Category: Society & Community

Can we redefine ‘honour killings’?

There is a Punjabi proverb that says ‘one does not share the bread, but one shares the shame’.  And yet, honour and shame, while attributed to individual acts are not about the individual, but about the family. The honour of the family, in particular its male members, is located in the bodies of women.

Unni Wikan argues that it is not clear that honour and shame are binary opposites[1]. Drawing on studies conducted in Cairo and Oman, she argues that the location of these concepts in the everyday life of the community, and not just in select discourses, is essential. She shows that honour and shame relate differently to behaviour: that shame arises from an identifiable act, whereas honour is an attribute of the whole person[2].

But the debate continues. How else can honour and shame be seen? Whereas Nafisa Shah argues they are ‘two parallel states, honour is masculine, shame is feminine. Just as men have honour, women have shame. A woman’s shame summarises her public reputation and social position in much the same manner as honour does for men’[3], Tahira Khan suggests they are ‘dialectical states’: shame is the opposite of honour and both are male attributes, men possess honour and suffer shame[4].

Honour and shame are intrinsically linked in everyday discourses that shape women’s behaviour and the control of it. Purna Sen suggests that ‘codes of honour serve to construct … what it means to be a woman’[5]. Others link it to patriarchy and possession. Fatima Mernissi in her book ‘Beyond the Veil’, also makes a connection between honour and possessions. She argues that there is a strong link between money and female sexuality on the one hand, and the social construction of honour and purity on the other. Her point is that although honour is linked to material wealth, its location is firmly fixed in the body of women[6]. The woman’s body and her sexuality are the idioms of honour and shame. 

Is it possible then to redefine honour killings? The popular shorthand referring to killing women because an alleged shame besmirching the family honour as ‘honour killing’ becomes a tool for the defamation of women. What stops us simply calling it murder? In every other instance of killing it is called murder, and yet the killing a woman because someone alleges she has shamed them is not called murder.

Honour killings are murder, whatever the reasons attached.

[1] Wikan, U. (1984). “Shame and Honour: A Contestable Pair.” Man, New Series 19(4): 635 – 652. p 636

[2] Ibid. p638

[3] Shah, N. (1999). Women in revolt. Dawn. Karachi.

[4] Khan, T. S. (2006). Beyond Honour. Karachi: Oxford University Press. p 46

[5] Sen, P. (2005). ‘Crimes of Honour’, value and meaning. In L. Welchman & S. Hossain (Eds.), ‘Honour’: Crimes, Paradigms, and Violence Against Women. London and New York: Zed Books. p 48

[6] Mernissi, F. (1987). Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society (Revised Edition ed.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p 46-64

Civil society: alternative definitions

Civil society is a contested and ambiguous term that can accommodate a wide spectrum of views.  The state can use the notion of civil society when it wants to promote projects of mobilization and modernization, non-state actors use it as an angle for a legal share of public space while independent activists and intellectuals use it to expand the boundaries of individual liberty.

It has been conceptualised variously as civil institutions, as human networks that exist independently of the state, as a realm differentiated from the economy and state, and as a place of social life independent of the state that cannot be swallowed up by the state.  Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian political sociologist describes civil society in terms of the link it creates between ‘democracy, development and a peaceful management of conflict domestically and regionally’ (Ibrahim, 1995).

A number of authors argue that civil society is a Western construct and there are problems in applying it uncritically to the Third World as a measure of modernity and progress. Serif Mardin is categorical in asserting that civil society cannot be unquestioningly translated into Islamic terms.  He bases this assertion on his argument that civility and civil society are not interchangeable terms and therefore the presence of civility does not automatically translate into a presence of civil society (Mardin, 1995).  Deniz Kandiyoti suggests an alternative way of conceptualizing the interface of engagement between state and society.  She refers to it as the site of a ‘new political society’ that does not necessarily conform to the norms of civil society but facilitates mobilization that channels popular demands in the emerging state (Kandiyoti, 2001).  Alternatively there is literature that seeks to redefine Islam’s internal structures, groupings and associations as demonstrable evidences of civil society from its earliest beginnings (Esposito, 2000:, Esposito and Burgat, 2003:, Chambers and Kymlicka, 2002:, Hanafi, 2002).

