am not old. I don’t feel like that, but in my country I can’t
go and take any classes...for them, it’s too late...you should finish school in the
right time.” Mediha, 30, said she would be too embarrassed to go back to school
at her age in Bosnia because people would make fun of her. She said during a
visit to her family in Bosnia last year, they laughed at her when she told them she
was going to college.
In addition to increased opportunities to attend college, women in their 30s
and 40s often had more time for school than women in their 20s. Because
Bosnian women typically have children in their early 20s, women in their late 30s
and 40s tend to have more manageable parenting responsibilities, freeing time
for school.
Tensions about Education
When the topic of education was brought up, many women became
spirited and eager while their husbands often appeared subdued. Two men said
that it felt as though they’d left part of themselves in Bosnia. Faris said: “It’s like
I left my soul, and I just move my body and I’m the money maker and nothing
else. I don’t like to think about that, these points, but sometimes when I think
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about it I just feel that I left my soul, I moved my body with airplane, I landed right
here and I’m still working and I don’t even know. I’m just not that satisfied... I’m
still kind of lost.” Ahmed said, “I think I became less human than I was in
Bosnia... I’m kind of nowhere.”
Some men did not like women’s spirited enthusiasm about school or other
interests and discouraged them from pursuing them. Emira said her husband
suggested that she stop going to school because she is too old: “He tells me,
‘Emira, you should stop, you shouldn’t be going to school. You should be retired,
you’re older.’” Emira said that she knows that “he just thinks like that because he
doesn’t like to go to school.” Mirsada, Jasmina, and Emira described Bosnian
men as jealous. Emira stated, “Bosnian men, I don’t think they like to say it but I
think they are very jealous if a woman likes to do something more than he has.”
Mediha, 30, talked about loving to dance but being discouraged by her husband,
who doesn’t like it on the grounds that she is too old. Women in their 30s and 40s
who opted not to go to school tended to have less enthusiasm about their future
than women who did enroll in school. Referring to herself and her husband,
Mirsada said, I think both of us are lost in time. W e are left in time.” Emira said
that some of the Bosnian women she works with disapprove of her going to
school, saying, “Oh, you’re too old, why are you going to school?”
Women are taking greater advantage of educational opportunities than
men for several reasons. First, because women have not experienced as much
loss in status as their husbands, they are more willing to take risks, to place
themselves in situations where they may feel embarrassed or stupid. Women
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described English classes as a scary, intimidating experience that made them
feel stupid, but most were eager to face the challenge. Emira said she felt like a
bat in the classroom, but laughed and said would not give up because she is
“very stubborn.” Women described situations in which they felt embarrassed
about their English skills, but most were able to recover quickly, whereas men
seemed to have a harder time letting it go. (One exception was Mirsada who
was deeply affected by the experience of going to work with few English skills.
She described feeling like an invalid when she first started working, saying that it
felt like she “had arms and legs but couldn’t speak.”) When men described
situations in which they felt embarrassed or stupid, the humiliations seemed to
have had a lasting effect. Women were more likely to laugh about their
embarrassment while men seemed to feel shame and degradation. As Faris put
it, “ When you are 30 years old and you are still not able to do something, not
even take your money from the bank you are not really proud of yourself.” A
related factor may be that through the experiences of war and immigration,
women have become stronger and more determined. Jasmina stated it this way:
“Maybe Bosnian women changed because of war, because they have seen that
they can die very easily and why I need to sit in a house everyday or something
like that. I want to go to school. I want to work. I want to drive a car.”
A second explanation for women’s expanded mobility may be that they
have more flexibility to seek work that reinforces their personal goals of learning
English and pursuing their education. Men who saw themselves as the primary
breadwinners felt pressure to work more and to prioritize making money over
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119
learning English. Such a rationale is encouraged by the fact that second and
third shift factory jobs are among the highest paying jobs available to Bosnian
men and typically require minimal English. Third, as I discussed in Chapter Two,
in Bosnian culture women gain status as they age while men lose status. This
loss for men is in addition to the loss they experience through immigration and
the relative loss as their wives become better educated. Findings from this
study suggest that the dynamic of women gaining power and men losing power
as they age continues after migration; however, the means through which women
gain power relative to men have changed. Men's power decreases in the U.S.
largely as a result of downward mobility and a loss of public life while women's
power increases through language acquisition, education, and work.
Community and Social Life
All of the participants longed for the vibrant and meaningful social life they
had in Bosnia. Although leisure time was gendered in Bosnia, both women and
men described their social life as rich and satisfying, with plenty of time for
friends and family. In Bosnia men’s public lives were more expansive than
women’s, although less so among younger couples. Men described spending
time with friends in cafes after work, and women described spending time with
friends during neighborhood “coffee visits,” trips to the beauty salon, lunch in
restaurants, and movies. Fatima and Omar said that the lack of social life in the
U.S. “is the bad side of living here.” Recalling the past, Fatima said: “ W e had a
lot of friends in Bosnia... a couple of friendships we knew we could always count
on in every situation...here it is very hard for us. W e don’t have anybody to help
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us in the moment when we need something.” Describing her life in Bosnia,
Mirsada stated, “Haris spent time with his friends, I did my job and the work in the
home and very rarely, like one day a week, like a Saturday afternoon, I spent
time with my friends.” Emira said, “I had my friends, we spent many times
together because we had one restaurant on the river...we spent time there with
kids...that was for me, my regular life.” In contrast, Emira said now “if I ask some
Bosnian woman, ‘Would you like to go with me in some restaurant?’ she tells me,
‘Oh, you’re crazy, I don’t have time for that.’”
Upon arrival in the U.S., most Bosnians were shocked to discover the
individualistic way of life here; the constraints of work and school exacerbated
their sense of isolation. Both men and women experienced a loss of public life,
but because women generally acquired English skills faster, and worked fewer
hours than men, their public lives tended to be more active. The primary reason
cited for this was the constraint of time. Because many Bosnians work and some
go to school, they have few opportunities for other things. Mirsada stated:
Every day when I’m at work, at about 3:00, especially if the day is nice like
today, I think, now I’m going home, and I’m going to take shower and
we— my husband and me— we can go somewhere downtown, sit
somewhere, and have a drink or something like that. But when I get home
after working from 8 in the morning until 4:30 in afternoon, I’m so tired, I
lose my energy, and I change my mind, I can’t go anywhere, I can’t.
Fatima stated, “It’s a time thing... I don’t know if you can believe me but
actually I don’t even have time for resting.” Omar said, “Because people work
too much and nobody has free time for talking or going to the store or the show.”
Ahmed said, “It’s because of the way of life in America, I just work.” Faris, who
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takes care of his daughter in the morning while his wife works, said, “I don’t even
have one second to myself.”
A few men reported spending more time at the mosque than they did in
Bosnia, but most men said they only go to the mosque for the religious holidays
of Ramadan and Bajram, and that they do not spend much time socializing while
they are there. One exception was Omar. Fatima described Omar as “socially
more active than me because sometimes he goes to the mosque and meet
people there.” Omar agreed that there is some socializing at the mosque and
said, “usually when we pray we talk,” but he added that he mostly socializes with
men from countries other than Bosnia.
Increased Companionship
Several couples reported that they spend more leisure time together than
they did in Bosnia, where it was common for spouses to have separate social
lives. This is consistent with Simic’s work, in which he found that husbands and
wives’ tended to live sex-segregated lives: “Most married informants reported
that they spent little or no leisure time alone with their spouses, but rather each
chose to socialize with other family members, kin, or friends of the same sex”
(1983, p. 74). Thus, in addition to the demands of work and school, the increase
in leisure time spent together is also partly due to the lack of extended families
and friends. Emira described that “after we moved from Bosnia we usually spend
all the times together because when we are working we are not together and
after awhile you keep your husband and your wife as your friends... now we
usually spend all the times together... but before I had my friends.” Women
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described having best friends in Bosnia and being part of a social network. In
her research, Bringa (1995) found that in Bosnia women were the link between
households and social networks. The absence of these networks in the U.S. is a
tremendous loss for women, and all of the women participants expressed
sadness about it. Fatima said “ Actually it’s very hard to find a friend here... I
would like to find a best friend here but still don’t have one.” Jasmina said, “Here
I don’t have any friends.” Emira said, “Here we don’t have a lot of friends
because it’s a different place.” Omar stated, “It’s very hard to find the friends
because people work too much, people give self to dollar.”
In addition to the lack of time, the difficulty in finding friends is also caused
by the severe breach of trust and estrangement between Bosnians that resulted
both from the war and from immigration. Participants described having a hard
time trusting anyone. Zahra stated, “I can’t seem to trust anybody any more, and
it’s become a problem, it’s become my big problem because it doesn’t matter
what religion or color or whatever you are, I don’t trust people, in general.”
Mirsada said, “In my life, I’m thinking about who are the people I can trust and
who are not and I’m making a wall for my family, for my life, between people I
can trust and people I cannot.”
While trust seemed to be the biggest barrier to developing friendships,
other reasons included regional differences, religious differences, war-time
experiences, competition, and increased materialism. Mirsada and Amina
described the difficulty of finding people with a similar background. Mirsada
stated that unlike herself, most Bosnian women in Vermont are from villages who
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did not work in Bosnia. She said that when she lived in Bosnia, “I was a very
communicative person. I liked the people around, I liked to talk to them and to go
visit them...Now I don’t like it... I like time for myself. I need a little peace.”
Amina, 30 and unmarried, said that she does not like it that some Americans
assume that she has things in common with other Bosnian women her age. She
described feeling isolated in the Bosnian community because she did not know
any women her age who were like her— unmarried, college-educated, and
childless.
Religion was another area of division among Bosnians. Some people, like
Zahra, described that they only trusted Muslims, while others expressed
disapproval of the revitalization of Islam among some Bosnian Muslims. For
example, Emira and Mirsada, both of whom identified strongly as secular
Muslims, talked about not wanting to associate with Bosnians who have become
very religious because they felt that it was similar to the nationalism that led to
the war. Emira said that it makes her angry when Bosnians greet her with the
traditional Islamic greeting, while Mirsada said that Bosnians who became
religious as a result of the war are “not the real Muslims, like in their soul.”
Expansion of Social Life
There are signs that social life is improving for both men and women in
Vermont. A Bosnian restaurant recently opened, and there is considerable
enthusiasm about it in the community. Interest and participation in the
community gardens have increased, and several families told me that the
gardens helped them get out of the house and meet new people. In the past
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year, two parties sponsored by the Bosnian Women’s Group, a New Year’s Party
and an International Women’s Day celebration, each attracted close to 100
guests. More families are going to the local beaches in the summer, one of
which has come to be known among Bosnians as the “Bosnian beach.” Over the
course of this research, I have observed families going out more. Ahmed said
that when they first arrived, “social life was like zero and now we go out more
often than we used to which is really good...our social life at this point is better
than any time since we came here.”
Summary and Discussion
Because of work men’s lives are more constricted in the U.S. than their
wives and also more constricted than their lives in Bosnia; they spend most of
their time either at work and at home. This is a dramatic shift from their lives in
Bosnia, where men dominated the public realm. Perhaps the greatest loss for
men has been the loss of their public sense of self. In addition, because men are
working so much in the U.S., they have less time to invest in learning English and
attending school. Women, on the other hand, who have not experienced a
dramatic decline in their public lives, appear to be more resilient than men.
Although most work more than they did in Bosnia, their relative freedom
compared to their husbands has allowed them more flexibility to seek out
educational opportunities.
In summary, both men and women have experienced gains and losses in
their public and social lives, although the losses have been more severe for men,
particularly men in their 30s and beyond, who have experienced more downward
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mobility than women after resettlement in Vermont. This pattern is consistent
with empirical the finding in the gender and immigration literature that through
participation in wage labor, immigrant women often gain more ground than men,
often leading to increased leverage and empowerment (Kibria, 1993;
Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994; Pessar, 1999). My data are also consistent with the
finding that the gains are not linear; rather they are uneven and accompanied by
strains and contradictions (Pessar, 1999). For example, while Bosnian women
experience benefits (e.g., expansion in spatial mobility, increased leverage in the
household), they simultaneously experience increased burdens (e.g., more
responsibilities, loss of family and kin) (Foner, 2001).
The most important factor driving the realignment of public space for
Bosnian men and women is language acquisition. Because Bosnian women are
acquiring English skills more rapidly than men, women are experiencing a
relatively greater expansion in their public lives. Earlier research on language
acquisition among immigrants found that men acquire language more rapidly
among first generation immigrants, but that women catch up in the second
generation (Aikio, 1992). More recent research suggests a far more uneven and
variable picture. Research demonstrates that many factors contribute to
language transition among immigrants including context of exit (e.g., educational
and work patterns), context of reception (e.g., opportunity structures, size of
immigrant community, linguistic requirements), length of time in the U.S., race
and ethnicity, gender ideology, age, intention to stay, and social class (Portes
and Rumbaut, 1996; Espenshade & Fu, 1997; Usita & Blieszner, 2002). For
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example, research with Vietnamese and Sudanese refugees indicates that men
in these groups acquire English more rapidly than women, and as a result
experience more spatial mobility than women (Tran, 1988; Holtzman, 2000). On
the other hand, research with Reindeer Sami immigrants in Norway found that
women acquired the language faster than men (Aikio, 1992) and research among
Salvadoran and South American immigrants suggests that men and women may
be equally deficient in English skills (Mahler, 1995).
The findings of this study build on the gender and immigration literature by
adding two new insights. The first issue relates to unexpected outcomes that
occur when men and women adhere to traditional gender arrangements and the
second relates to changing ideals of modernity. I will address each in turn.
Adherence to Traditional Gender Arrangements
Although it was not uncommon for women to work in Bosnia, women who
did so were largely concentrated in female-dominated professions that were low
in status and pay. Women experienced little upward mobility and were grossly
underrepresented in positions requiring decision-making (Morokvasic, 1986).
Despite their involvement in work, such as it was, women were still widely
regarded as mothers and housewives first while men were viewed as providers
(United Nations, 2002). Work opportunities were more plentiful for men. Women
had a harder time securing jobs, representing the majority of “persons looking for
work” in pre-war Yugoslavia (Morokvasic, 1986). Moreover, along with the
perception was the reality: women tended to take care of housework and
childcare responsibilities. As Morokvasic put it, “the role of women as domestic
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127
servants is never questioned, nor is the lack of responsibility on the part of men
for domestic chores or looking after the children” (1986, p. 127). In addition,
women became even more marginalized within public life during the war, when
they were largely confined to the home.
Upon arrival in the U.S., many women described being frightened by their
environment, and said they would have preferred not to work right away. For
most, not working was not an option because of the requirements of the Work
First initiative at the Refugee Resettlement Program. Traditional gender
ideology, which viewed men as the primary breadwinner, prompted men to work
more hours than their wives. Conversations with both men and women revealed
that while it is acceptable for women to work, men are still viewed as the primary
breadwinners; and that they feel pressure to make money and provide for their
families.
Although most men and women worked shortly after settling in the U.S.,
as illustrated earlier, men worked more hours than their wives. This results in an
ironic outcome; when men and women, in an effort to maintain traditional gender
relationships, the opposite occurs. In working harder to preserve and/or regain
status, men create additional free time for their wives, allowing them to take
advantage of language classes and other educational opportunities. This results
in men actually losing status to their wives. In this way, although many men
value work over education because they perceive that the benefits of working will
outweigh the costs of not learning English, over time, they find that the reverse
may be true as linguistic proficiency becomes more important for mobility.
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Although the outcome is unintended, overall it is not that surprising as research
indicates that proficiency in English is correlated with economic success among
immigrants (Espinosa & Massey, 1997).
As men strive to regain their former position as provider for their families,
typically by working two jobs and overtime, women, particularly those without
young children, experience more flexibility and opportunity to expand their social
worlds by learning English and attending school. Although educational
opportunities are equally available to Bosnian men and women, traditional
gender relations shaped their responses to these opportunities.
