Obstacles to emancipation of Roma women

Introduction

The Roma ethnic group, estimated to be around 300,000, ranks among the largest minorities in the Czech Republic. Many Roma inhabitants live in bad conditions. About one third of the Roma are reported to be socially excluded (GAC, 2006). The Roma have long observed traditions and unwritten rules that clearly define the male and female roles in the family. These have significantly influenced the way the family is organized. However, over the course of time and due to historical events, the Roma family has been weakened, having become separated from the traditional large family. This has led also to changes in the role of the woman in the Roma family (Kajanová & Urban, 2014).

With the weakening functionality of the traditional model of the Roma family in society, the woman is forced to undergo a process of emancipation—in other words, to break free of dependency on someone (Davidová et al., 2004). The birth rate of Roma women has been declining as they need to train, or retrain, to ensure their survival and that of the family as a whole. Alongside this emancipation, the woman’s position in the family has been changing as well. Her main concern is no longer caring for the children and household but has extended to include providing an income. The task of the Roma woman in present society is not easy, and she also faces multiple marginalizations where racial oppression is accompanied by other oppressions (Šafr, 2008).

Emancipation as a concept

Over the centuries, emancipation has formed part of the political picture of all societies, and it has an impact on the social operation of the population. The concept of emancipation assumes that power differences will disappear. Emancipation processes respond to a kind of oppression described as disruption of free development (Laclau, 1996).

The fight for equal rights and opportunities is frequently related to the emancipation of women, ethnic minorities or religious groups. In the 15th century, the struggle for equality emerged as burghers fought for liberty. Minority populations also sought religious freedom, the abolition of slavery and emancipation of slaves. Later, different movements fighting for female emancipation started emerging (Morris, 2007). Black women fought for free lives. They sought to break free from slavery, while white women were more concerned with achieving equal status with men and with participation in patriarchal institutions. Their efforts were aimed at equal access to education (the opportunity to obtain a university education), equal job opportunities (career growth) and the right to vote (Hollister & Schultz, 2010). More recently women’s emancipation efforts have been directed at reducing power differences between women and men and the prevention of sexual violence; however, the main emphasis has been on the financial independence of women: specifically, on balancing childcare and domestic work with paid work (Te Velde, 2005).

Emancipation is seen as the breaking free from oppression. Where the emancipation of marginalized groups (including the Roma ethnic group in the Czech Republic) is concerned, there are obstacles in the majority society. One is marginalization, which pushes the members of such groups to the margins of society and restricts their participation in the public sector and government policy, which is often reduced to the receipt of benefit payments (Blakeley, 2013). Together womanhood, marginalization and ethnicity form the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality, or the linking of inequalities, is caused by a combination of several discrimination factors. This is most frequently related to marginalized groups, women from poor ethnic minorities or migrants with little education (Murphy et al., 2009).

Emancipation of Roma women

The Roma constitute the largest ethnic group in the Czech Republic, but it is also a very heterogeneous population consisting of different subcultures. These differ from one another in culture, religion, traditions and language as well as in the position of the woman in the family and the community as a whole (Kenrick, 2004). The internal organization of gender roles in Roma families has long been patriarchal in character. Roma men have a better position and dominate, while women are subordinate to men (Voicu & Popescu, 2009). The traditional roles of Roma women in the family relate to the private sphere. Their main role is to care for the children, run the household and to pass on the experience and customs of traditional Roma culture to future generations. By contrast, men have the decision-making rights in Roma families and their roles are to earn a living and represent the family externally. Roma men spend most of their time outside the home. They build on social relations or ensure there is money coming in (Weyrauch, 2001; Liégeois, 2007).

Roma women are often discriminated against for several reasons. This is mainly because of their ethnic origin and gender and can be seen in the fact that, in Roma communities and families, they are viewed as mothers whose main task is to provide the men with children and care for them. However, the status of women in the Roma family rises with the number of children they produce and raise (usually a minimum of two (Matras, 2011).

In recent years, the status of Roma women has been improving. Roma women now have more opportunities on the labour market than was the case in the past. There are also indications of the emancipation of Roma girls, specifically in opinions on the male/female division of labour and roles in the household or on raising children; at present, the division is not as strict as it was traditionally. They also start families at a later age than in the past. Although the opportunities for participating in the labour market have been gradually improving, Roma women are still focused on marriage and family. They often finish their education prematurely due to pregnancy or marriage. Given all this, one can surmise that these traditional views on the woman’s role in the Roma family prevent women from achieving self-realization (Gijsberts, 2004).

Goal

The article aims to describe the obstacles a Roma woman must overcome in the course of her emancipation. The data presented in this article constitute partial outputs from the GAJU 098/2013S Project (Current position of Roma woman in family and in society), studying subjective perceptions of gender-divided roles in the Roma family and how they have changed over single generations.

Methods

Qualitative research was chosen as the methodology since it allows for a deeper investigation of the issue. The advantage of the research is that the predefined problem is never completely delimited but clarified throughout the research. Another positive aspect of qualitative research is that the researcher comes into personal contact with the informants (Dezin & Lincoln, 2011).

The main research sample consists of 30 women of different ages who identify as Roma and live in three Czech regional capitals. The sample was selected so as to reflect the different social conditions of the families the women came from. It contained socially excluded families with unemployed members reliant on social benefits as well as families with working members. The research sample was selected with the help of the snowball method that produces a non-probability selection (Babbie, 2011). The field research was performed using the narrative interview method. This is a free interview technique in which the researcher invites the informant to narrate a story on a given topic. Subjective experiences that could not be accessed by direct questioning are gradually revealed. All the stories were recorded on a Dictaphone with the informants’ consent and subsequently transcribed verbatim (Seidman, 2013). The data collected as part of the field research were analyzed using Atlas.ti and anchored theory.