An alternative to civil society as framed by Western theory is needed to understand where engagement for negotiation occurs in non-Western societies.  The basic premise of Western civic culture is that sovereignty lies with the will of the people whereas Islam is based on the ultimate authority of God’s Word.  Therefore, how can the interface that allows for negotiation, where women’s organizations and activists can engage with state and society be conceptualized? 

Saad Eddin Ibrahim defines the concept of civil society by linking it to the concept of public space or the public sphere.  (Ibrahim, 1995)  The concept of the public space is variously used to identify that place where discourse and interaction between players of society happens and where society can interact with the state.  Nancy Fraser refers to it as mediation between state and society with society ‘holding the state accountable’ as she explores Habermas’ use of the concept (Fraser, 1992).  

However, where the concept of civil society contrasts public and private space, there are limitations in its usefulness as a framework for understanding negotiation for change for women. Concepts of public and private spheres are foundational to Islam’s designation of male and female space and roles.  It can be argued that these designations serve to maintain the inequalities and reinforce the power structures that are part of the problem for women living under Islam.  Talal Asad conceptualizes this when he argues the inherent and unquestionable link between the public sphere and articulations of power (Asad, 2003). Bari and Khattack observe that civil society is intrinsically linked with masculine interpretations of the state (Bari and Khattack, 2001).  Suad Joseph and Susan Slymovics further this idea, arguing that definitions of what constitutes civil society are based on a gendered distinction between the public and private (Joseph and Slyomovics, 2001).  The public domain is an arena from which women are largely excluded in strict Muslim definitions of space. 

Joseph and Slyomovics speak to this perspective when they assert that central to public, private and domestic spheres in Arab-Islamic societies is the patriarchal family, which they view as a construct of power in society.  They elucidate their argument by describing kinship and community as central organizers of social life; that state institutions and civil society do not operate independently of kin-based and communal relations (Joseph and Slyomovics, 2001).

Shahnaz Khan, in an article ‘Muslim Women: Negotiations in the Third Space” offers an alternative space, one that is neither traditionally differentiated public and private but what she designates ‘political space’ (Khan, 1998). This is a place for ‘supplementary sites of resistance and negotiation’ formed when the original symbols and signifiers that have been translated through the discourses of Islam and colonialism, are re-appropriated, re-historicised and reread.  Nancy Fraser’s work on a ‘multiplicity of competing publics’ suggesting that ‘subaltern counterpublics … function as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment … [and] … as bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed towards wider publics” (Fraser, 1992:124) may be helpful in developing an understanding of this.

How do women in different societies negotiate and translate these discourses that regulate their lives into a ‘politics of everyday living’? 

Toxic Misogyny: what should be done?

A July 2021 article described the issues underlying a women’s alleged murder by family members as a result of toxic misogyny[1]. The article laid the blame on the government and its failure to protect women, citing a culture of impunity, patriarchal attitudes, victim blaming, the power given by certain religious teachings, or even the influence of western values and thinking. Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has blamed women themselves for the violence perpetrated against them.

Perhaps part of the problem is in the generic use of the term, toxic misogyny. When all attitudes and behaviours are caught up under one label, nothing is clearly identifiable in order to be dealt with. The Atlantic, in describing the dilemma, said: ‘the concept offers an appealingly simple diagnosis for gendered violence and masculine failure…[2]’.