Changing Ideals of Modernity
As discussed in Chapter Two, capitalism and work are cornerstones of
U.S. modernity. Although modernity projects in the former Yugoslavia
emphasized the importance of work and productivity, work and home were
conceptualized very differently there than in the U.S. In the U.S., work shapes
people's identity as well as their opportunities. In Bosnia, work was viewed as a
means to enhance people's lives. Spending time with family and friends, rather
than work, was the central focus, commonly viewed as the most meaningful
aspect of everyday life (Simic, personal communication, 11/13/02). This was
evident in the striking difference in typical conversations I would have with
Bosnians compared with Americans. Upon meeting most Americans, work is
almost always brought up, whereas when meeting Bosnians, this subject is rarely
discussed during an initial meeting.
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The different meaning and conceptualization of modernity and work is
reflected in state policies and is one of the first issues that Bosnians are
confronted with in the U.S. For example an explicit policy of the federally funded
Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, called the “ Work First Program,”
requires all nonexempt refugees to work a minimum of 20 hours a week within
ninety days of arrival. According to Sheila, the Employment Services Manager at
the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program:
The federal regulations in the U.S. are very strict when it comes to
refugees and their admittance and what they need to do when they get
here. Basically, you are expected to work if you are over 18 and you are
deemed employable. You are expected to work a full time job. Now,
there are some exemptions, such as if you are medically exempt and you
have a doctor’s note saying you can’t work, or if you are over 65, or if you
have a child 4... according to our program if the child is under 4 we would
not insist that a woman work. She would have the choice.
Several female participants expressed dissatisfaction with the didactic
nature of the “ Work First” policy, but all of the women complied, partly out of
necessity. In contrast the men were eager to work and none expressed
dissatisfaction with the policy. Eventually, many of the women even described
gaining more independence as a result of the policies. Perhaps inadvertently,
the state-imposed modernity projects in the U.S. contribute to changes in gender,
as suggested by Sheila from the VRRP:
In the federal regulations, incoming refugees need to accept the first full
time appropriate position offered to them. So, you do have women doing
sanding and sawing and things like that at a furniture company and you do
have men cooking at restaurants and doing things like that because that is
the first full time position that is offered to them. So, the federal
regulations sort of break those [gender] molds.
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Additional outcomes of these policies included women obtaining driver's
licenses (Vermont Project Progress pays for driver's education and license fees),
and more similarities in men and women's work. Both men and women were
placed in entry-level jobs, resulting in more parity of hourly pay between men and
women than in Bosnia. Also, several participants and service providers reported
that men and women were now working side-by-side in some jobs that had been
segregated by gender in Bosnia, such as custodial and factory work.
In sum, different ideals of modernity were reflected in the different value
orientations toward work in the U.S. and Bosnia. While most women resisted the
state-imposed work rules, over time women benefited more than men as their
lives expanded relative to their husbands. Both men and women gradually
adopted U.S. attitudes toward work as they began to reap the benefits and adopt
American consumerism.
The realignment of work, school, and community life has also contributed
to changes in the home. In contrast to Bosnia, where the exterior of the home
was clearly delineated as the husbands’ space and the interior as the wives’, the
inside of the home has become more of a shared space in the U.S. Many
Bosnians became aware of these changes during return trips to Bosnia. For
example, after returning from Bosnia last year, Faris told me, “Here, we never go
outside, to a dance club or something, we never go there...when we were back
in Bosnia and Azra was with the grandmother and grandfather, we were always
out, I mean both of us alone without Azra.” In the following chapter, I will
examine the changes in the private realm.
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1 Chandra Mohanty (1991) cautions against Western feminists concluding that
wearing a veil is oppressive. She points out that the meanings attached to the
veil vary by cultural context. For example, Macleod (1990) found that for women
in Cairo, wearing a veil enabled them to broaden their activities outside of the
home by increasing their safety and spatial mobility.
2 The data is somewhat limited because it is not longitudinal, it includes Bosnians
who are not Muslim, and it does not include Bosnian students who are not grant
recipients.
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Chapter Five: Gender, Modernity, and the Realignment of Private Space
Through immigration and settlement, the household division of labor in the
private realm is being renegotiated and transformed among the Bosnian families
in this case study. While men have increased their participation in household
labor, women continue both to do more housework and to maintain the primary
responsibility of the household. Several factors contribute to the changes in
gender relations within the private realm, all of which are related to shifting ideals
of modernity. First, both men and women are working more in the U.S. than they
did in Bosnia, allowing less time to for household labor. Second, increased
educational opportunities, which women are taking advantage of more than men,
take additional time away from housework. Third, a decrease in sociability,
resulting from increased work loads and the decline in social networks, means
that there is less incentive for women to have their house sparkling clean, ready
for display. In this chapter, I will describe the changes in household division of
labor and then analyze why they have occurred.
Description of Changes
All participants in this study said that almost every aspect of their daily
lives changed dramatically after settling in the U.S. Because work, school, and
community are structured differently in the U.S., people soon discovered that
they had less time for themselves, their families, and friends; that they had to buy
at least one car; and that two incomes were necessary. In addition, people found
themselves living in isolation, with minimal English skills and a diminished
support network. Those who did find other Bosnians in their community often
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noted that they were from a different region, religion, or social class, making it
difficult to relate to them. Everyone said that life in the U.S. is too fast. Jasna
said that the Bosnian people she knows “are just working, working, working; they
don’t have time to see each other because most people are working more than
one job.” This sentiment was echoed by Zahra, who said, “Everybody’s so busy
here because you have a chance to go to school and to work at the same
time...everybody’s in a hurry to get the money.”
Participants described hardly seeing their spouses and children because
they were running past each other. Emira said that her family members often
communicate by note. A few people said that they eat more fast food now.
Emila said that she never thought that she would eat fast food; but now she finds
herself going to the McDonald’s drive-through because she spends so much time
in her car shuttling to work and school. The fast food industry symbolizes the
particular construction of modernity in the U.S, which is anchored in production
and consumption. In contrast to Bosnia, where people had more time to cook
and share meals with family and friends, the U.S. revolves around work and
productivity, making it more difficult to spend time preparing three meals a day.
These structural changes in the areas of work, school, social networks, and day-
to-day life have transformed the household.
Almost all of the women described being shocked when they saw their first
apartment. (Chittenden County’s housing market is characterized by high rents
and a vacancy rate of less than one percent.) Upon arrival, Bosnian families
typically found themselves in run-down apartment buildings owned by absent,
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unresponsive landlords, who were only concerned about getting paid. Having a
clean and orderly home is culturally important for Bosnian women, as it conveys
the message that women are “vrijedna” (worthy, also industrious) and “cista”
(clean, but meaning a woman who keeps her house and its members clean and
tidy) (Bringa, 1995, p. 87). Just as American women were found to associate
having a clean home with caring for loved ones, the same is true for Bosnian
women (Thompson, 1991). This was expressed by Jasna, who said it is
important to have a clean home “because of my children, they need to have a
clean house, you know, I have this feeling.”
All of the homes I visited were exceptionally clean and tidy. John, an
employment counselor at the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program (VRRP),
also observed this pattern: “I think Bosnian families, relative to some of the
American homes that I have been in, are just a hell of a lot cleaner. I mean it’s
shocking how clean they are sometimes...they keep their apartments spotless.”
He went on to say that VRRP often receives calls from landlords, who “will call us
first before they put an ad in the paper and say, ‘Do you have any Bosnian folks
coming in? W e’d really like to rent to them.’”
Most women said that they cleaned excessively in the first few months
following their arrival in the U.S. Several talked about vacuuming two or three
times a day; two even described sweeping and combing their rugs. Elmina
registered surprise at how dirty the windows were in the U.S.; one of the first
things she did when her family moved into their inadequate, second-floor
apartment was to clean them. She said that while she was hanging outside of a
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135
window trying to clean it, a passerby yelled up to her that she was crazy. For
some women, excessive cleaning was a response to the substandard living
conditions. It was also a strategy to gain some control over a situation that felt
completely out of control. Moreover, having a clean, nicely furnished home also
symbolized modernity and urbanity. In fact, when I initially began visiting
participants, I was initially surprised by their accumulation of nice furniture and
appliances in such a short period of time. After people began to settle into their
lives here, many women, busy with work and school, found that they could no
longer spend as much time cleaning; for them as for the majority of families,
things began to shift.
In addition to the structural changes in work, school, and social networks,
changing meanings of modernity and increased opportunities and autonomy
among women are also driving these changes in the private realm. In the U.S.
“being modern” revolves more around obtaining an education and having a
career than it did in Bosnia. Meanings of modernity are changing for Bosnian
women, particularly those without young children, who are increasingly turning
their attention towards themselves, their own interests and career goals and
away from housework. In Bosnia, educational opportunities for women (and
men) in their 30s and 40s were severely limited, and women who worked outside
of the home were concentrated in lower level jobs for which they had little
intrinsic interest. As a result, women tended to marry young and raise their
families, so that maintaining a clean and orderly home (often on display) was a
greater source of pride and satisfaction than in the U.S. The increased
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educational opportunities combined with diminished free time and the
infrequency of visitors are resulting in dramatic changes in the private realm.
There is some indication that the changing ideals of modernity are bringing about
a reversal of priorities among some Bosnians. In Chapter Five, I discussed how
work was typically viewed as secondary to family in Bosnia, where work was a
means to support family (work-Mamily). In the U.S. the reverse is often true, in
that family is viewed as the arena in which people prepare to become productive
workers (family-^work) (Simic, personal communication, 11/16/02). For most
participants in this study, work did not have much intrinsic meaning in Bosnia's
socialist economy. With increased opportunities in the U.S. (particularly for
women), some Bosnians are redefining their priorities.
With the exception of one family, where the woman, unemployed because
of a disability, continues to do all of the housework (from which she derives
satisfaction), the husbands in my study participated in household labor in varying
degrees. (The two couples who immigrated shortly after marrying were able only
to speculate about the division of labor in Bosnia based on the changes in their
attitudes toward gender.) Most men admitted that they participate more now
than they did in Bosnia, and most women downplayed changes that have
occurred, emphasizing that things are the same as they were in Bosnia.
Gender Ideology and Division of Labor
Like Flochschild (1989), I found that the “set of ideas a person has about
gender are often fractured and incoherent” (p. 190). As discussed in Chapter
Three, most women described their relationships with their husbands as equal,
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and both men and women described the division of labor as fair, despite the fact
that women do more housework. This paradox is not specific to Bosnians. The
research is consistent that the unequal division of labor is not always perceived
as unfair (Baxter, 1998; Blair & Johnson, 1992; Pleck, 1985; John, Shelton &
Luschen, 1995). Lennon & Rosenfield (1994) found that “in spite of employed
married women performing approximately twice as much housework as their
husbands, the majority of women believe the situation to be fair” (p. 506). Nor is
this phenomenon limited to the U.S. Reporting results from a recent national
survey in Australia, Baxter (1998) states that “59% of women report that the
division of labour in the home is fair even though they also report responsibility
for the bulk of the work” (p. 609).
The disparity between perceptions of fairness and actual household
division of labor has spurred further analysis.1 Lennon & Rosenfield (1994)
purport an explanation of social exchange, arguing that women with fewer
economic resources and options are more likely to view unequal division of labor
as fair. John, Shelton, & Luschen (1995) argue that perceptions of fairness vary
by racial and ethnic group. My findings resonate most with Thompson’s (1991)
argument that perceptions of fairness intersect with gender ideology. Gender
ideology was revealed throughout the conversations on equity and fairness, as I
will discuss below. On the other hand, my findings also indicate that my
conceptualization of equity may be ethnocentric. Several women differentiated
themselves from American women by describing American women as “ wanting
to be like men.” Rather than passively doing more work than their husbands,
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several women said that they embrace this responsibility by choice. Moreover,
some women suggested that American women are missing something; in trying
to be like men they “ forget that they are female” (Mirsada).
For Bosnians, perceptions of fairness are typically anchored in traditional
views of gender that emphasize “natural” differences. The gender ideology of the
majority of participants was consistent with what Arlie Hochschild (1989) calls
“transitional”: most said that they believe men and women should share
responsibilities, but the expectations and assigned tasks continued to be
couched in “natural” gender differences. Consider Ahmed’s perspective, from
which he states that he is opposed to the patriarchal notion that husbands should
have authority over their wives, but at the same time views certain household
tasks as more suitable for women: “I hate the idea of head of household... I
would take part of the responsibilities but I don’t want to be everything and also, I
wouldn’t like for my wife to be housewife... But at the same time, I kind of expect
Zahra to clean the house a little bit more... I think the woman is more likely to
clean house better than I do.” Similarly, Emira, who initially insisted that she and
her husband have always shared housework, later said: “I’ve never done the
hard jobs. I have never painted my house... I say ‘No, I don’t want to do it.’” I’m
really happy to make the lunches and take care of the house while my husband
does the outside work and hard work... In America, women like to be men...and I
like to feel more like a woman.”
Gender ideology was often revealed through the type of housework men
and women did and the strategies they used. In response to the changing
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structure of their daily lives, most men reported doing more around the house
than they did in Bosnia. As did Coleman (1991) and Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994), I
found that men were likely to do more visible labor, leaving the less visible and
routine labor for their wives (e.g., cleaning the bathroom). Men avoided tasks
associated with “ womanliness” (e.g., ironing), steered clear of deep cleaning
projects (e.g., cleaning the walls, spring cleaning), were less likely to express
pride and satisfaction about cleaning, did most of their cleaning in their wives’
absence, and tended to view their participation as “helping out.”
Although it varied somewhat between families, the responsibilities men
were most likely to adopt were childcare, cooking, grocery shopping, and
washing dishes. I will address these themes in the following sections.
Childcare
In the three families with young children, working different shifts meant
that fathers spent more time with children and took on more childcare
responsibilities. These fathers typically took care of the children in the morning
and afternoons while their wives worked. Faris describes a typical day: “From
Monday to Friday, my responsibilities in the early morning were to take care of
Azra [his three-year old daughter], then to make lunch and do the dishes.”
Descriptions of his day-to-day experiences in the U.S. reveal that his involvement
with his daughter goes against the norm in American as well as Bosnian families:
“It’s unusual to see the father in any relationship taking any kind of care of the
kids. In the library, not even once have I seen the father with the kids, no matter
if the kids are girls or boys, or how old they are. It’s always just the mothers. And
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even in the park, it’s just unheard of to see the father with the kids.” I will
address this further in the next section.
In contrast to Bosnia, where it was common for extended family to help
with childcare, the participants with young children reported that it was much
more difficult to find such help in the U.S. Fatima described:
I could always count on my brother-in-law. If I had to do something or go
somewhere, I could talk to him because we supported each other. But
here, it’s very hard for us. W e don’t have anybody to help us in the
moment when we need something. If I had a parent or my mother-in-law
here, it would be much easier for us. She would take care of the kids and
our problems would be solved. But as it is now, if I want somebody I have
to pay for it. It’s okay that I have to pay, but the big question is who will
take care of them, and who will we find that we can trust? I don’t have
enough money to afford full day, like that day care. That’s too expensive,
especially now.
Women who stayed home with their children reported being available to
help extended family members and friends with childcare. Emira described
taking as many as ten children of her friends and relatives, along with her own
children to the beach in the summer.
Four of the families in this study had young children. Early on in my
research, the consensus among the participants was that they were opposed to
the idea of putting their children in childcare. Many families developed creative
strategies to care for their children, with the majority of parents opting to work
different shifts, and the remainder relying on extended family who either lived
nearby or came to visit from Bosnia for lengthy stays. Overall, men took on more
childcare and parenting responsibilities in the U.S. than they had in Bosnia.
