Women Immigrants What is the 'Problem'?

Abstract

The article questions the dominant image in Swedish society of 'the immigrant woman' as 'the problem'. I argue that this image and the abstract notion of 'the immigrant woman' are socially constructed by the political, economical and ideological apparatus of mainstream society. Research has served power-holders to reinforce, legitimize and manage 'the problem' from an ethnocentric perspective, serving to keep the women at the borders of society and lowest down in worklife hierarchy. By presenting the women as carriers of problematic characteristics mainly defined in cultural terms, mainstream society and employers use the strategy of blaming the victim. I argue instead that subordination in the gendered and ethnically divided labour market, marginalization and invisibility in worklife, are central frames of reality where the actual problems the women meet are being expressed. The challenge facing social scientists and feminist scholars is a redefinition not seeing the women as 'the problem' but defining the problem as generated by structural subordination. The perspective of research must shift from problems defined by power and ethnocentrism to definitions that have their basis in the real life experiences of the women.