The problems that lead to gendered violence are multiple. They are not simply dealt with by a fierce description. Human rights lawyer, Hina Jilani told me once that she could not fight violence without laws. But we don’t just need laws, we need the enforcement of laws. The women’s movement in Pakistan has recognised over its decades of work that it cannot tackle gendered violence without using the language of religion, otherwise it is heard. Patriarchal structures that embed attitudes that make women less than equal have been show to be at the centre of the issue also. Institutional structures that deny women a voice and control them perpetuate the problem. The valorisation of cultural norms that place family honour and well-being in a woman’s body accentuate the burden women must bear and are used to legitimise violence and abuse.

We must be careful not to assume that the causes, and practices, of this toxic misogyny are the same everywhere. While lessons can be learned and learning should be shared, there is simply no single solution. And there are times when we feel like all the progress that has been made is wiped away with a simply stroke of the pen, comment of a leader, or failure of a legal system.

Toxic misogyny, what can be done? Let’s not give up calling for laws, demanding their implementation, addressing the abuses of religious belief, working for rights, challenging structures, creating spaces where women come together to work in multiple ways for the dignity and inclusion of all.

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/noor-mukadams-murder-exposes-toxic-misogyny-in-pakistan/a-58645017

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/toxic-masculinity-history/583411/

Covid exacerbates disparities for women

The Global Gender Gap Report of 2021 says that another generation are going to have to wait for gender parity. One of the reasons for this, they say, is the impact of Covid.

Women have been ‘locked down’ with abusers. UN Women referred to violence against women as the shadow pandemic during Covid. All types of violence against women, but particularly domestic violence, has increased over the last 18 months. Domestic violence helplines in many nations have seen an upsurge in calls during the pandemic, while at the same time many women’s help and support organisations have lost resources as these are diverted.

Economic challenges have seen many lose employment, with women bearing the greater burden of that. A Mckinsey report suggested women were 1.8 times more vulnerable to job loss than men, accounting for 54% of job losses during the pandemic even though they make up just 39% of the world population. Lack of financial stability for women, particularly in poorer countries, means the effects of Covid-related economic impacts for women is greater.

A UN briefing paper said that ‘the pandemic is deepening pre-existing inequalities, exposing vulnerabilities in social, political and economic systems which are in turn amplifying the impacts of the pandemic’ . Reallocation of resources has adversely affected women, particularly in the area of reproduction and sexual health. The majority of health care workers are women, exposing them disproportionally to the virus, while the must also bear a greater burden for care of others at home during lockdowns associated with the pandemic.

Governments and legal bodies now have a reason, or is it an excuse, to put aside the needs of women. The long term consequences for women are being ignored. The Gender Gap report suggests that closing the gender gap has increased by that generation, from 99.5 years to 135.6.

Do we simply sit back and accept this? We too will be culpable before our daughters grand-daughters and great grand-daughters. While we can’t ignore the pandemic, we should not accept as inevitable its consequences for women.

Women and the cost of poverty

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In a United Nations report, Transforming economies, realising rights, survey results showed that women aged 20 – 59 were more likely than men to live in a poor household, in 6 out of 8 Middle East and North Africa countries. The majority of the world’s absolute poor are females.

Too often women bear the burden of poverty. This has impact on a range of areas of their lives. Poverty is particularly destructive to women’s health, especially their reproductive and sexual health. Women and girls are often the last to eat and their health problems are considered secondary to other family priorities.

Maternal mortality rates soar where poverty is rampant. In part, this is because of the link between poverty and early marriage. More than half of Yemeni women are married before they are 18. The average age of marriage for a girl in Yemen is just 14 years. Early marriage is one of the main causes of high maternal mortality. A United Nations Development Programme report on Yemen suggested that every day 8 women die during childbirth and for every 100,000 live births, 366 women die. It said that approximately 19% of maternal deaths occur in women aged 15 – 19.

Early marriage feminizes poverty. Girls do not complete education, trapping them in cumulative cycles of deprivation, powerlessness, insecurity and poverty. The gender values that permeate all aspects of life and affect all social groups are intrinsic to a woman’s access to life and services.

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) identified 4 key indicators of the feminization of poverty.