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Two main reasons were cited for the opposition to putting children in
daycare. One reason was financial, but the most common reason was that it was
not natural for strangers to take care of one’s children, especially strangers from
a different culture. Simic’s extensive research in the former Yugoslavia reveals
that ties of family and kinship are conceptualized differently in Bosnia than in the
U.S. Core family values in the former Yugoslavia centered not on individualism,
as in the U.S., but on “ family corporacy and interpersonal dependence...which is
expressed by the strong attachment of children to their siblings, parents, and
other kin in preference to extrafamilial peers." (Simic, 1983). Faris captured this
prevailing sentiment:
Jasmina is on the first shift and I’m on the second, and the reason we
wanted the different shifts is our daughter. We have to take care of her.
People say you can put your daughter in daycare and both of you can
work the same shift, but that’s not easy for us. It’s not just about the
money... W e are kind of, even if Jasmina is 24 and I’m 32, we’re still kind
of old-fashioned people. W e like to take care of all of our kids, and also,
we don’t believe that there is someone who is going to take better care of
Azra than we can. Even if we’re wrong, we are still going to do it our way.
Over time I witnessed these attitudes begin to give way to a more
Americanized approach to childcare, as increasing numbers of families opted to
place their children in daycare. This pattern was also observed by Sheila at the
VRRP:
Traditionally, as you probably know, a woman would not probably put their
child in daycare, maybe more now in Bosnia, but historically you’d stay
home. The husband would work and the woman would stay home and
take care of the child, or perhaps it was a family member that would take
care of the child or something. And that’s not always an option for our
clients... W e have had a least three women start their own daycare.
Bosnian women are seeing the need for daycare and many women
wanted to leave their children with other Bosnian women.
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Several factors are contributing to changes in attitudes in daycare: the
absence of extended family and kin in the U.S., constraints of everyday life, and
U.S. modernity. On the structural level, state-imposed policies are impacting
changes by pushing men and women to work and providing cash assistance for
daycare. This is illustrated by Sheila, who stated:
We provide $140 per week per child for daycare to parents who are both
employed for the first eight months. So if a mother and father are both
working and they are working the same shift, then they would be eligible
for that support service and that’s for the first eight months and that helps
out a lot. Some people take it and some people don’t, some people say
no we will work opposite shifts or whatever.
When I had a follow-up conversation with Faris five months later, he had
done a complete turnaround. He and his wife had decided to enroll their
daughter in an American-run daycare so that they could have more time alone
together. He reported that it was one of the best things they ever did.
Marriage and Reproduction
All of the women in this study were married young, in their late teens and
early 20s, whereas, with one exception, the men were three to eight years older.
The age gap is partly structural and partly cultural, anchored in traditional norms.
The education system is structured differently in Bosnia, where most high
schools are vocational, training students to work in specific fields. While several
of the women in this study were trained in trades ranging from nursing to culinary
arts to cosmetology, by the time they graduated they were typically seventeen or
eighteen years old. As an example of cultural norms, they were expected to
marry shortly thereafter, and most did. On the other hand, men were required to
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enter the army for one year following graduation from high school. This typically
meant relocating to a different republic of Yugoslavia, which limited their
marriageability at that age. The Bosnian culture encouraged men not to marry
right after high school but to gain life experiences first.
Soon after marriage, women were expected to have children. As Simic
points out, in Yugoslav culture, a woman gains status when she marries, and she
is elevated further once she becomes a mother. Amina, who is thirty, unmarried,
and has no children, talked about how commonplace it was for people to treat
her as a child despite her age because she was unmarried. She said when the
subject of sex came up, Bosnians typically said things to her like, “cover your
ears.”
Drawing from his earlier work with Barbara Myerhoff (1978), Simic (1983)
argues that “males and females experience different life trajectories with the
power of men peaking in middle age, and women gradually accruing greater and
greater authority, influence, and prestige as they grow older” (Simic, p. 76).
Because men’s status declines with age, marrying at a young age is perhaps
less appealing for them. In addition, the strict mores prohibit pre-marital co
habitation and pre-marital sex for women but not for men, who are encouraged to
“go about a lot” before marriage (Bringa, 1995, p. 90; Simic, 1983). However,
once married men are expected to settle down (Bringa, 1995). These factors
may also encourage women to marry at a young age, while providing incentive
for men to delay marriage.
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Reflecting about this time in their lives, the few women in this study who
were in their 40s and 50s recognized that they were very young when they
married, and expressed a wish that their daughters finish their education before
having children. Describing the early years of her marriage, Mirsada, 46,
recalled:
I was 19 when I got married... I joined a new family, my husband’s family
and they expected me to be very serious because now I’m married, but I
think that in that time, I really grew up in a very short period of time.
Everybody expected that from me: my husband first, and my husband’s
mother and father, his immediate family, and he had a big family,
tool...They all expected me to be a good woman for my husband, a good
homemaker. I did, too. A year later— actually, not a year but after a
couple of months, I realized that I can’t get out. You know, I didn’t want to
get out of it, but it was really hard for me then, very hard.
A confluence of factors is impacting both the age of marriage and the age
of childbirth for younger Bosnians in Vermont. First, the education system is
structured differently, so that women and men complete their education at an
older age, and for the most part, defer marriage. Second, the pool of
marriageable partners is relatively small. An increasing number of Bosnians in
this age group (18-22) are dating American-born men and women. In addition,
among some young Bosnian couples who came to the U.S. in their early 20s
without extended family, both spouses are busy working and going to school, and
this leads to the decision to delay having children. All of the young couples I
have met said that they do intend to have children, but that they have to get more
established first.
As it did in the U.S. after the sexual revolution, the shift in attitudes and
practices in marriage and reproduction among Bosnian immigrants has
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introduced its own tensions. Several women have reported that teen pregnancy
among Bosnians has increased substantially in the U.S. Some of these young
women have had abortions while a few have chosen to get married instead.
Many women told me that once word spreads that a young woman has had
premarital sex her marriageability plummets. Elmina stated, “Bosnian men like
women who don’t have a history.” Mediha, who works at a local high school and
views herself as a bridge between Bosnian and American culture, said that she
has helped some teenage girls obtain abortions. She instructs them (and
occasionally their parents) to be careful and not tell anyone. Amina said that she
is surprised at the number of young Bosnians who are still getting married and
having children at an early age. She stated: “I thought my generation was
advanced, but they all got married. Nobody except me went to college.” She
described how isolating it is not to have any Bosnian friends who are like her, a
thirty year old, college-educated, unmarried, and childless.
Amina’s isolation may be related to the fact that culturally, having children
is viewed not as an option, but rather as an eventuality among Bosnians. This
was revealed throughout conversations and in many circumstances, when I was
asked by young and older women, when, not if I would be having children.
Moreover, women gain status as they marry and have children, which is
reinforced through Yugoslav cultural narratives that venerate motherhood
(Slapsak, 1997).
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Cooking
All of the men reported that they cook, though only a few said that they
also cooked in Bosnia. However, during my many visits to the home of
participants, I observed women cooking far more than men, with the exception of
barbeques, where men would tend to the meat on the grill. Except for spending
time with their children, cooking was the only other household responsibility that
men said they enjoyed. This may be because in most societies parenting and
cooking are highly visible tasks that require skill and are often rewarded while the
less visible and rewarding work traditionally done by women is devalued
(Hochschild, 1989). Describing Bosnian men, Fatiima said: “Some of them don’t
like it, but they know how. If they have to cook, they cook, but they need [a] little
pushing.” Emira said that Samir cooks more now than in Bosnia: “Now, Samir
helps me if he can, sometimes. I just leave for him what I like to do and he often
makes lunch or supper for us. That’s the only thing that I’d like to keep, but
there’s nothing wrong if I don’t do it one day.” When I asked Saed about
cooking, at first he laughed and said, “I will call in a pizza,” but he quickly
followed this joke by telling me that although he rarely cooked in Bosnia, except
when his wife was pregnant, he enjoys it now on occasion. Faruk only cooks
during barbecues, when he spends many hours preparing and roasting a lamb.
By contrast, Faris, who worked as a chef in the Yugoslav army, cooks most of
the meals for his family.
Women were more likely than men to spend their free time preparing food
to have on hand for family members and guests. One day when I arrived at
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Mirsada’s and found her in the kitchen, she said: “Oh, this is what I do on my
day off... I cook and cook, making lot of food on my day off." Emira said that she
always makes sure that there is food ready for guests who might stop by: “I
usually have everything ready if somebody calls to come for a visit...that’s our
custom, if you come to us and stay for more than two or three hours, I should
serve some food." In addition, women were more likely to know how to cook the
traditional breads and pastries. For example, I did not meet any men who knew
how to make bread, pita, or baklava, three customary foods. Among the
countless visits to the homes of participants, it was almost always women who
offered me coffee and who cooked and served the food. On a few occasions
men would help clear the table and wash the dishes. Faris, who worked as a
chef in the Yugoslav army, was the one exception. On a few visits I did find him
cooking. However, when it came to making pastries and bread, the responsibility
fell to his wife.
Cleaning
On my many visits to the homes of participants, it was common to see
women involved in deep cleaning projects. On the other hand, I never saw men
do this. Once I arrived at Mirsada’s shortly after she had cleaned all of the walls
in their apartment. When I asked if anyone helped her, she laughed and said:
“My husband leaves the house when I start cleaning. Nobody likes that...he
says he doesn’t want to waste his time on that stuff.” One bright, sunny April
afternoon, when I arrived at Mediha’s, she was in the front yard pounding on the
couch pillows. Full of energy and enthusiasm, she related proudly that she had
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spent the entire morning turning her house upside down, cleaning the walls, the
corners, the base heaters, and so on. Mirsada said that her husband helps more
now, but she described how he does not go beyond surface cleaning: “ Yeah, he
does the dishes and vacuums, but nothing else... He can do the dishes and
vacuum the house, do the floors...and bring the garbage down there to the
container, but he never cleans windows, he never uses the iron or does the
clothes.”
When I arrived during or after a big cleaning session, women typically were
in a good mood, exuding a sense of pride and accomplishment after their hard
work. Mediha said it made her feel good to have a clean house, and it also kept
her husband happy. For Jasmina, cleaning served as an emotional outlet:
“ When I’m angry, I clean...it’s like in the movies when someone is left by a lover
and they just clean and clean and clean.” Women reported that they engage in
deep cleaning far less frequently in the U.S. than in Bosnia. For example,
several women described spending a good part of their weekends in Bosnia
cooking, cleaning, and ironing. Changes are partly due to a lack of time, but also
because cleaning is less important to them now. In fact, as I will discuss in more
detail below, most women regretted how much time they spent cleaning in
Bosnia. My findings indicate that although women still gain some satisfaction
from cleaning their homes, they are more likely to do it on their own terms now,
compared to the past, when their houses were on display daily and they were
judged by how well they kept them. In addition, with the changes in structures of
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opportunity and new definitions of modernity, many women are also gaining pride
and satisfaction through other sources, like working and going to school.
I also observed that husbands tend to participate in household chores when
their wives were not at home. Since most couples worked different shifts, and
since men did not go out as much as in Bosnia, they typically had at least a few
hours home alone each day. In my observations, it was during these times that
men would participate in household chores. When husbands and wives were at
home together, women were likely to assume responsibility for cooking, cleaning,
and serving food. I did observe men helping out on occasion (e.g., clearing the
table, serving drinks), but it was more typical that they sat relaxing, watching TV,
while their wives were scurrying around the house.
As with individual families, I observed this pattern also during parties and
other social events: women did the busy work, attending to the guests’ needs,
while the men who were not involved in grilling the meats remained seated.
Overall, as discussed in Chapter Three, men and women described men’s
involvement as “helping” or “supporting,” which conveyed the perspective that
men’s participation was viewed as supplemental to that of their wives. These
findings resonate with Scott Coltrane’s (1989) research, in which he identified
two types of dual-earning couples: manager-helper couples, where wives direct
and men help, and equal responsibility couples. Bosnian couples in this study
are similar to the “manager-helper couples” in Coltrane’s research, in that the
divisions of labor were accompanied by an ideology based on gender difference
rather than on gender similarity.
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Despite the general increase in men’s participation in household labor,
women continued to spend more time than their husbands cleaning and
managing the household. It appeared that when men completed a task such as
washing the dishes, they quickly shifted their attention to other interests without
seeking what else needed to be done. On the other hand, most women seemed
acutely aware of what needed to be done and were often apologetic about the
things they hadn’t gotten to. For example, none of the men in this study cleaned
the bathroom. When asked if he cleaned the bathroom, Faris’s response was
typical: “No. [laughs] I never do. I never clean that.” Referring to Haris,
Mirsada laughed and said: “Uh uh. No. Never in his life. Never.” And Emira
said: “He doesn’t need to clean the bathroom because if he does that I don’t like
it. I’m sure about that, [laughter] Because the bathroom, it’s a special place... I
never want him to do it.” This finding parallels observations of American men;
Arlie Hochschild (1989) found that “ fewer men than women wash toilets and
scrub the bathroom" (p. 9).
Women who acknowledged that they did more housework attributed it to
natural differences, associating domestic work with “ womanliness” (Hochschild,
1989). A few women pointed out that their husbands do not pressure them to
clean more. Emira stated: “He doesn’t say, ‘You should do that, you should
clean.’ No. I think I’m more critical of myself because I know what I should do
because I know that I’m mother...My children need to have a clean house.”
Mediha said that she cleans more than her husband because she wants to, not
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because her husband forces her. She said she can’t stand to see her husband
clean the house because “men can’t do it like women.”
Laundry and changing the oil were areas where natural differences were
emphasized. None of the families owned a washer and dryer for some time after
settling here; most had to take their clothes to a laundromat. Husbands helped
their wives with the laundry until the family either purchased a washing machine
or moved into a building that had on-site facilities. When I asked Ahmed about
laundry, he replied: “Don’t even ask. [laughs] I’ve done it for three years. W e
didn’t have a place for the washer and dryer...Now she’s paying for it. She’s
doing it for the rest of her life. I don’t want anything to do with that anymore.” He
continued, saying: “I think she did it like two or three times in three years
because it was heavy. I didn’t expect her to deal with that... it was hard, heavy to
carry. I’m taking care of her.” [laughs], Mirsada and her husband had to walk to
the laundromat until they bought a car; describing this, she said, “ When we came
over, he did laundry, but not by himself. I went with him, he just helped me.” In
most cases wives were willing to resume responsibility for the laundry once they
no longer had to travel to a laundromat. As Emira stated: “Laundry is my job. I
want keep it, forever.”
None of the women participated in maintaining the car, and most laughed
when the topic came up. When I asked Jasna about it, she replied: “Oh, I never
do that, never.” Faris said that while “it’s much easier to divide the
responsibilities in half...don’t then say that I have to change the oil in my car
because it’s a man’s work. Fine, it’s really man’s work. But if there’s
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dishwashing to be done on the same day, maybe an hour later, please don’t say
it’s a new movement, it’s the feminist movement... If we are the equal, then go
ahead, change the oil.”
As discussed earlier, several women described cleaning excessively in the
early days after settling in the U.S. Over time, as the structure of their lives
changed, women began to cut back on housework. This finding corresponds
with Hochschild’s that in families where both spouses worked, “cutting back on
housework was clear, intentional, and almost across the board for those without
maids” (1989, p. 196). For some Bosnian women, lowering standards was a
conscious strategy that enabled them to focus on other things, such as going to
school; for others it represented a shift in attitudes and priorities. It simply wasn’t
as important to them to have a spotless home anymore. One exception was
Elmina, who despite her disability managed to maintain her high standards. In
part this may have been because Elmina did not work outside the home; having
a clean house was a primary source of pride and satisfaction, whereas the other
women increasingly derived satisfaction from work and school.
Reflecting upon the amount of time once spent cleaning, Mirsada said: “I
did that for too many years, for too long. I don’t like it. I mean, it’s not like it was
before. I was the type of person who had to have everything in its place,
everything had to be clean, but now... no. I leave it. I don’t do it that way
anymore.” And Emira said, “I am no longer obsessed with cleaning the house
and everything in it. I think I was stupid for that before. Right now, I do what I
can.” Similarly, Jasna said, “I was wrong; it’s not important to be clean. I mean, I
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do enough cleaning, but not too much. You should learn to save the dust; you
don’t need to dust everyday like I used to do.”
