Protectors and Victims in the Gender Regime of Asylum

Abstract

Gender-based persecution is one way that immigrant women can seek political asylum and gain legal entry into the United States. Gender-based persecution includes harm such as female circumcision, rape, domestic violence, coercive family planning, honor killings, forced marriage, and repressive social norms. Legal scholars and immigrant advocates herald gender-based persecution laws and policies for advancing female asylum seekers' ability to gain asylum based on gendered harm. While gender-based persecution laws and policies offer optimism for women fleeing gendered harm, the implementation of these laws and policies may reproduce victimization for migrant women. A study of the implementation of gender-based persecution laws and policies makes visible assumptions about masculinity, femininity, sexuality, essentialism, women's agency, and authority that asylum seekers, immigration attorneys, service providers, immigration judges, and asylum officers engage. In this article, I find that protectionism and victimization, based on insecurity and fear, structure the legal institution of asylum.