  1. The temporal dimension. Women are often primarily responsible for childcare and household duties—tasks for which they receive no pay. Women living in developing nations may also be relied upon to participate in exhausting physical and/or agricultural labor to help support the livelihoods of their families and villages. Having so many other responsibilities, these women have less time to devote to paid employment, and consequently earn a smaller income, even though they are effectively doing more work than their male counterparts.
  2. The spatial dimension. When employment is sare, women may have to migrate to other areas to find work temporarily. If a woman has children, however, she may be unable to pursue a job that takes her far from her family.
  3. The employment segmentation dimension.Being naturally classified as caretakers, women have often been corralled into specific lines of work, such as teaching, caring for children and the elderly, domestic servitude, and factory work such as textile production. These kinds of jobs lack stability, security and a higher income.
  4. The valuation dimension.In the same vein, the unpaid labor that women perform in taking care of family members and other household chores is considered of far less worth (at least economically) than positions that require formal education or training.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~abbat22l/classweb/feminizationofpoverty/causes.html

There is a negatively-geared symbiotic relationship between poverty, which most affects women, and the gender disparities that marginalise women. The rigidity of socially prescribed gender roles in communities exacerbates the burden of poverty that women bear.

This burden is part of the daily cycle of life that many women must negotiate for their own survival, as one Egyptian woman described: “When our father died we suddenly found ourselves cast upon the waters like a ‘band of cripples’ … We would have to struggle from this time forward to keep ourselves alive … I recall my mother crying and saying, ‘O poor one, are you not like a creature drowning now. Where do I go now? To whom have you left me? I have neither brother or sister to lean on and no shore on which to rest. In whose hands have you commended my fate, O lost one? … early we learned to work not only in our own fields but as field hands picking sweet potatoes for others at seven or eight paisters a day” (Om Naeema in Khul Khall).

Untying the hard knots of women’s subjugation is essential to tackle other social issues that burden our world, one of which is poverty.

Identity: Women are not schizophrenic

Women have multiple identities, raising the question as to when these different identities are articulated. The family is where definitions of gender are most immediately experienced, identity defined in part in the tasks she is assigned. Society and state articulate her gender within a framework of cultural symbolism, as the bearer of cultural authenticity. Farida Shaheed argues this is particularly so in Muslims states which have lacked a coherent ideology concerning their independence. Men rely on Islam and therefore require women as the markers of their cultural identity. The legacy of colonial domination has been a crisis of identity that has trapped women in struggles over culture.

Identity has a material shape embodying beliefs and behavioural patterns that order society. As identity is translated into tangible norms and customs, pre-existing social structures and power relations are pivotal in determining social customs and religions practices. Whereas it can be argued identity is a means of autonomous self-expression its manipulation is a means of control. Manderson and Bennett say “hegemonic constructions of gender are pivotal in the formation of women’s and men’s social identities, their personal subjectivities, their status and the power dynamics of female/male relations.” (Bennet and Manderson, 2003:11) Social control is exercised through notions of what is respectable and what is not. As repositories of their family honour it is family interpretations of religious and social values that are central determinants for the lives of women.

The inter-relationship of religion, class, law and society forms multiple layers of identity for a Muslim woman within an Islamic framework. Culture, customs, religion and law define the space available for self-definition and are the strands woven into formation of identity. Within this framework there are two levels at which gender identity is experienced and defined, the public arena of political discourse and the personal everyday existence. Gender and the position of women becomes politicised where religious, cultural, ethnic and national identity are under pressure.

A woman’s actions, her self-affirmation and desire for change must be negotiated within these boundaries.