Ironing and Gender Display
Ironing is an area where most women lowered their standards. Elmina
described spending every Saturday afternoon in Bosnia ironing clothes for
herself, her husband, her father, and her two children. Several women said that
everything in their homes was ironed, including the sheets. When reflecting upon
this, most women laughed at the amount of time they had spent ironing, and
some reported that they now buy clothes that do not need to be ironed.
Ironing practices in Bosnia were intertwined with standards of dress and
appearance. “Dressing up” and presenting oneself in clean, ironed clothes was
required in order to be perceived as modern and urban. Dressing well in clean
and ironed clothing distinguished urban and modern women from rural, provincial
women, and preserved the social hierarchy and existing power structures. In the
U.S. “being modern” is defined along class lines more than along rural/urban
lines, and people are judged more by what they have than by what they wear.
Although there are rural/urban differences in the U.S., they are not as salient as
they were in Bosnia because the majority of Americans live in urban areas
(77%), compared to Bosnia (43%) (World Bank, 2002). Thus, in the U.S.
wearing ironed clothes has less significance in terms of “being modern.” As
Bosnian women adapt to U.S. versions of modernity, ironing becomes less of a
priority in their lives.
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Gender and Decision Making
Women gained more autonomy in the U.S in regards to decision-making.
Several reported that they now have a greater say in household decisions and
budgeting than they did in Bosnia. On the subject of decision-making, Mirsada
went so far as to say that she now has an equal voice: “Now, we talk more. W e
can discuss it and then make a decision. If I don’t like something, I tell him. W e
make compromises.” Explaining the ways in which she has changed, Jasmina
said, “I used to let him do what he wanted in our marriage. Before, he bought
whatever he wanted. Now, I say, ‘Whatever you buy, I want to know before you
buy it.” Other women had similar stories; most said that they had gained more of
a voice in the private realm. This is due to the increased autonomy they’ve
experienced as a result of their involvement in work and school as well as to the
power they’ve gained relative to their husbands by acquiring more proficient
English skills.
In summary, women continue to maintain primary responsibility for
household cleaning and management in the U.S. None of the women took care
of maintaining the car, and most avoided household tasks that required physical
strength (e.g., mowing the lawn, shoveling snow). Women frequently said that it
was important for them to have a clean and orderly home, but they
acknowledged that they had lowered their standards since moving to the U.S.
Some had increased their involvement with household decisions, often because
they were more proficient in English than their husbands.
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Explaining Changes in Household Division of Labor
In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist researchers optimistically concluded that
participation in the paid labor force would result in immigrant women’s
emancipation both in the home and society. However, new insights about the
complexities of migration processes have challenged relative resource models,
which predicted a straightforward correlation between women’s employment and
emancipation (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999). Recent studies have revealed that
while immigrant women’s employment can positively affect household division of
labor by eroding patriarchy and increasing women’s leverage, these micro-level
changes occur within a broader context in which many social processes are at
work. Feminist scholars now caution against casting immigration processes and
outcomes in either/or terms (i.e., emancipation or subjugation), and argue that
immigration often leads to gains and losses for both women and men.
(Morokvasic, 1984; Pessar, 1985, 1999; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1999; Menjivar,
1999; Foner, 2001). For example, Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994) found that
changes in household division of labor varied among different types of migration
and Menjivar (1999) found a “multiplicity of experiences” among immigrants. In
the broader gender literature, scholars have identified numerous factors that lead
to changes in the household. In her research on two families in the Silicon
Valley, Judith Stacey (1991) found that changes in families are correlated with
three social forces: changes in economic structures, the influence of feminism,
and the loss of power of the “traditional” family.
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My data are consistent with these findings in that I discovered that
changes in the household are not caused by a singular factor like wage work,
and are varied and uneven in their impact on household division of labor. Four
themes emerged as the most prominent social forces contributing to these
changes: work, lack of social networks, shifting ideals of modernity and
structures of opportunity, and women’s increased agency. I will address each
theme in turn.
Work
Before the war, two of the women were employed full-time, two stayed at
home with their young children, and three were unmarried students.2 All of the
men were employed, but most did not work more than eight hours a day. As
Omar stated: “In Bosnia, we didn’t have overtime like here. W e worked just one
job, eight hours and that’s it. W e had enough for food, plenty.” This sentiment
was echoed by Faris, who said: “In Bosnia, we didn’t like working that much and
we really didn’t work that much. W e liked to have spare time, to spend time with
our families or whatever you like... we weren’t doing any overtime like we do right
now.”
During the war the two employed women stopped working whereas two of
the women who were students assumed part-time jobs in cafes. After settling in
the U.S., all of the women became employed within the first year, typically
obtaining jobs shortly after their husbands did, though working fewer hours. In
every family husbands and wives worked different shifts, whereas only one
couple had done this in Bosnia. Two women reported experiencing downward
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mobility after immigrating. The remainder experienced either vertical or upward
occupational mobility. This is not surprising, given that in the former Yugoslavia,
working women were concentrated in low-wage occupations (Morokvasic, 1986;
Ramet, 1999). John, the employment counselor at VRRP, said, “It’s been my
experience that there were very few women working at what are considered
higher level jobs... I have noticed that women were working in service level jobs
or clerical jobs, usually as assistants versus some position of authority... I would
say there is more downward mobility for men than there is for women.” John’s
observation is corroborated by Ramet (1999), who points out that in pre-war
Yugoslavia, employed women were overrepresented in “ women’s occupations”
such as service, sales, tourism, and health care, while they were
underrepresented in leadership positions. All but two of the men in my study
experienced downward occupational mobility in the U.S.
Several participants claimed that before the war, most women in Bosnia
did not work outside the home, and a few stressed that this was because they
didn’t have to; husbands made enough money to support their families. Faris
claimed that “ females, a really big percentage, they never held jobs.” Morokvasic
(1986) reported that according to the 1981 Yugoslav Census, more than half
(63%) of Yugoslav women were not employed. In addition, she reported that
women experienced more difficulty finding jobs than did men. Faris described
how his attitude toward his wife’s working changed after settlement in the U.S.:
“Definitely like five years ago... I wouldn’t have agreed to have Jasmina work.”
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My findings suggest that these new work patterns— women’s increased
participation in the labor force, men’s longer work hours, and shift work— have
impacted changes in household division of labor. This finding corroborates
others in the literature (Eastmond, 1993; Menjivar, 1999). As is done in
mainstream society and among some other immigrant groups, shift work is often
chosen by Bosnian immigrants as a strategy to avoid placing children in daycare
and to save money (Mahler, 1995). Describing how she and her husband handle
childcare issues, Jasna stated: “He [her husband] works third shift and I work the
first shift because of the children. Somebody should always be with them. I don’t
feel okay to pay for daycare for my kids. I should be with my kids.”
As discussed in Chapter Three, for most Bosnians who avoided using
daycare, this strategy reflects the belief that no one is going to care for their
children as well as they can, which is related to the cultural tendency of Yugoslav
families to be closed and corporate (Simic, 1983). In his research in western
Bosnia, William Lockwood (1974) found that Muslims are more likely than
Christians to limit their social relationships to close relatives, whereas Christians
tend to depend on a broader web of social relationships including relatives and
friends. This cultural pattern may be a contributing factor for parents with young
children who opt to work alternate shifts.
Only three families had young children; the four other families worked
alternate shifts because of job availability or pay or because they simply
accepted the schedule they were offered by employers. For example, John, the
employment counselor, said, “There is very little discontent with the idea of
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working second or third shift. I have always thought...‘God, why am I putting
someone into third shift?,’ and they’ll say, ‘Well, I’m going to get paid the most on
third shift. I don’t care if I work third shift.’”
Although willing to work second and third shift, the majority of participants
admitted that working different shifts was stressful in many ways, but mostly
because they had little time for themselves or for family and friends. As Omar
stated, “Usually it’s hard for Bosnian people who have small kids. They need to
work in different shifts, some third shift or second... but it’s okay, we have food,
we have everything.”
Shift work resulted in changes in gender arrangements, with husbands
taking on more household responsibilities and women experiencing increased
autonomy and independence (which I will discuss below). Omar described a
typical week:
When I work at [my job], I leave the house at 6 p.m. and work from 7 p.m.
to 7 a.m. When I go home in the morning, we usually drink coffee and she
goes to work while I stay home and bring Faris to the Boys and Girls
Club. I stay with Hamza at home and usually I sleep 2 or 3 or 4 hours.
Then she comes back home around 3:30 or 4, and I sleep 1 or 2 hours
more, and then I go back to work. When I have free time, I usually help
out with cooking, cleaning, getting the kids around.
In summary, new work patterns in the U.S. are contributing to changes in
the household. Men are spending more time at home and taking on more
household responsibilities while their wives are working, although women are still
doing more. This is partly due to the dearth of help from extended family and kin
in the U.S. as compared with Bosnia.
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Lack of Support Networks
In the U.S. extended family members lived near four of the seven families,
but only one of the families with young children had kin nearby. However,
because in most families both spouses worked, no extended family members
were able to help out with childcare or housework on a regular basis. In addition,
the families were spread out, several miles apart, in marked contrast to the close
proximity typical in Bosnia.3
Fatiima described the difficulty she and her husband faced without
extended family: “Here it is very hard for us. We don’t have anybody to help us
when we need something. If I had a parent or my mother-in-law here, it would be
much easier for us. She would take care of the kids and our problem would be
solved.” If I would have a parent or my mother-in-law here, it would be much
easier for us. She would care about kids and problems be solved.” Faris said
that in Bosnia, “there’s really huge help from each member of your family, not just
your immediate family, I’m talking about family generally.” Faris described how
his life would be different in Bosnia: “Let’s say we moved to my home city... I
believe that Azra would be with Jasmina’s parents or they would be with Azra in
our home. It’s just the way... we run our lives... we had spare time and you could
spend that time with your kid just for play.”
This decrease in help from extended family members translated into
increased burdens for husbands and wives in their day-to-day lives. Men took on
more responsibilities, which helped to compensate for this loss; however, the
onus continued to fall on women’s shoulders. As changes in work did, changes
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in family structure led to gains and losses for women and men. Without the daily
influence of extended family and kin to enforce familial norms, men and women’s
lives became more individualized, providing them with an opportunity to
renegotiate traditional gender arrangements. While one result was that men
handled more housework than they had in Bosnia, the shift also carried a cost for
women. As mentioned in Chapter Three, in traditional Bosnian culture, women
gain status and power as a result of becoming mothers and grandmothers
(Simic, 1983). Without the daily influence of extended family and kin in the U.S.,
the “affectual power stemming from the mother-child bond in patrilineal societies”
described by Simic (1983, p.68) is also eroding. While women are experiencing
an increase in independence and leverage in the household, the increased status
and power typically gained by mothers and grandmothers in Bosnia is less
influential here.
Shifting Ideals of Modernity and Structures of Opportunity
Changes in the private realm (e.g., household division of labor) are
shaped by changes in the public realm (e.g., constructions of modernity). The
values underlying U.S. modernity, discussed in Chapter Two, are very different
than the values underlying modernity in Bosnia, and this has led to different
structures of opportunities for Bosnians in the U.S. Menjivar (1995) identified
three social forces that shape structures of opportunity for new immigrants: the
receiving state’s reception and assistance; the local job market; and the receiving
community. For Bosnian refugees these opportunity structures impact household
division of labor in several significant ways. I will discuss them briefly.
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First, assistance from state and local agencies is both expanding and
restricting opportunities for men and women, resulting in changes in household
division of labor. On the one hand, in the wake of welfare reforms that reduced
public assistance for refugees from 36 to eight months, the success of social
service programs is measured by how quickly people move off of public
assistance. The Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program instituted a program
called “ Work First” that endorses aggressive measures to push refugees into
working right away. Most of the participants in this study, as well as the majority
of Bosnians I have met, hold a negative view of the Refugee Resettlement
Program. One woman, Dzana, described being told by her case manager, who
pushed her to take a job ten days after her arrival, that she must begin working
immediately, and that if she didn’t Americans would dislike her because she
would be a burden on society living off of their hard work. Dzana, like many
Bosnians I met, told me that she was never informed of the federal law that
entitles refugees to eight months of assistance before working.4
The leadership, practices, and policies of the agency have been the
subject of an intense public debate.5 According to Joe, an ESL teacher who has
been working with Bosnians since they began arriving eight years ago, the
policies of the Refugee Resettlement Program have made it difficult for refugees
to learn English because they are forced so soon into work. Moreover, because
of the cultural view of husbands as the primary breadwinner, men tend to get
jobs first, allowing some wives to attend ESL classes; they then enter the work
force later or on a part-time basis. The stringent policies of the Work First
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program trickles down to the household, causing more stress, and resulting in
less time for household labor.
On the positive side, one form of assistance has been beneficial to
Bosnians. A grant from a local foundation offers educational opportunities for
Bosnians by providing scholarships for immigrants to attend college. According
to one of the primary administrators of the grant, about half of the applicants are
Bosnian, and of these, more than half are women. He said that he has observed
that “Bosnian women are taking more advantages of opportunities for
mobility”... whereas men tend to “be stuck in an old view of themselves.” As
women take advantage of these educational opportunities, they are reducing the
amount of time available for doing housework.
The second factor affecting the opportunity structure is the job market. In
2001 and early 2002, at the time of my research, the local economy was stronger
than the national average, with opportunities for people to work in manufacturing
and service occupations.6 In addition, Vermont’s minimum wage is higher than
the national average and a statewide “Livable Wage Campaign” has resulted in
several employers agreeing to pay a livable wage, defined as the minimum
amount needed to cover basic needs.7 This may make it feasible for women to
work fewer hours than men, allowing more time for them to attend school while
reducing time for housework. And as some scholars have suggested, as women
become more involved in education and work, the importance and meaning of
housework may shift.
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A third factor is the availability of mortgage financing for Bosnians. The
Vermont Development Credit Union (VDCU) has a loan program for first-time
homeowners, availing funds provided by the Vermont Housing Finance Agency,
a secondary market investor. Through word-of-mouth, most Bosnians establish
credit by opening bank accounts and getting car loans at VDCU. After they have
green cards and have established credit, most are able to obtain mortgage
financing with a down payment of between zero and five percent, depending on
their credit history. Tina, an assistant director at the Vermont Refugee
Resettlement Program, said that Bosnians are buying homes sooner than other
immigrant groups. Joan, an employee at VDCU, reported that Bosnians have
proved to be better borrowers than native-born Americans and that they have a
relatively easy time securing mortgages. She also said that having a bilingual
Bosnian woman on staff at VDCU has raised the visibility of the program, causing
more Bosnians to use it.
At this point the effect of purchasing homes on household division of labor
is unclear. As discussed earlier, in Bosnian culture the outside of the home
tends to be the men’s domain while the inside belongs to the women. Living in
apartments, where no outside work is required, has blurred these boundaries.
One possibility that needs to be explored is whether purchasing a home leads
men and women to fall back on traditional, inside/outside gender arrangements.
On the one hand, there is some evidence that in post-war Bosnia the war has
had an adverse effect on gender equality. The war was fought predominantly by
men while women were largely confined to the home. The United Nations
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reports that afterwards, “conservative leaders saw a chance to restore the
‘natural order,’ with the house and the family allocated to women, and the
economic, political, and public spheres of life belonging to men” (2002, p. 81).
On the other hand, several aspects of U.S. modernity may discourage Bosnians
from reverting to inside/outside gender arrangements. For example, U.S.
modernity emphasizes the importance of minimizing interior and exterior
household labor. The U.S. economy is more service-oriented than the Bosnian
economy, and it is common for Americans to hire people to do much of the
interior (e.g. cleaning, remodeling) and exterior (e.g. lawn care, building, painting)
household labor. Although such services are presently out of reach for most
Bosnians, they are influenced by the values underpinning them.
