Intersection of Gender and Culture: An Analysis of Ethnic Minority Women’s Psychological Violence Experiences

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-680-2_8How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Ethnic Minority Women; Intimate Partner Violence; Psychological Violence; Culture

Abstract

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) has been a common issue existing in society, and psychological violence is one common form of IPV. The violence is particularly prominent in ethnic minority women because of their patriarchal culture and marital social norms. Nevertheless, analysis of psychological violence is scarce in the extant literature, specifically among ethnic minority women. Furthermore, intersectional theory is rarely applied in analysis of women’s IPV lived experiences. This knowledge is also lacking in Myanmar, a country with various ethnic groups and patriarchal gender structure. As such, this study analyzes ethnic women’s experiences of psychological violence from their husbands or ex-husbands in Kachin State, Myanmar using the intersectional framework. In-depth interview data from 12 ethnic women with psychological violence experiences was analyzed. Results showed ethnic women’s psychological violence experiences were the intersection of gender, social class, culture, and husband’s alcohol and drug usage. The study highlights the vital role of culture in women’s violence experiences in an ethnic context. It contributes to both intersectional theory and IPV literature from the perspective of ethnic women’s psychological violence experiences. Consequently, addressing harmful sociocultural norms is imperative, and multi-sectoral collaboration, including engagement with cultural and religious leaders is essential for effective elimination of ethnic minority women’s violence experiences.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Aye Myat Myat Win
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/04/26
TI  - Intersection of Gender and Culture: An Analysis of Ethnic Minority Women’s Psychological Violence Experiences
BT  - Proceedings of the Asia Pacific Sociological Association Conference  (APSA 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 93
EP  - 101
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-680-2_8
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-680-2_8
ID  - Win2025
ER  -