We cannot remain silent

A recent World health Organisation study showed that globally, 38% of all women murdered are killed by their intimate partners. The report included some key findings on the health impact of domestic violence:

  • Death and injury– The study found that globally, 38% of all women who were murdered were murdered by their intimate partners, and 42% of women who have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner had experienced injuries as a result.
  • Depression– Partner violence is a major contributor to women’s mental health problems, with women who have experienced partner violence being almost twice as likely to experience depression compared to women who have not experienced any violence.
  • Alcohol use problems – Women experiencing intimate partner violence are almost twice as likely as other women to have alcohol-use problems.
  • Sexually transmitted infections – Women who experience physical and/or sexual partner violence are 1.5 times more likely to acquire syphilis infection, chlamydia, or gonorrhoea. In some regions (including sub-Saharan Africa), they are 1.5 times more likely to acquire HIV.
  • Unwanted pregnancy and abortion– Both partner violence and non-partner sexual violence are associated with unwanted pregnancy; the report found that women experiencing physical and/or sexual partner violence are twice as likely to have an abortion than women who do not experience this violence.
  • Low birth-weight babies– Women who experience partner violence have a 16% greater chance of having a low birth-weight baby.

(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/violence_against_women_20130620/en/)

View the associated infographic here: http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/VAW_infographic.pdf

Fear and shame keep victims of violence silent and isolated. But there are small glimmers of hope. It has been found that communities form and activism is sparked when victims are supported to speak up.

Pakistan has shown the way in this over many years. Women’s activism took on the government, legal system, constitution and laws after the draconian Hudood Ordinances punished victims for the violence perpetrated against them. Wave after wave of activism has confronted violence against women, pressing the government for change and calling society to action. Laws have been changed. The rate of change is slow, but with relentless pressure from activists changes have been made.

The rape of a young women on a bus in India, led to outrage and calls for action that gave other victims support and courage to speak up. Following the reporting of this one incident several others were immediately reported, raising questions about what was happening to women in the country.

The media must be encouraged to speak with clarity, not for the sake of a story but for justice, to prevent victims being hidden by the community because of shame, to challenge laws, policies, social conscience and the status quo that accepts such violence as the norm.

But more is needed. Perhaps the case of Pakistan shows that hand in hand with activism support structures are needed for victims. The structures need to empower women to make choices, enabling them to find their identity and not become stuck as victims. Activists must enable the voice of victims to be heard, even as they take up the cause.

Challenging violence that marginalises women needs the voices of all.

I am not that woman!

I am not that woman

selling you socks and shoes!

Remember me, I am the one you hid

in your walls of stone, while you roamed

free as a breeze, not knowing

that my voice cannot be smothered by stones.

 

I am the one you crushed

with the weight of custom and tradition

not knowing

that light cannot be hidden in darkness.

Remember me,

I am the one in whose lap

you picked flowers

and planted thorns and embers

not knowing

chains cannot smother my fragrance

 

I am the woman

whom you bought and sold

in the name of my own chastity

not knowing

that I can walk on water

when I am drowning.

 

I am the one you married off

to get rid of the burden

not knowing

that a nation of captive minds

cannot be free.

 

I am the commodity you traded in,

my chastity, my motherhood, my loyalty.

Now it is time for me to flower free.

The woman on that poster.

half naked, selling socks and shoes –

No, no, I am not that woman!

(Kishwar Naheed, Translated by Farrukhi, A., Ed. (2004). The Distance of a Shout. Karachi, Oxford University Press.)

Women do not constitute a homogeneous category. They are located in different places, belong to different social spheres, are members of different ethnic groups, and adherents of different religious groups. Their lives are mediated by their differing locations, and the ways they engage from these with dominating structures. At the same time, there is much that women share: their incorporation as women into the state and nation; their incorporation into dominant discourses that mediate social relationships, citizenship, religion and law; and definitions of gender by the institutionalised structures of state and society.

While the debates about women who call for change rage, their privilege of class or education, political influence or dominant ethnicity, women are bound together by these structural definitions. The issues of marginalization, violence, commodification, identity, and value affect all women. The voices for change use the space of their ‘privilege’ to advocate for change for all women.

The barrier to change is not that someone with privilege in one area engages in the struggle for change for all women, the barrier is that others tell us that this is wrong. While women experience the boundaries differently, structural definitions are just that, structural boundaries that all women experience.