The women in my study said that they have more opportunities to advance
in school and work than they had in Bosnia. Women are taking greater
advantage of the educational opportunities than men, although this is somewhat
mediated by age, with little difference in educational goals among young Bosnian
women and men. This is due to two factors. First, men and women still view
husbands as the primary breadwinner, as a result of which men generally work
more hours than women. In this way, women have more time to devote to
school. Second, men seem, at least initially, less likely to subject themselves to
the anticipated discomfort of attending school in a new country; this may be due
to the fact that they have experienced a sharper decline in pride and status both
in the home and in society— a loss made worse, perhaps, by their lack of
proficiency and confidence in English.
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In summary, structures of opportunity have placed additional constraints
on the amount of time spouses can attend to housework, leading to changes in
standards and allocation. This has brought about significant change in gender,
however, women still maintain primary responsibility for the household.
Women’s Increased Agency in the Private Realm
As discussed in Chapter Three, women have experienced an increase in
agency and independence concomitant with men’s loss of status and authority in
their families and communities. Several scholars have found a similar pattern
among Vietnamese, Mexican, and Dominican immigrants (Pessar, 1986; Kibria,
1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994). It appears that this had led women to lower
their standards and exert more leverage in the household, which in turn has
resulted in a movement toward more egalitarian gender arrangements.
Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner (1999) found that “a key to the movement
toward greater equality within immigrant families was the change in the women’s
and men’s relative positions of power and status in the larger social structure of
power” (p. 352-3). In addition to the decrease in status men experienced, many
men have experienced a loss of public self. In Bosnia men tended to live lively,
public lives, spending much of their time outside the home. Their situation as
refugees is markedly different.
On the other hand, women’s growing independence, juxtaposed against
men’s diminished power, may inhibit women from directly challenging the division
of household labor or, paraphrasing from my participants, from challenging it “too
much,” risking further damage to their husbands’ pride. Hochschild (1989) found
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that women who earn more money than their husbands tend to demand less
housework from them, because to do so would be a double assault on their
masculinity. Instead women may use more covert ways to challenge household
division of labor, such as lowering their own standards.
In summary, changes in the private realm have led to gains and losses for
men and women. On the one hand, with the absence of extended family
members, families have become more individualistic, and burdens that were
shared among extended family have fallen on the immediate family. While
women and men have more opportunity to redefine gender roles and men have
increased their participation in household labor, women still bear the brunt of the
household responsibilities. Men find that they are spending more time at home.
The home has become more of a shared space for husbands and wives,
resulting in men taking more responsibility and ownership. However, women still
maintain primary responsibility for housework, which may be related to
constructions of modernity. Judith Lorber (1994) argues that "subordination of
women is an intrinsic part of the modern social order," which she argues will
persist until we implement "policies that could establish true gender equality" (p
293).
1 See Blair & Johnson (1991), Lavee & Katz (2002), and Lennon & Rosenfield
(1994) for a detailed analysis of perceptions of fairness in housework.
2 The two employed women did not work for at least one year following the birth
of each child; in pre-war Yugoslavia, women receive one year of maternity leave
with full pay (Morokvasic, 1986).
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3 Over the last forty years, household composition in Bosnia and Yugoslavia has
been shifting from a patrilocally extended family (the zadruga) toward smaller,
nuclear families (Bringa, 1995; Simic, 1983). However, Simic (1983) argues that
the daily life is still structured largely through interaction between extended family
members.
4 The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act eliminated
welfare entitlements and severely restricted welfare assistance for immigrants
and refugees, although refugees fared better than other types of immigrants.
However, the legislation shifted administration of welfare from the federal to the
state level and offered rewards and incentives to states that decreased their
welfare spending. It is likely that the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program
benefited by lowering public spending on refugees, which may be why the
refugees were not informed of their rights.
5 At the time of this writing, the director has stepped down, and the resettlement
program is undergoing changes in leadership and policies.
6 During the post 9/11 economic downturn, manufacturing jobs have decreased
and unemployment has risen in Vermont. However, the employment rate is
lower than the national average.
7 Figures released by the Joint Fiscal Office, State of Vermont revealed that a
livable hourly wage for a single person is $9.90; for two parents and two children,
each parent must earn an hourly wage of $13.00 to cover basic needs.
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Chapter Six: Gender, Dress, and Modernity
Bodily adornment and dress are discursive daily practices that reflect
constructions of gender. Dress includes clothes, hairstyles, make-up, and bodily
decoration; it exists in all cultures and it serves many social purposes. Some
functions of dress are to include and exclude; to imitate and demarcate; to
distinguish between genders, social classes, and age groups; to express cultural
identity; to mediate social relations; and to challenge and negotiate power
struggles (Kaite, 1987; Barnes and Eicher, 1992; Eicher and Roach-Higgins,
1992; Cannon, 1998; Brydon, 1998). In this study I will examine the gendered
meanings and practices of dress.
Like other discursive formations, dress is a gendered form of
communication, socially created within political, social, and economic contexts.
Within these contexts individuals express agency and make choices about dress,
but these choices are constrained by social structures and cultural expectations
(Weitz, 2001). Dress patterns are often embedded in power relations, and are
enforced through formal and informal means of social control (Arthur, 1999).
Formal social control includes laws regulating dress, while informal social control
refers to the threat of disapproval as well as the internalization of norms that
leads to self-regulation. However, although dress codes are often used to
manage and control the body (usually women’s), challenging dress codes is a
central to the expression of human agency; individuals can gain agency and
control through dress (Goffman, 1970; Foucault, 1974; Lynch, 1999). Goffman
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argued (1959, 1963) that because people have control over how they dress and
present themselves, they can challenge existing social precepts.
Shifts in dress often occur during periods of rapid social change and
during disruptions to established patterns of living (Cannon, 1998). Because
immigration engenders profound changes in peoples’ everyday lives, examining
changes in dress among recent immigrants will help to show how meanings and
practices of dress vary by context. Research on this topic remains quite limited;
this study seeks to address this shortcoming.
Studying Gender and Dress
Theories of fashion and dress grew out of those of modernity, and many
scholars agree that fashion has its roots in the rise of industrial capitalism
(Barnard, 1996).1 They were the work of early social thinkers such as Simmel
(1895, in Frisby and Featherstone, 1998) and Veblen (1945) and Goffman
(1959).2 More recently, in researching modernity in China, Rofel (1999) found
that “ Western fashion signified the heights of modernity” (p. 32).
Modes of dress vary historically and cross culturally and are interrelated
with constructions of modernity. The viewer and the wearer may attach different
meanings to dress, as “people often make judgments concerning other people’s
social worth or status on the basis of what those people are wearing” (Barnard,
1996, p. 58). In addition, within societies, styles of dress often within the public
and private domains, where individuals oscillate between front stage and back
stage (Goffman, 1959).
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The subject of dress has been largely overlooked by second wave feminist
scholars as an important category of analysis. Although it has gained legitimacy
in recent years, perhaps in part due to the advent of 3rd wave feminism, and also
with the publication of Elizabeth Wilson’s (1985) highly regarded work, Adorned
in dreams: Fashion and modernity, the field is still marked by some lingering
skepticism and antagonism (Gibson, 2000). Some notable exceptions include
Vicki Ruiz's historical analysis of dress among Mexican American immigrants in
the 1920s and 1930s and more recently, Sarah Mahler (1995) notes the different
dress styles between South Americans and Salvadorn immigrants.3
I argue that the lack of attention on dress is due to the ambiguity within
feminism about the analysis of dress as well as to simplistic, one-dimensional
views of dress within some strands of feminism (Gibson, 2000). Barnard (1996)
points out that those who do not take the study of fashion and dress seriously
tend to view it as unimportant and representative of “deceitful trivia to be pursued
only by the intellectually challenged” (p. 3). Antagonistic views on the study of
dress tend to view dress as oppressive for women, describing women as victims
of fashion (e.g. see Greer, 1999). As Felski (1995) points out, this negative
stance on dress is rooted in a "manipulation thesis":
Women have been portrayed [by feminists] as victims of the ideology of
consumerism, trapped in a web of objectified images which alienate them
from their true identity. Any pleasure derived from fashion, cosmetics,
women's magazines, or other distinctively feminized aspects of consumer
culture has been read as merely another symptom of women's
manipulation by institutionalized mechanisms of patriarchal control (p. 63).
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I argue that these approaches to dress deny women’s agency and ignore the
multiple meanings of dress that vary cross-culturally.
Some scholars do argue that gender is central to practices and meanings
of dress and bodily adornment (Kaite, 1987; Niessen and Brydon, 1998; Brydon,
1998; Rubenstein, 2001; Weitz, 2001), and that gendered discourses on dress
are shaped by political and economic contexts, and thus are subject to change
(Rubinstein, 2001). As Eicher and Roach-Higgins point out: “From womb to
tomb the body is a dressed body, and caretakers typically introduce the young to
gender-differentiated dress and often dress the dead in gendered garb” (1992, p.
23).
In addition, several feminist scholars argue that dress and fashion are
central to postmodern theory, which challenges oversimplified and monolithic
meanings of dress. For example, Wilson calls for a movement “away from the
simple, moralistic rejection of fashion” towards a postmodern view of fashion as a
“cultural phenomenon” (1992, p. 14-15). Adding to this, Jennifer Craik (1994)
argues that the ambiguities surrounding fashion and postmodernism are
intertwined and that postmodernism has cleared the way for the study of dress.
Highlighting some of the dilemmas of postmodernism, Pamela Church Gibson
(2000) takes us yet another step, advocating a dialectical approach, when she
argues that “a feminist theory of fashion today needs to position itself somewhere
between what Jameson calls celebration and repudiation— or in an oscillation
between them” (p. 361). In this study, I seek to add to this literature by exploring
changing meanings and practices of dress from a critical perspective, analyzing
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how dress can be both oppressive and emancipatory for Bosnian women and
men. In particular, I explore the ways in which Bosnian men and women
accommodate and resist modes of dress within their new context.
Dress. Gender. Modernity, and Immigration
Dress, gender, modernity, and immigration have often intersected in U.S.
history. For example, historically, it has been predominantly immigrant women
who have worked in the garment industry, as these jobs have long served an
important role in “pulling” immigrants into the U.S. While considerable attention
has been given to immigrant women’s experiences working in garment factories4,
the meanings and practices of dress have largely been ignored in the gender and
immigration literature. One exception is the Islamic practice of veiling, which has
received considerable attention in the literature.5 In addition, although much of
the literature on gender and dress has included modernity and postmodernity as
central to understanding meanings and practices of dress, there is little crossover
between dress, modernity, and immigration literatures.
A goal of this study is to bridge these bodies of literature by examining the
gendered meanings and patterns of dress among an immigrant population. In
doing so, I have found that the meanings and practices of dress are undergoing
transformation. The meanings and practices are gendered, and fluid, and evolve
out of specific historical and cultural contexts. I turn now to the research findings.
Research Findings
In my research with Bosnian refugees, I found that meanings and
practices of dress are undergoing transformation. They are gendered, and fluid,
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and evolve out of specific historical and cultural contexts. Changes are
occurring with exposure to U.S. dress norms and shifting meanings of modernity.
I will begin by describing the gendered meanings and practices of dress in
Bosnia, then I will examine the shifts that have occurred in the U.S., and finally, I
will explain why changes have occurred.
Dress, Gender, and Everyday Life in Bosnia
Several patterns emerge from the meaning and practice of dress in
Bosnia. Everyday activities of work, school, leisure, and religion were
characterized by predictable gendered norms of dress, which were supported by
structural arrangements and enforced through informal means of social control.
My findings indicate that gender and dress intersect with age, sexuality, regional
differences, social class, religious practices, and marital status.
Gendered Standards of Dress
Participants described standards of dress in Bosnia as higher and more
stringent than in the U.S. Although dress codes varied by generation and
location, overall, female dress codes emphasized femininity and attractiveness.
Although they reported that both men and women were expected to dress up
when entering the public realm, most acknowledged that the expectations were
higher for women. Amina stated: “ Women are criticized more, have to be
beautified more, and are the topic of gossip.” All of the women said they were
expected to dress appropriately whenever they left the house, including clothes,
hair, and make-up. For example, Mediha said that she would never leave her
house without wearing something nice, and she wouldn’t even think of wearing a
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shirt with a slight rip in it; her hair would be done up, she’d have her makeup on,
and her clothes would be ironed. She said that even if she were cooking and
had to run across the street to the store, she would change into nice clothes and
put on heels. Similarly, when describing dress codes, Emira said,
In Bosnia, we were always careful about how we needed to dress for
shopping, how we needed to dress for school. And we changed all the
time, checking to see if we looked good or not, but here you can go in
jeans everyday.
Describing her day-to-day life in Bosnia, Mirsada explained:
Never, ever did I go twice in the same clothes to work. Every day, I had to
change my clothes, shoes, purse, everything, my hair, my makeup,
everything, everything. People really watched; that was the mentality.
It was a different mentality. People watched to see how you looked, what
you were wearing, how you were dressed, you know. Every day they
looked at everything.
Similarly, Elmina recalled that she would never wear pants or sneakers to work:
she wore heels every day.
Most women dyed their hair, and many reported visiting a beauty salon
each week to have their hair done. Asia, a woman in her early 30s, said “in
Bosnia every woman would dye her hair!” According to participants, visiting a
beauty salon regularly was affordable. This common practice both ensured that
women’s hair looked good and also helped maintain women’s social networks.
On a few occasions participants spoke of dress codes for women
attending religious services, emphasizing that the dress should be modest. This
standard reflected those of everyday life in which the expectations were higher
for women than for men. None of the participants spoke of men’s dress during
religious services.
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In ordinary standards, too, however, many participants stated that Bosnian
men tended to dress better than American men. Zahra stated that, “I think men
are much more fashionable over there, too. Especially in cities, you know, or
bigger towns...they’re more fashionable.” Mirsada, adverting to the earlier point,
acknowledged that while dressing nicely is important for men, the expectations
are higher for women: “Not like for women...but I’ve always liked to see a man
who dresses nicely, you know, in a suit and tie, taking care of himself. I like it
here, too.” Although men put time and effort into their dress in Bosnia, for
women, dress extended beyond clothes to include make-up, shoes, accessories,
and hair.
Several people pointed out that in Bosnia people dressed differently
depending on their age and class, and whether they lived in a rural or urban
area. For women, age, marital status, regional location, and religious practices
were mitigating factors affecting dress code expectations, whereas for men dress
code expectations were primarily dictated by regional location and social class.
While in Bosnia, I observed both regional and age differences in dress.
Teenagers and women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s dressed in Western-style
clothing. Elderly women typically wore long skirts and headscarves. I did
observe some women of various ages wearing a hijab, but this did not appear to
be the norm.6
The participants emphasized that young people dress more fashionably in
Bosnia than in the U.S. Jasna, for example, said that young people in
Bosnia “always follow the West, especially Paris” and that older people
were more likely to wear traditional clothing .
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Faris emphasized that the purpose of dress was different for young and single
people:
Definitely, girls and boys dress up, not just for themselves, but to attract
the people around, because of the style or whatever, and that’s what I
believe you should do, even if you’re married.”
Several people said class and status differences dictated dress codes in Bosnia,
but most were quick to point out that even low-income people, particularly
women, dressed nicely. Mediha said it’s not expensive to buy clothes in Bosnia,
and that everybody knows somebody who can do their hair or sew some clothes
for them if they can’t afford to buy them. Men and women emphasized that
people with high occupational status were always expected to be well dressed.
Zahra said “If you were rich you’d have to wear nice, expensive clothes. If you’re
a lawyer everybody expects you to wear the suits and that kind of stuff on a daily
basis.” However, urban women were expected to dress nicely regardless of
class or occupational status, whereas urban men of lower occupational status did
not have to comply with the stringent dress codes. Comparing men in high
status positions to men who worked in factories, Mirsada said, “ They wear suits
and ties all the time. They never take them off, you know, that’s the difference.”
She went on to explain that some men who worked in factories wore their
uniforms to and from work while this was unheard of for women, who would wear
nice clothes to and from work and change into uniforms at the factory. Similarly,
Zahra said that although men do dress fashionably, “it’s kind of divided by
classes.”