Results

We identified five main obstacles to the emancipation of Roma woman. They included obstacles erected by the family and the majority society as well as obstacles created by the hegemony of masculinity and obstacles stemming from the women. The sections that follow will discuss the individual obstacles in more detail. We understand the emancipation of Roma women to mean the opportunity to make decisions about their future, both within their procreation family where they choose for example their education path or partner, and in the context of their partnership where they can plan their career, the number of children they have and have the potential to become independent if the husband’s behaviour becomes socially pathological.

Family obstacles develop when both the original family and the new family (i.e. the partner’s parents and relatives) impose strict requirements on the woman. This may occur in early childhood when Roma women / girls are steered towards caring for their siblings (and later looking after the home) and therefore do not have sufficient opportunity to study:

… my mother was alone, so I helped her, my father had died, so I had to take care of things. In the morning, I had to get up and walk two kilometres to fetch water, from the age of eight, to help my mum… (České Budějovice)

In some cases, the family even forbids the woman from studying, so a basic education is the maximum that can be achieved. The division of roles within the family relate to the division of labour. The woman is not expected to engage in the labour market, and therefore education seems unimportant. The family also controls the woman’s birth rate, for example by deciding whether she should have an abortion:

Well, usually the family or the mother decides whether you can have an abortion or not. There is something like the will of the girl or woman, but it is just influenced by other factors, well, usually by the family… (České Budějovice)

Compared to earlier generations, the age of Roma women at first birth is increasing (Davidová, 2004), which may mean they can achieve a higher level of education and build a career. However, the family and the children play a much more important role than either of these within the value system.

Another group of obstacles that were identified include majority population obstacles. The main problem here is the high level of discrimination against Roma women in the labour market:

When I wanted to find a job, I also had problems. In the employment office, they told me, okay, that business is looking for a cleaning lady and they would employ me. But when I got there and they saw me in the doorway, they told me they didn’t want me. So I felt that they didn’t want me because I am a Gipsy. (České Budějovice)

This is often a consequence of the fact that people see men working more frequently and so women are considered to be living off the state:

… When people see a Roma working, it is usually a man digging a ditch….

(Plzeň) Roma women are also negatively depicted in the media, and the majority population has distorted and often stereotypical ideas about the position of Roma women:

… when the Roma are presented, there are always children, because that is attractive, and the children cling to their mother or sister… that may also provoke some negative… (České Budějovice)

The emancipation of Roma women is also prevented by the persistence of the traditional division of gender roles which assigns the woman to looking after the household as her main activity:

… Well, the Roma tradition has it that the woman must cook, clean and care for the children in the household… (Brno)

In families where this arrangement exists, the women have no opportunity to have their own interests or hobbies. They are viewed as mothers, and infertility is a taboo.

… when a woman becomes infertile, she becomes a zero in her family… she is supposed to have children, and if she can have them, well, she needn’t have them, but if she can’t have them, then she is looked down on… (Plzeň)

The women in traditional Roma families have more obligations than the men. They have to do much more work than the partner:

… the woman has to look after the home, cook, take the children to school, basically everything. (Brno)

Other obstacles described are the result of the hegemony of masculinity which enables men to maintain their authoritative position. They make the decisions in the family, and have more freedom and unlimited rights in the relationship:

… Gipsy women must conform to everybody; if the guy chooses where they are going to move to or something like that, she must go with him, and that is just terrible… (Plzeň)

The families even experience domestic violence perpetrated by men who secure their dominant position in the family that way, and the women are subordinate to them:

My father abused me, he arrived home drunk, he beat my mother, he abused my mother in front of us… (České Budějovice).

Another group of obstacles are the women’s inner barriers. They include low self-confidence and a fear of being judged by others. We can assume that these obstacles result from all the groups of obstacles described above. Although the concept of inner barriers involves the a priori mental consequences of the low self-confidence of the Roma women, its origins lie in the gendered upbringing in Roma families that reinforces the tradition of Roma women occupying a subordinate position in the family.

Discussion

The data lead us to the conclusion that the potential for the emancipation of Roma women is limited by several factors anchored in their social lives. In the Roma environment, women are allocated the role of caregiver and it can already be seen in the girls who help around the home and have little opportunity to pursue their own interests and hobbies. The pressure to preserve the family values coupled with the ethnic discrimination emanating from the major-ity population that restricts the opportunities Roma women have for self-realization at work and in their private life. However, from the generational perspective, the social pressure ex-erted on the Roma women by relatives and traditional values has been decreasing; neverthe-less, they are still not equal to their partners. In fact, these are not displays of femininity but are barriers constructed by the hegemonic masculine social environment. Emancipation tends to occur in families with a higher socio-economic position, but also in families where the ex-periences of young Roma women with socially pathological fathers and in families where so-cial learning leads to a greater perceived importance of the role of the Roma woman / mother and a developing awareness of the social non-functionality of Roma men in current society.

Conclusion

This article aimed to describe the main obstacles preventing Roma women from achieving emancipation. Our research found that it is important to look for obstacles emanating from the woman and those found in her environment. This means investigating the family environment (family, community) and the broader environment (majority society). Gaining an understanding of relations in Roma families, the situation regarding the emancipation of Roma women and the associated barriers may help those who come into daily contact with the Roma minority to take appropriate action and apply the right interventions.