As women we must continue explore together the tensions at the intersection of diverse constructions that mediate our lives. Together we will understand the mediating influences and how they shape our identity as we traverse the contours of these discourses that inform and shape our daily experiences. Together we will shout to those who want to give boundaries to our being, ‘ we are not that woman!’

Burnt Alive!

News report from Pakistan say that 25 year old Shabana Bibi was doused in gasoline and set alight by her husband and his father, after she left the home without her husband’s permission. She was not running away. She did not defame him. She simply went out for a visit without taking permission. Shabana Bibi died after suffering burns to 80% of her body.

Some are calling the murder of Shabana Bibi an honour crime, but that is too simplistic. By calling it an honour crime are we simply affirming the notion that a woman carries in her body the honour of all her family? Are we agreeing that at the root of this crime are issues to do with honour? Have we sold the reality of this crime out to notions of honour and shame? Are we doing women a disservice by allowing murder committed against them when they act independently of male approval, to be referred to as honour crimes?

Family members often act in this way because of perceptions that something done by the woman has brought shame to them. But what do they mean by that? What shame did Shabana Bibi’s action bring on her husband and his father? Certainly they did not have the tight control of her that they may have wanted the community to believe they had. Shabana Bibi did not submit to their controls unquestioningly. Their power over her life was not absolute.

That’s where shame and honour are a strange paradigm to describe what necessitates such violence. Honour crimes are predicated on women being made commodities, when they are simply objects to be delivered from one man’s home (their father’s) to another man’s home (their husband’s). Their only value is calculated in terms of their power of reproduction and as an object of sexual satisfaction. The value of this ‘commodity’ then must be protected. This means men restrict women’s space in the family, their mobility, their behaviour and their activities.

Where gender is an organisational principle of a society, and patriarchal values are enmeshed with tradition and culture to predetermine the social value of gender, women are burdened with the rules of honour and shame. And so it is that honour crimes are the publicly articulated justification of that social order and its concomitant rules. This is a social order that requires the preservation of ‘honour’, an honour that is vested in male control over women, and specifically women’s sexual conduct – whether that is actual, suspected or potential.

Maybe we have to begin to tackle these so called ‘honour’ crimes by addressing gender as an organisational principle of society. The value of a woman is not her reproductive ability or sexual purity. And we can stop calling the murder of a woman because she has rejected this social ordering an ‘honour crime’.

What will others say?

A number of years ago, in a letter to the editor of Dawn newspaper, Uzma Aslam Khan wrote: “Every girl in Pakistan grows up hearing: what will others say? Her reputation is the currency that measures her worth in her community, her country, and … to herself so that, it is hoped, she becomes her own prisoner.”

The combination of economic dependence, little or no education, lack of resources and access confined to the private sphere are the framework in which this question is often asked. Cultural norms and traditional practices, patriarchy and religious interpretations are a potent force brought to bear in formulating the answer. Defining identity in terms of reputation, and a reputation that is dependent on the control exerted by this social context, provides a double bind for many women.

Where custom and tradition are the gatekeepers of patriarchy, a woman’s behaviour is monitored not just by the males of her family, but also by the whole of her community and society. ‘What will others say?’ becomes a manipulative tool of control, and results in women internalizing the notion of the fragility and importance of their own behaviour and the insecurity of their status. Consumed by the notion that she carries the honour of the whole family in her body, as Khan wrote, ‘she becomes her own prisoner.

These issues need increased levels of discourse at every level of society, community, the nation, region and internationally. The opportunities created by information technology, social media, advances in communication, communities on the world-wide-web, and the global trade of values provides new resources for affecting change where static religious laws, traditions and cultural norms have been politically institutionalised.

At the same time, women who are daily negotiating the currency of her reputation need support and tools to cut the bars of this prison. Too many women feel that they are locked in solitary confinement. Creating communities, both face-to-face and virtual that even those who are isolated can access is an essential step in breaking through these barriers.