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All of the families showed me pictures or videos of themselves before and
after the war; these confirmed what they were saying. I noticed that the women
tended to be dressed very nicely, wearing Western-style clothing, and the hair of
many of the women had been dyed blonde or red. In Mirsada’s and Haris’s
wedding video from twenty-seven years ago, men and women were dressed in
Western-style clothing, with women in dresses and heels and men in suits.
My observations in May 2000 corroborated these findings. While I was in
Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, I saw women dressing up. I stayed with a
Bosnian family and spent most of my time with Dahlia, a nineteen-year old
woman. She told me that women in Sarajevo, including herself, were very
concerned with fashion. Most of the women I met and spent time with did dress
up most of the time, wearing nice clothes, hair styles, makeup, nylons and heels
to go to work, school, and to attend social outings. Although men also tended to
dress nicely, it was evident that dress was less time-consuming for men than for
women. One exception to this was during casual, outdoor activities, where men
and women both dressed down. On one occasion in Sarajevo I attended a family
picnic with three families in which almost all of the men and women were dressed
casually, some wearing sneakers and jeans. Another time, I went with Dahlia to
participate in her physical education class at the University of Sarajevo, which
involved taking a two-mile walk along a river with other students. Most of the
male and female students were dressed casually.
Three specific factors demonstrate that standards of dress are higher for
women than for men: first, dress code enforcers, typically women who employed
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informal social controls to enforce normative standards for women; second,
reports of the way that Bosnian women dressed during the war; and finally,
participants self-reports about their preparations for return visits to Bosnia.
Dress Code Enforcers
Most women said that standards of dress were held in check by older
women in the community who would express disapproval if women deviated from
the norms. Simic argues that in the former Yugoslavia, “elderly women constitute
an influential social category” and play a “salient role in the control and
manipulation of interpersonal relationships and in the safeguarding of community
mores” (1983, p. 66). Mirsada said that it’s not the men who are watching you,
but “ the women are watching the women, that’s the problem, you know. Women
are watching how you look and how you dress.” Zahra stated, “Over there, if
you’re not wearing the clothes you’re supposed to, everybody looks at you.”
When I asked what would happen if people broke these rules, Mirsada laughed
and said people would think you’re crazy!
Dress During the War
Many of the women also noted that the dress code norms for women
persisted during the war. Mediha said that women who appeared in television
news clips were usually dressed up. She said she would forget it was a war
sometimes the way women were dressed. Several women spoke of getting
dressed up, even wearing heels to wait in water lines, despite the fact that they
often had to walk very far carrying heavy jugs of water. This shows a powerful
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motivation, amid pervasive danger, as snipers would sometimes shoot at people
waiting in line. Zahra said:
In Sarajevo, even during the war, everybody noticed how ladies were
wearing make-up. No one knew where the make-up came from because
in the middle of war, you know, you don’t have money to buy it, but they’re
wearing make-up and they smell nice and they’re carrying water running
from snipers!
Elmina described that when she and her family, having been forced to flee
their home, found themselves in a refugee camp, she was wearing a white silk
suit and snake-skinned heels. In relating this story to me she described the
painful irony that although she was wearing such an expensive outfit, she was
homeless and could not provide even food for her starving children.
Preparations for Return Trips
The way in which many of the women prepared for their return trips
revealed that the standards of dress in Bosnia remained higher for women than
in the U.S.; and higher for women than men. With the exception of one family, all
of the participants had made at least one trip back to Bosnia. The women stated
that the rules governing dress are still restrictive there. In order to avoid criticism,
most of the women complied with norms during their return visits. The men
seemed less affected by dress codes and were much less interested in
discussing the issue. Mediha said that before she went back to Bosnia she
bought a lot of new clothes to wear there. She said she thought the dress
standards might have changed after the war, but that girls in the high schools
looked like fashion models. She said she didn’t want people to see her wearing
the clothes that she wears in the U.S. because people think that America is so
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wealthy and would associate her dressing down with not taking care of herself.
When she left Bosnia, she left with her sister the clothes she had purchased for
her return trip. Despite the effort she made to accommodate to the dress code
norms during her trip, evidently she did not fully succeed; she said her sister said
to her, when commenting about her dress and overall appearance, “ Why did you
let yourself go? Look at you, why do you look like this now?”
Describing her preparation for the return trip to Bosnia, Zahra stated:
W e were getting ready, and I’m like, “Oh my God, what am I going to wear
there? I’m going to look, you know, not “in” with my clothes that I bought
here.” I have to look nice because I’m coming from the United States and
everybody knows that I can afford nice clothes so if I don’ t show up with
nice clothes... So I was thinking about it and looking at the clothes in the
store a lot. I got some ideas of what I wanted, what would look cool,
something classy, a little different and unusual, and, you know, I found
some nice clothes and bought them, and everybody loved it over there
[laughs].
Mirsada described a similar process, noting that she had her hair done
right before she went to Bosnia, something she has rarely done since
immigrating. She made sure she brought enough clothes with her so she could
wear something different each day. She said, “If we go outside or if we go visit
somebody, I have to dress very nicely and [whispering] people watching me, I
hate that, now I hate it.” When I asked if her husband, Haris, also got dressed up
during their return visit to Bosnia, she said, “No, no, he just wear Levi’s, Levis,
Levis and different shirts and that’s all.” When I asked if anyone said anything to
Haris, Mirsada said, “ Yes, I did” and laughed. She then said, “No, nobody did,
but they don’t want to tell you to your face what they think, they say it behind your
back.” Elmina described making similar preparations, but unlike Mirsada, she put
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her foot down and would not let her husband wear jeans and sneakers. He
protested initially but eventually gave in and went with her to buy new shoes for
the trip.
Purchasing clothes and other items for return trips was also anchored in
modernity and consumerism. Despite a back injury, Elmina went on a shopping
frenzy for several weeks her return trip to Bosnia. In doing so, she purposely
sought out popular name brand-named clothing to purchase for relatives. Her
daughter said her mother was driving her crazy, buying clothes for even distant
relatives and filling up suitcases that they would have a hard time carrying.
Meanings of Dress in Bosnia
My findings suggest that dressing up in Bosnia communicates several
things about gender, particularly for women. Dress narrates modernity and
urbanity, accentuates gender differences and sexual attractiveness, and serves
as a form of impression management. I will address each of these in turn.
Dress. Modernity and Urbanity
Dressing up in Bosnia was associated with being modern and urban. The
majority of participants differentiated themselves from rural people and strongly
identified as urban. In my conversations there were many references to the
differences between people who lived in rural villages and those who lived in the
cities. Many said they could identify rural people on the street who, despite their
efforts to fit in, often dressed differently. Elmina said it was unheard of to wear
sneakers with a skirt in urban areas and that it was common practice for rural
women to change their shoes before getting on the bus to go to the city. When I
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went to Bosnia, I had the opportunity to travel through the countryside, where I
observed that men and women dressed much differently than in Sarajevo. Many
of the women I passed in the countryside were wearing dark, smock-like dresses,
and they usually had their heads covered (which did not necessarily convey
religious affiliation). I often passed men working in the fields and driving tractors;
they wore typical farm-style clothing.
The social context of the former Yugoslavia was markedly different from
the U.S. in two additional ways that may have contributed to the ostentatious
dress codes. First, although there were class distinctions, the material disparities
between social classes in the former Yugoslavia were far less glaring than in the
U.S. As one woman put it, "We were all in the middle in Bosnia." Urbanity was
the primary means through which one could identify as "being modern" and
cosmopolitan. People did this primarily through "dressing up" and differentiating
themselves from rural peasants. Second, there was minimal racial diversity in
the former Yugoslavia, and because privilege was not associated with race,
privilege and feelings of superiority were derived primarily through urbanity,
modernity, and secularism.
Accentuating Gender and Sexual Attractiveness
As discussed earlier dress code standards varied according to gender,
region, and age. Another gendered dimension of dress is sexual allure. While
visiting Bosnia, I spent most of my time with Dahlia, who, like her mother,
Besima, went to great lengths to look nice before leaving the house. However,
there was a notable difference between how Dahlia and Besmia presented
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themselves. Both women spent time applying makeup and carefully grooming
their hair, but the style of clothing was very different. Besima dressed
conservatively, usually wearing long skirts or pants. On the other hand, Dahlia
opted for more sexually revealing clothes that accentuated her body such as tank
tops, low cut shirts, short skirts and dresses. This was especially evident when
she was going on a date with her boyfriend. This was a pattern I observed
among women in Bosnia and the U.S., and reflects the perspective expressed by
Faris earlier when he said: "Definitely, girls and boys dress up, not just for
themselves, but to attract the people around, because of the style or whatever,
and that’s what I believe you should do, even if you’re married.”
Impression Management
Dressing up communicates to others that they are “taking care of
themselves” and conveys urbanity, modernity, marital status, and age. Finally,
as women age and gain status, they gain power over other women by serving as
the “dress code enforcers.” For men, dressing up is also a form of image
management, but it primarily revolves around class, regional, and occupational
status and is less about age and marital status.
Bodily Adornment and Dress in the United States
When describing their style of dress in the United States, almost everyone
emphasized that they dress more comfortably here, wearing more casual and
loose-fitting clothes. The majority of women celebrated these changes and said
it brought them more freedom, but they were also quick to point out that they still
enjoyed dressing up for special occasions.
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Most women described the changes in their dress as gradual. Mediha
said that when she started working in the U.S., she dressed nicely, paying close
attention to her clothes, hair and make-up, but that she started to dress more
casually after people kept saying things like, “ Why are you so dressed up?” and
“ Where are you going after work?” Sheila, the Employment Services Manager at
VRRP, had the opportunity to meet with Bosnian families shortly after they
arrived in the US. She said:
They come in for their intake right after they’ve arrived and, you know,
they might be absolutely exhausted having traveled 12 or 14 hours and
they have three screaming babies and nothing else really with them, but
they are wearing a beautiful skirt with high heels and nylons and their hair
is perfect.
Bill, an ESL teacher who has been working with Bosnians for over six
years, stated: “I have seen that they always wear dresses or skirts coming in and
then over time, they are wearing jeans and a sweatshirt— American uniform I
guess.” Faris described being told in both Bosnia and the U.S. that he dresses
differently now than he used to, but he said he doesn’t notice changes that much
because, “I look at myself every day in the mirror, and if you see yourself each
day in the mirror, you’re not able to see the difference except if it’s something
really, really huge.”
It was on the return trips to Bosnia that women became acutely aware of
the ways in which they had changed. This awareness usually began during the
preparation period, when women grew more cognizant of their everyday dress
patterns in the U.S. Descriptions of these changes highlighted the complexities;
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examples of accommodation and resistance are evident throughout the changing
meanings and practices of dress.
Accommodation and Resistance
In her research on women and their hair, Rose Weitz argues that
accommodation and resistance are co-existing variables buried within everyday
activities. She defines resistance as “actions that reject subordination by
challenging the ideologies that support subordination” (2001, p. 667). Threaded
throughout my interviews are examples of accommodation and resistance
pertaining to dress. I define accommodation as attempts to adapt to the
surrounding environment, and resistance as attempts to resist the surrounding
environment. All of the women and some of the men said that they liked the
freedom of dressing in the U.S. and that they accommodated themselves to
dress code norms in selective ways. However, many participants resisted
American and Vermont dress code norms and were critical of some aspects of
American dress.
A double meaning was attached to dressing more casually in the U.S.,
most notably for women: on the one hand it was equated with more freedom and
independence; on the other hand it was viewed as not caring about yourself and
letting yourself go. In addition, resisting U.S. dress codes also gave women
participants an edge of superiority— a greater cosmopolitan status— over
American women, whom they saw as poorly. In this way they were able to
assuage in part the marginalization they experienced in the U.S.
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A central meaning of dressing up appears to be to accentuate gender
differences and sexual attractiveness, and this is directly tied to the essentialist
view of gender discussed earlier. Before describing at length the gendered
meanings of dress, I will first describe the ways in which men and women
accommodated and resisted changes in dress.
In the U.S. Bosnians are living a bicultural identity, mediating between two
worlds— one that is comfortable and familiar and a new one in which they are “in
the society, but not yet of it” (Lipset & Bendix, 1959, pp. 104-105, quoted in
Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, p. 94). Different rules and norms are embedded in the
cultural beliefs and practices of these two groups. My findings are similar to
Ross Higgins’ research, in which he found that gay men in Montreal used fashion
to situate themselves in two contexts, straight and gay, simultaneously, aligning
and differentiating themselves with both cultures. Bosnians are making choices
about which aspects of their dress to change and which to keep. The following
statement by Faris captures how accommodation and resistance are intertwined
and co-existent in relation to dress:
Let’s say, for example, for a meeting back in Bosnia, I would not go
dressed like this, without real shoes and pants (wearing blue sweatpants).
I’m still doing my best not to always be looking at myself. I mean, I still
like to take care about how I look and dress, and I still wear nice clothes
from time to time, even if I just have to go to the grocery store. I like to
wear nice clothes. There’s no reason for it, I just have to.
This sentiment was repeated throughout the interviews; people described
the ways in which they do not fully conform to the local dress codes. Some
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service providers noticed this as well. Maria, a social service provider at the
Refugee Resettlement Program, stated:
If you compare the typical Bosnian and the typical Vermonter dress
manner, they kind of stick out and they have the leather jacket and they
have boots on and nice shoes. I see them out and I can always recognize
them because they just have that look, you know, the gel in their hair or
whatever.
Ahmed, a Bosnian man in his early 30s, stated: “I always recognize Bosnian
person in a crowd... She or he might dress differently than Americans, the way he
acts and the way he or she walks.”
All of the women and a few men pointed out that while they certainly
changed the way they dress, they still like to get dressed up on occasion.
Mediha said that she still gets excited about getting dressed up and that if she is
going to a wedding, a party, or a friend’s house, she dresses as she did in
Bosnia. This is something I observed on many occasions at the Bosnian
Women’s Group, at community events, and the parties I attended. One example
arose during the biggest snowstorm in the winter of 2001, when I was invited to
Mirsada’s house to have dinner with her family before going to see her daughter
in a play. About a half an hour before we left for the play, Mirsada excused
herself and came back transformed, with her hair styled and wearing a fancy suit,
makeup, a fur coat, and high heels, despite the fact that we had to go out in the
middle the storm. Recently I attended a party celebrating International Women’s
Day with nearly a hundred Bosnian women. Although there was certainly
variation in dress, the majority of women, who ranged in age from fifteen to
seventy, were dressed up. Most women wore dress pants (a few in leather
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pants), skirts or fancy dresses, including one woman who wore a full-length
sequined dresses. The majority wore nylons and heels, had their hair styled
nicely, and were wearing make-up. The teenage girls were also dressed up, but
their outfits were more aligned with American and Western pop-culture
standards. Most of the women under sixty had their hair dyed blonde, red, or
black. Some of the older women also dyed their hair, but a handful of women
who appeared to be in their sixties and seventies did not appear to dye their hair.
A few women expressed dissatisfaction and disapproval toward Bosnian
women whom they viewed as accommodating to U.S. dress codes too much.
This suggests that while social control of dress has decreased in the U.S., some
Bosnian women have not fully escaped the inherited role of “dress code
enforcer.” The men, on the other hand, were less likely than their wives to
express disapproval of Bosnian women; if expressed at all, their disapproval of
women’s dress was of American women. Zahra noted this:
I don’t think they say much about their women, but they make a lot of
comments about American women not taking care of themselves or their
looks. They do say that, you know, like, Where are the nice chicks?’
[laughs]
Two men said that they think it is only like this in Vermont, and that in
other places in the U.S., women dress better. Faris stated:
A huge percentage of the people in Vermont dress as simply as they
can— no makeup, no nice clothes. Maybe it’s also good, I mean for their
minds, maybe it’s not. I don’t know. But it’s really kind of attracting to see
on TV, women in Florida or California, wearing a nice sweater and running
next to the ocean or the lake. They are walking and dancing at the same
time.
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This was echoed by Ahmed who, after describing dress codes in Vermont as
baggy and old, said, “In California, I bet it’s totally different. Not totally, but I
mean, I’ve seen some big cities and people dress differently there, much better
than here... and they’re more careful about what they’re wearing than here.” This
suggests that resisting dress norms is related to constructions of modernity. In
general, compared to more urban areas in the U.S., there is a lack of concern for
display in Vermont and more of an emphasis on comfort and simplicity. Though
Vermont is considered "modern," constructions of modernity resemble that which
is considered traditional and backwards in Bosnia. This sentiment was reflected
in the opinion of a few participants who viewed Vermont as too provincial for
them and expressed a desire to move to a more cosmopolitan city. In a recent
newspaper article, a local Bosnian man was quoted as saying, "I could have
sworn at the time [of arrival in the U.S.] I knew all the states in the United States,
but I'd never heard of Vermont."
In addition to clothes, several participants said that norms about hairstyles
and shoes are different in the U.S. Many Bosnian women resisted the norms by
continuing to dye their hair, and a few even traveled to Montreal so they could
purchase European-style shoes. Over time I became accustomed to arriving at a
woman’s home to find a drastic change in her hairstyle or color or both. The
majority of Bosnian women I have met and observed dye their hair. Several told
me that they miss their weekly visits to the hair salon in Bosnia. Because it is
more expensive in the U.S., many women opted to have a friend or family
member dye their hair. Several participants emphasized the importance of hair.
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Faris, describing life in Bosnia, stated, “Men and women would always have nice
clothes, especially the haircut. It’s amazing, the amount of time they can spend
in front of the mirror to have the haircut all set, you know, especially the women.”
It is fairly uncommon for non-Bosnian women in Vermont to dye their hair in the
striking tones of red and yellow that Bosnian women choose for their hair color.
My findings suggest that Bosnian women are holding on to this aspect of their
culture and not fully accommodating to local norms. The emphasis on hair
among Bosnian Muslim is particularly interesting since more traditional Muslims
wear a hijab to cover their hair, which is deemed the most alluring part of a
woman.
Another way Bosnians challenged their cultural norms about bodily
adornment was by getting body piercings. Three people in my sample had
piercings (not including ears). Two young women had their noses pierced and
one man had his ear pierced. Each of them said that body piercings were still
largely unacceptable in Bosnia. In fact, when I visited Bosnia I didn’t see any
body piercings on young people in Sarajevo or elsewhere. The three participants
reported that their piercings were met with disapproval on return trips to Bosnia,
but they also reported that it is becoming more common there. Zahra stated:
I’m the kind of person that was always trying not to care too much about
what everybody else, you know, says, like my Mom was like, why did you
pierce your nose, you know, stuff like that, like I like it, I don’t, you know,
and I knew when I go over there that it’s getting more common over there
too.
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Religion and Dress
Everyone in my sample identified strongly as Muslim, but there was a
huge variation in religiosity and religious practices. About half of the participants
were involved with the local mosque, usually during the holidays of Ramadan
and Bajram.
None of the Bosnian women in my study wore head coverings in public in
the United States, and most were emphatic that they never have and never
would. Several strongly disapproved of what they perceived to be an increased
practice of wearing headscarves in post-war Bosnia, and a few questioned me
about my observations of women in Sarajevo. Three women reported attending
the mosque regularly and covering themselves in accordance to the rules.
Among the secular women, all but one reported that they do wear a headscarf for
certain religious occasions.
While a few people spoke disapprovingly of non-Bosnian Muslim women
who do not follow the rules, no one criticized similar failures among men. Zahra
stated:
In Bosnia, if you’re going to go to the mosque and, you know, pray, then
you’re going to follow all the rules and you’re going to do it right, and I
guess in some other countries, like some people from other countries
here, they, like the ladies, they come in dressed up not very properly. As I
said, women have to wear sleeves and not show, you know, too much,
basically wear those clothes and, you know, and they’re not dressing up
properly and then when you, when you get ready for the prayer means
washing your body, like you have to be totally clean and after you wash
your body, you can’t deal with anything that’s dirty like physically or
mentally.
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Ahmed expressed a similar dissatisfaction about the way women dressed in the
mosque in Vermont:
The clothing is supposed to be comfy, nothing that you can see...and
here, here is a little bit different. Here I saw the women are wearing tee,
not tee shirts but like this and it’s not supposed to be like that, or
uncovered--part of hair was uncovered or whole hair and it is different.
Faris, who attends the mosque for religious holidays, said he does not follow the
religious rules very well because it is too hard in the United States where there
are not many Muslims. He said, “ The Muslim women should be covered, her
whole self, and just have the face open but she can’t because there is no one
else existing like that... It’s much harder. I shouldn’t wear gold, I shouldn’t drink
beer.”
Gendered Meanings of Dress in the United States
Gendered meanings of dress in the United States centered around three
interrelated themes: expressing freedom and human agency; accentuating
gender differences; and maintaining cultural identity. Modernity was fused
throughout the three themes. I will address each in turn.
Freedom & Agency
Most of the women associated dressing down with freedom. Emira said,
“Here you can go in jeans every day. I really like it here...nobody taking care
about how you look.” Zahra attributes the changes to democracy, arguing that
people have more freedom to choose in the United States:
Here it’s, it’s more democratic, it’s more open, like many, like a lot of
choices and a lot of different groups of people who...so that’s what I think
of freedom, you know, when you can choose and you still have people
who support you...in Bosnia... is strict rules, and you have to follow them.
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It’s very different, communism is awful, and it’s good in some things and
some things, it’s just, here’s my freedom, as an individual... I’m kind of
finding myself here better than I was over there because over there even if
you’re not wearing the clothes you’re supposed to, you know, everybody’s
looking at you.
Jasna’s comments illustrate that this increased freedom in dress is also
associated with women’s increased agency and self-reliance which grew out of
their experiences during the war: “I like this way here. I feel more
comfortable...before I used to push myself to wear what I saw people what they
wear, like clothing and cosmetic, but today, no. I just think about what I like, what
I really like— doesn’t matter if it’s wrong, just what I like.” Most of the women
described themselves as much stronger after going through the war, and were
much more likely to do what they wanted rather than what was expected of them,
whether it was about dress or other activities such as attending college. A few
women mentioned that their husbands did not like the changes in their hair and
dress, but that they were not going to let that stop them. Jasmina’s husband, for
example, expressed disapproval when she cut her hair short, and she told me
that she didn’t care, that she liked her new haircut. Confiding that she has
become more independent from her husband, she stated, “I am just said to him,
‘I'm not going to be like what you want; I'm going to listen to music what I like.
I’m going to dress myself how I want!”’
Accentuating Gender Differences and Sexual Attractiveness
Dressing down too much was viewed as “not taking care of yourself,” or
“letting yourself go” and thus, neglecting what it means to be a woman. Several
women said that when Bosnian women first come here they are often shocked
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and dismayed by how badly American women dress, from which they conclude
that American women don’t take care of themselves. American and Bosnian
women were judged by women more harshly than men were judged, and these
judgments revealed that dress is inextricably tied to essentialist meanings of
gender. The following statement by Zahra captures the idea that a central
purpose of dress is to accentuate gender differences and sexual attractiveness:
There’s no, you know, not that many pretty, not pretty, they’re pretty, the
women are really pretty here, but they don’t take care of themselves as
much, and that’s what you see, like they’re wearing stuff that don’t match,
not in colors that much, but you know winter coat and their flip flops, that
kind of stuff. So, it’s unusual, you know, like you go to Church Street and
you look for them over there, and you don’t even see that many over there
either, and then you think, how can they, you know, how can they live like
that, how can they, you know, not use makeup - like I go to the break
room sometimes and it’s full of people and look like there’s, there’s none
of the women, not even the lipstick on or anything, and it’s kind of job
where women pretty much dress up, you know, like or it’s considered that,
you know, you work in retail, you kind of have to dress up a little bit and
so it’s weird. I heard that, like, the comment I heard so many times from
other people that came after me, Bosnians came that moved here and
they were like, my God, look at them, blah, blah, they’re not taking care of
themselves.
When asked how women dress in the United States, Faris replied
emphatically, “They dress awfully!” Zahra described Bosnian women changing
after a couple of months: “They just don’t care about it any more. They just say,
well nobody is wearing makeup, why would I wear it... nobody even cares if you
dress up nicely, well why am I going to dress up nicely? They say that all the
time, everybody.” This pattern was also observed by Cristina, a former
caseworker at the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, who said:
On several occasions I have talked to women who have said that
American women just sort of didn’t really care what they looked like. So,
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there is definitely this attitude of trying to look, you know you don’t walk
out of the house without your hair done and your make-up done. Which is
kind of fun too, because in working with a lot of Bosnians I think that it was
probably one of the most well-dressed places you could work because
they really cared about what they look like.
While both Bosnian men and women were most critical of American
women’s sloppiness, some disapproval was expressed toward Bosnian women
who “let themselves go.” Sheila, the American service provider, stated:
It’s been my experience that, Bosnian Muslim men truly want their women,
and almost expect their women, to look nice...You’ll often hear Bosnian
men speaking about women and they are always commenting on look
how nice her makeup looks, look how nice her shoes are, she has the
nicest dress on.
These observations strongly suggest that sexual attractiveness is a central
meaning of dress. While it is increasingly acceptable for women to dress more
casually in the U.S., there is a limit to this. Women are still expected convey that
they are a "woman," and it is when this is neglected that women are harshly
judged.
Two comments particularly highlight the way meanings of dress for
women are tied to sexual attractiveness, which is rooted in an essentialist
perspective of gender. Mirsada stated: “During the day you can see a thousand
people and you can’t see a woman who is dressed like, you know, a WOMAN... I
think the women, female here in the United States forget that they are female.”
Similarly, Emira differentiated herself from American women, saying that
American women like to be like men. On the other hand, for men, meanings of
dress in the U.S. seemed to be more associated with social class and status than
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with accentuating gender and sexual attractiveness. Faris gave an example of
this:
Like president of my company and if you’re ever able to see him in some
store, on the street, you are going to pull the dollar from your pocket and
give it to him. I mean he look really terrible. You are just not able to
describe the people from the clothes who they are or what they are.
Participants perceived the boundaries between what is expected of men and
women to be more fluid in the U.S. than in Bosnia. Participants’ daily lives were
more sex segregated in Bosnia. In the U.S., finding themselves working
alongside men and women, they are surprised by the manner in which some
American women dress and behave in these contexts.
Maintaining Cultural Identity
Dress also served as a way to preserve cultural and class identities— as
urban, modern Bosnians, and also for some, as Muslims. Simmel (quoted in
Frisby and Featherstone, 1998) argued that a primary function of dress is to
imitate and demarcate. For Bosnians, while it is important to acculturate to some
extent, it is equally important to maintain their cultural identity through dress. At
times Bosnians associated their different style of dress with being European; at
other times with being Bosnian. For example, once Jasmina described Bosnians
as dressing in the European style, but on another occasion when I described her
dress as European, she quickly corrected me, saying that she was dressed in
accordance with Bosnian culture. My findings suggest the importance of
preserving cultural and class identity is not as gendered as the first two themes,
except when examining religious dress.
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In sum, meanings of dress in the United States centered around three
themes: freedom and human agency; accentuating gender differences; and
maintaining cultural and class identity. In the next section I will explain the
changes in dress which have occurred.
Explaining Changes in Dress
To some extent, changes in dress among the Bosnian participants are the
result of their adapting to the different standards on the two continents.
American standards are largely viewed as sloppy compared with European
standards.7 This sentiment was also observed by Sheila, from VRRP, whose
partner is Bosnian Muslim:
There is a saying that says, “ As the crow flies, Sarajevo is closer to Rome
than Milan.” So, that is sort of their claim, saying that Sarajevo is definitely
a heart, they consider it really a heartbeat of Europe. You know, a high
fashion area, they consider themselves very cultured with their dress, their
food, their appearance, everything...they want to impress upon you that
Bosnia is European.
My findings indicate that three additional factors contribute to changes in
dress: increased agency and independence; temporal changes; and spatial
changes.
Increased Agency and Independence
The dramatic shift in the system of social control regulating dress codes in
the U.S. provides Bosnian women with an opportunity to challenge the cultural
prescriptions about dress. In her seminal work in which she coined the term,
“bargaining with patriarchy,” Deniz Kandiyoti (1988) argued that “different forms
of patriarchy present women with distinct ‘rules of the game’ and call for different
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strategies” (p. 274). The “rules” about dress have changed in the U.S., providing
a window of opportunity for women to challenge dress codes. Under the system
of patriarchy in Bosnia, which Simic (1983) calls a “cryptomatriarchy,” older
women gained power over other women as they aged. This dynamic is
consistent with classic patriarchy, where according to Deniz Kandiyoti (1988),
“subordination to men is offset by the control older women attain over younger
women” (p. 109). Thus, in the new context, “bargaining with patriarchy” will take
on new forms.
War has a profound impact on people. All the participants described ways
in which they had changed, and threaded throughout my interviews was a strong
attitude of self-determination, particularly among women, who expressed in many
ways that they are stronger after all that they have been through. This sentiment
was captured well by Jasna, who said, “Before, I used to push myself to wear
what I saw people what they wear, like clothing and cosmetics, but today, no. I
just think about what l like, doesn’t matter if it’s wrong, just what I like."
Some of the women in this study were separated from their husbands
during the war, as a result of which time they took on additional tasks and
responsibilities. In addition, through the experience of war, immigration, and
resettlement, people’s lives became more individualized as they became
separated from extended kin networks.
Two distinct structural factors further impacted changes in dress; these
revolve around time and space.
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Temporal Changes
According to my participants, and supported by official statistics, the
majority of women in Bosnia did not work outside the home. Even for those who
did so, they had more free time than in the U.S. Therefore, women had more
time to spend on dress. In addition, all of the participants attributed changes in
dress to the fast-paced life in the U.S., which makes it difficult to maintain the
high standards of dress expected in Bosnia. Sanel said, “In America, it is a very
fast life. In Bosnia, it is slower and people have time to change clothes, to buy
new clothes.” Sadmira, who described life in the U.S. as a tornado, said that
even though she doesn’t want to get sucked into it she does and finds as a result
that she no longer has the time to spend on the things she used to do in Bosnia.
Hers was a common experience. Most of the participants worked more
hours in the U.S. than in Bosnia, often on different schedules than their spouses.
Many also had the added tasks of learning English and attending school.
Moreover, compared with their lives in Bosnia, most families lacked kin networks,
and this increased their burdens in household responsibilities and childcare,
allowing less time to shop for clothes or to devote themselves to dress and bodily
adornment.
Spatial Changes
Several spatial changes have affected normative dress standards for
Bosnians in the U.S., including increased anonymity and increased individualism.
As mentioned earlier, Bosnian women report experiencing greater freedom from
“the watchful eye” and more opportunity to dress as they please. This is partly
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due to the absence of dress code enforcers and to shifting rules of dress. It is
also related to the decreased visibility that results from the lack of a strong ethnic
enclave and the absence of street life and public transportation in Vermont.
These spatial changes have led to an erosion of social control and interaction
among Bosnians.8
Zahra, one of the few Bosnian women I met who prefers to dress up most
of the time in the U.S., said that the attitude among Bosnian women has
changed: “How am I going to dress up for, you know because in Bosnia, when
you dress up, everybody notices, like everybody is looking at everybody’s
clothes, and you know, thinking about it so much, like it’s very important, very
important.”
In Bosnia and the U.S., the dress code rules are deeply embedded in the
structure of people’s everyday lives. According to participants, most places of
work in Bosnia— which were predominantly run by the state— provided facilities
such as lockers, showers, and dressing rooms. Mediha vividly described how
these numerous facilities provided the space for employees to get changed
before and after their shifts. Mirsada described a similar situation at her place of
work:
I had my dressing room and I changed my clothes, clothes in a closet and
use uniform, I work in uniform, after work I take shower. Shower, I take
shower, here’s my clothes, dress myself again, make-up. I put my
makeup in the morning when I go to the work. After when I taking shower
after my work, I fix my makeup, I put my dresses on, my clothes, and then
I go outside from the company, you walk through the streets, everybody
look you, looking you, watching you.
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Many Bosnians work in privately-owned factories in the United States,
where, even if they wanted to maintain this practice, there are not the means to
do so. Therefore, to some extent, people have been compelled to change their
dress habits.
West and Zimmerman describe “doing gender as an ongoing activity
embedded in everyday interaction” (1991, p. 18). In Bosnia, most of my
participants either walked or took the bus to work, which gave them an
opportunity to interact with other Bosnians and to be subjected to the dress code
enforcers. In Vermont, on the other hand, public transportation in not extensive
and is largely associate with lower class. Every family in this study had at least
two cars, thereby avoiding a common daily interaction. Therefore, in addition to
not having the option of changing their clothes at work, Bosnians in Vermont are
freed from the watchful eye of the dress code enforcers. They are subjected to
comments by Americans about their dress, and several of the women spoke
about comments that were made to them shortly after they arrived. Although
most of the Bosnian women I have met describe having more freedom in the
U.S., my findings also suggest that the issues of control and constraint are also
at play in the U.S., and that at least some of the changes in dress and bodily
adornment may be in response to these comments in an effort to comply with
local norms.
My findings also support the thesis that constructions of modernity are
culturally variable. The accommodation and resistance around dress was rooted
in different conceptualizations of modernity. In resisting dress code norms in
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Vermont, Bosnians were holding on to their cultural construction of modernity
that emphasizes urbanity, display, and artifice while simultaneously resisting
aspects of Vermont modernity, which stood in opposition to their own
constructions (e.g., simplicity, comfort, and lack of concern for display). Through
accommodation and resistance, a new hybrid modernity emerges in which they
choose what aspects to keep and what to change.
1 Some scholars use dress and fashion interchangeably while others differentiate
between them. For example, Barnard (1996) points out that for some, dress is
viewed as the antithesis of fashion, with fashion only appearing in societies
where social mobility is possible, and dress being “seen either to serve those
who would contrive to escape class-based society or to indicate a very simple
society” (p. 147). In this study, I am not differentiating between dress and
fashion.
2 See Wilson (1985) for an historical overview of the clothing industry in the U.S.,
which began during the industrial revolution in the late 1880s, when mass
production of clothing was first introduced.
3 While attended a Catholic mass Mahler (1995) observed Salvadorans wearing
simple, unassuming clothing that contrasted sharply with that of South
Americans, who tended to "dress for success."
4 For example, see Nancy Green’s (1997) book, “Ready-to-wear and ready-to-
work: A century of industry and immigrants in Paris and New York.
5 See Daly (1999) for a discussion about meanings and misconceptions about
Islamic veiling practices.
6 Following World War II, the Yugoslav state prohibited by law the wearing of the
veil, which contributed to the institutionalization of Western styles of dress. The
veil was subsequently replaced by fashionable headscarves, which Muslim
women wore during religious occasions.
7 See Cunningham (1993) for an analysis about the evolution of American dress
standards, where she argues that simplicity of dress in the U.S. dates back to the
colonial period when simple, homespun clothing symbolized the American ideals
independence, equality, freedom.
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204
8 It is important to note that these changes may only apply to Vermont. Changes
in dress may be very different in larger urban areas where people rely more on
public transportation than private cars.
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Chapter Seven: Conclusion
In this dissertation I examined the intersection of gender, modernity, and
immigration by considering how four dimensions of gender relations changed
within shifting ideals of modernity and structures of opportunity. The four
dimensions are discursive constructions of gender, gender in both the private
and public realms, and dress and bodily adornment. I found that changes in
gender relations are marked by varying degrees of accommodation and
resistance to the changing social context and that reformulations of gender are
influenced by ideals of modernity and changes in gendered structures of
opportunity in the U.S. In this chapter I will summarize my findings and conclude
with questions raised by this research that warrant further analysis.
Changes in gender relations are brought about through the interplay of
structure, culture, and agency. Several macrostructural forces— modernity
projects, opportunity structures, and contexts of exit and reception— shape the
macro-level opportunities available to Bosnian men and women. However, men
and women are not passively molded by external forces; rather, human agency
and cultural norms about gender relations also contribute to the ways in which
people respond to them.
The dialectical approach to structure and agency is not a new idea.
However, a longstanding controversy attends culture and structure, and in the
feminist immigration literature, culture has been incorporated into analytical
frameworks with some trepidation. This is largely because the subject of culture
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206
has been exploited by conservatives in deterministic, essentialistic ways to justify
the superiority of one culture over another.
However, an evolution in the culture/structure analysis has paralleled the
shift in the gender and immigration literature towards gender viewed through a
kaleidoscope. Many social scientists, when they examine the salience of
structure and culture, challenge the dichotomous and additive approaches; they
call for the examination of culture and structure as “mutually constitutive”
elements that affect each other (Rubinstein, 2001). This non-linear way of
conceptualizing culture acknowledges that culture, like gender, does not fall into
either/or categories.
Nancy Foner (1999) argues that it is problematic to deny the role of culture
when examining changing gender relations among immigrants and asserts that
“the cultural understandings, meanings, and symbols that immigrants bring with
them from their home society are also critical in understanding immigrant family
life” (1999, p. 257). Like race and gender, culture is socially constructed. In fact,
the meanings of culture are so fluid that there is no universal definition of its
constituents. In this study, I use Sharon Hays’ definition: “systems of
meaning... including not only the beliefs and values of social groups, but also
their language, forms of knowledge, and common sense, as well as the material
products, interactional practices, rituals, and ways of life established by these”
(1994, p. 65). In analyzing culture, I agree with her theory that acknowledges
the constraining effects of culture and views it as a part of social structure. And
in summarizing the findings of my research I will illustrate that structure, culture,
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and agency are constitutive factors in changing gender relations in discourse, the
public and private realms, and dress.
Discourse
In Chapter Three, I argued that meta-narratives of modernity, operating on
the macro-level, inform the mini-narratives that play out on the micro-level,
resulting in a pervasive discourse of modernity and gendered discourse of
equality. The changing meta-narratives of modernity are related to changing
contexts of exit and reception, by which modernity in Bosnia was governed by
socialism and in the U.S. by capitalism.
The meta-narratives of modernity in both societies emphasized gender
equality and the full participation of women in society; yet persistent patriarchal
cultural values in both countries along with the collective actions of men and
women (e.g., men’s efforts to maintain power) prevented full equality from being
achieved. At the same time, the rhetoric of gender equality at the macro-level
and essentialistic notions of gender on the cultural level helped to preserve
existing gender relations and to promote a discourse of equality. The
persistence of cultural attitudes toward gender are also conveyed through jokes
and perceptions of equality that fall short of the social reality of inequality.
This factor and that of agency to can be seen as well when looking at the
tenacity of religious/national identity among Muslims, Orthodox, and Catholics
despite the meta-narrative of socialist modernity that devalued the importance of
religion in favor of a secular, Yugoslav identity. Moreover, the resurgence of
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208
nationalism— which many regard as the antithesis of modernity— in the former-
Yugoslavia further illustrates the role of culture and agency.
Public Space
Changing ideals of modernity and shifting structures of opportunity in the
U.S. have led to a transformation of public space for Bosnian men and women,
with women’s worlds expanding and men’s contracting. Changes in public and
private space have led to gains and losses for men and women, although women
have generally gained more relative to their husbands. Men and women have
both experienced increased isolation and constraints of time. Women’s gains
include more freedom and independence— the result of opportunities to work and
attend school, to drive a car, and to live apart from the social control of extended
family; and more autonomy and power through language and education. Losses
for women include the lack of friends and social networks, the decrease in
support from extended family, and the loss of space in the home. For most men
the greatest gain appears to result from sharing the breadwinner role. Although
men earn more and feel this as a responsibility, most wives contribute to
household income to a greater extent than they did in Bosnia. By far the most
substantial losses for men have been the loss of status and authority in their
public and private lives, largely a result of the downward mobility they have
experienced. Men who have resisted learning English and whose wives have
embraced it have experienced the greatest relative loss of power in the
household.
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209
Educational and work opportunities have been equally available to both
Bosnian men and women, but their responses to the structures of opportunity
have been, at least initially, governed by cultural precepts about gender. Upon
arrival most men strove to regain their position in their family as the provider and
in doing so they often work an inordinate number of hours. Most women also
work, but fewer hours than their husbands, allowing them more time and
flexibility to add ESL classes and other activities to their schedules. Because
women have generally not experienced as much downward mobility as their
husbands, they are more resilient and thus more willing to face the intimidating
prospect of going to school. Also, in addition, in Bosnian culture, women are
viewed as the communicators; this may make them more motivated to learn
English than their husbands. From all these factors a bitter irony emerges: in
working harder to regain status men create additional free time for their wives;
their wives often use the time to take advantage of language classes and other
educational opportunities, and men actually lose status to their wives. In this
way, although many men value work over education because they perceive that
the benefits of working will outweigh the costs of not learning English, over time,
they find that the reverse may be true as linguistic proficiency becomes more
important for mobility.
Private Space
Through immigration and settlement, the household division of labor in the
private realm is being renegotiated and transformed among the Bosnian families.
While men have increased their participation, women continue both to do more
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210
housework and to maintain the primary responsibility of the household. Several
factors contribute to the changes in gender relations within the private realm, all
of them related to shifting ideals of modernity. First, both men and women work
more in the U.S. than they did in Bosnia, allowing less time for household labor.
Second, increased educational opportunities, which women are taking advantage
of more than men, take additional time away from housework. Third, a decrease
in sociability, resulting from increased workloads and the decline in social
networks, means that there is less incentive for women to have their house
sparkling clean, ready to be on display.
Cultural norms about gender relations impact household division of labor
as well. Like their American counterparts and despite men’s increased
involvement, women still do more household labor than their husbands. Most
women do not perceive these arrangements to be unfair but view the differences
to be natural. At the same time, however, women are expressing agency by
employing creative strategies to decrease the housework burden. As with
changes in dress, which I will discuss below, changes in household division of
labor are marked by accommodation and resistance and come in response to
changing ideals of modernity and shifting gendered structures of opportunity.
Dress
Bosnian refugees' meanings and practices of dress— which are fluid and
gendered and evolve out of historical and cultural contexts— are undergoing
transformation in the U.S. On the structural level changes in dress are occurring
with exposure to U.S. dress norms and shifting meanings of modernity. In
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211
Bosnia dress codes were supported on the structural level through
accommodations provided by government-owned places of work. On the cultural
level dress code norms were held in check by “dress code enforcers” in society.
In response to structural changes in the U.S., through a combination of
culture and agency, Bosnians are accommodating and resisting U.S. dress code
norms. A double meaning has been attached to dressing more casually in the
U.S., most notably for women: on the one hand it was equated with greater
freedom and independence while on the other, it was viewed as not caring about
yourself and letting yourself go. In response Bosnians are choosing to retain
some of their own cultural practices and meanings of dress and are resisting full
accommodation.
Resisting U.S. dress codes also served to give participants— again, mostly
women— a feeling of superiority over American women, who in their view dress
poorly. Resisting American norms allows Bosnian women to see themselves as
more cosmopolitan than their American counterparts, which seemed to assuage
the marginalization they have experienced in the U.S. Dressing up also serves
to accentuate gender differences and thus is directly tied to essentialist views of
gender.
Future Research
At the conclusion of this project I am left with many questions and in
retrospect am able to see several areas that need further exploration. I am
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212
particularly interested in building on this research by examining the areas of
nationalism, gender, and modernity; and as a separate area, domestic violence.
The relationship between nationalism, gender, and modernity warrants
further analysis. A large body of research has examined the relationship
between nationalism and gender. Because nationalistic movements are heavily
seeped in gender ideology, Maja Korac argues that “the revival of ethnic-
nationalisms in the former Yugoslavia is profoundly gendered... women are
crucial to the construction and reproduction of nationalist ideologies” (1996, p.
87). I intend to explore this further and to examine how nationalism ties into
gender and modernity among Bosnian Muslims. Rener and Ule (1998) argue
that, “of the three great dispositions of modernity/modernization— the nation
state, industrialization, and the urban way of life— one element, the nation-state,
is dangerous and potentially anti-modern” (p. 121). Nationalism was at the crux
of the fall of Yugoslavia. Throughout my research I observed the vestiges of
nationalist movements among my participants but because it was not central to
my study, I did not systematically gather data about it.
In the same way, I heard anecdotal stories about domestic violence,
although there were no indications of domestic violence among any of the
families in this study. Because my research was qualitative, my exposure to
families was limited to people who were interested and willing to participate, so it
is safe to assume that I had limited access to families in which domestic violence
was occurring.
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In my conversations with social service providers, I have learned that
domestic violence is prevalent in the Bosnian community (in response to which
the local court-ordered batterers program is currently developing a curriculum for
Bosnian men). Drawing from Marion McMahon’s work (1986), Rockhill argues
that as an immigrant woman gains facility in English and uses it to express
herself she is placed in a contradictory bind: “her feminine identity as a caretaker
of others, as responsible for their sense of ego-strength, validity and authority, is
disturbed, provoking the violence of those who feel themselves threatened or
silenced by the power of her voice” (p. 316). In future research I plan to examine
the relationship between women’s linguistic and educational advancement and
the incidence of domestic violence. If Bosnian women continue to pursue
education at a higher rate then men, it may lead to increased tensions between
them. I am especially interested in examining this in light of the irony
summarized above in the section on public space.
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214
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Appendix I: Participants
231
NAME AGE WORK
BOSNIA
WORK
US
EDUCATION
BOSNIA
EDUCATION
US
Mirsada 46 Chef Chef 2 years
vocational
ESL classes
Haris 51 Waiter Waiter 2 years
vocational
None
Elmina 50 Receptionist Unemployed
(disabled)
High School None
Faruk 51 Manager and
Musician
Baker College
Degree
None
Amina 30 None Social Worker Some
college
College
Degree
Emira 40 None Mail Room
Specialist
1 year
vocational
ESL
Currently
enrolled in
college
Samir 46 Glass workdr Glass worker
(presently on
disability)
High School None
Jasmina 24 Waitress Nurses Aid High School Currently
enrolled in
college
Faris 31 Chef Manufacturing High school Some
college
Zahra 24 Unemployed Retail High School Currently
enrolled in
college
Ahmed 31 Retail Nurses Aid High School Currently
enrolled in
college
Fatima 31 Volunteer
Teacher
Teacher’s Aid High School Currently
enrolled in
College
Omar 31 Manufacturing Manufacturing High School None
Jasna 34 Unemployed Retail 2 years
vocational
Currently
enrolled in
college
Sanel 42 Manufacturing Manufacturing
and Service
High School None
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
232
Appendix II: Service Providers
NAME AGE SEX OCCUPATION
Joe Late 40s Male ESL Teacher, Freeman Grant
administrator
Hoa 40s Female Co-director VRRP
Mediha Early 30s Female Bosnian Interpreter
Cristina Late 20s Female VRRP Case Worker
Maria 33 Female VRRP Case Worker
Sheila 30s Female VRRP Case Worker
Diana 50s Female ESL Teacher
Bill 40s Male ESL Teacher
Hasnija 40a Female Bosnian Day Care Provider
Asia 30s Female VRRP Case Worker
Oliver 30s Male Refugee Coordinator
John 20s Male VRRP Case Worker
Mara 30s Female Local Business Owner
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Creator Huisman, Kimberly Anne (author)

Core Title Gender, immigration, and modernity: A case study of Bosnian Muslim settlement in Vermont

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Sociology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Sociology, general,women's studies

Language English

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Advisor Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette (committee chair), Kurien, Prema (committee member), Simic, Andrei (committee member)

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