I realize that I have been lending the issue of honor crimes in Jordan a lot of attention lately, but that is still not enough.
I remember when I wrote the post Honor Is Another Word for Vagina, some people found it repulsive of me to link such a noble concept as honor to female anatomy. They said I was a cultural renegade, and that I was self-hating and deliberately out to maim a fundamental aspect of Arab, and Jordanian, culture. I was slightly annoyed, but I could not find a counterargument that dismissed my point that, yes, “what Arab men term as “honor” is a polite word for the Arabically-explicit word vagina.” Here were my points in that post:
The other part is a woman, an anatomically different human being who is almost always the honor-defaming culprit in any scandal. The woman’s private parts play a vital role in condemning her because they are, in the traditional male chauvinist view, the forbidden yet deeply desired apple.
To illustrate this, think of the worst possible curse words out there in Arabic and in English. About 99% of them involve someone’s mother, someone’s sister, and their genitalia. They might also include explicit references to sexual acts done to these private parts. In Arabic, these curse words are intended to verbally harm the opposite person’s “honor,” a sacred concept referring simply to a woman’s vagina.
Within this context, when someone commits an “honor killing” to wash away the family’s shame, all they are doing is killing the target woman’s vagina who may or may not have engaged in sexual acts deemed socially taboo. By the same token, when a man swears by his “sister’s honor,” he is swearing by her vagina. Fascinating, isn’t it?
The final point I want to make is this: men do not really have honor to swear by or to protect. Anatomically speaking, it is the women that live with these men that do have honor and sometimes pay a dear price for having it.
Well, what do you know. I found in Al Ghad a citation from a research paper done by Dr.Hani Jahshan defining masculinity and honor as follows:
الذكورة لدى القاتل هو “أن على الرجل أن يحمي، يراقب، ويدافع عن كافة أنواع عذرية المرأة قريبته، ويفسر هذا أنه في صالح المرأة، فإذا لم يقم الرجل بذلك يكون قد أخل بصورته كرجل أمام المجتمع، فيتخذ أنماطا سلوكية لمنع المرأة من انتهاك حدود كافة أنواع العذرية المفروضة عليها، بما فيها السلوكية والاجتماعية، بواسطة العنف الجسدي أو الحبس داخل جدران المنزل أو الرقابة الدائمة أو التخويف بالسمعة السيئة، مما يشكل بحد ذاته نوعا من أنواع العنف والتمييز ضد المرأة”.
He defines masculinity as the male’s duty to protect, monitor, and defend all types of female virginity (not just her tangible virginity, but also her moral and social virginity — not interacting with men,etc.). So I was right then, honor really is centered around the vagina, and guess what, like I argued before, men don’t have it. Something about this makes me smile.
Hhhmm…thanks for keeping up the crusade. (:D)
A clarification would help for me…is Dr. Hani (who is a family friend and one I revere on par with Rana Husseini) really said men must moniter a woman’s honor? I can’t picture him saying that. Is there anything in there about men monitering their OWN behaviour honorably?
Kinzi, from what I understood in Al Ghad, he researched the social meaning of masculinity in Jordan and what it signifies in the minds of males who commit honor crimes. So his work was centered around that.
I think women organisation are developing the courage to criticize the legal system on all its crap. Not a lot of people realise this: the law that actually allows a man to kill his female relative (article 340) was only used once in the history of jordan, plus another clause was added that allows women to kill the man so the problem does not lie there. it’s because of the ridiculous implementation of article 98 (fit of fury nonsense), in cases that were obviously premeditated, which makes me wonder why the king or queen are not doing something about it, we’re talking about stricter rulings here, not deleting a law in the constitution. Here’s to hoping all the attention on this cause does not go down the drain.
P.S. Did you happen to know what were the final results of the alghad poll? they conduct a poll and don’t announce the results? stupid.
Oh. I didn’t check it these past couple of days…it’s over now and so they really should announce the results. Whenever I checked the “strongly agree” was at 55% though.
The STOP HONORCIDE! campaign was launched on Mother’s Day 2008. The goal of the campaign is to prosecute honorcides to the fullest extent of the law. We want honorcide to be classified as a hate crime and we advocate for every existing hate crime legislation to be amended to include honorcide.
<a href=”http://www.reformislam.org/honorcide/”>http://www.reformislam.org/honorcide/</a>
Your post is similar to my poem about male organs in Iceland,where I hale from, at my My Space :
htt;//www.myspace.com/excitefrench.Except for that yours is about a serious matter.This honor killing has got to stop,
Farah is right. Article 340 has rarely, if ever, been used successfully in an “honor” killings defense. It’s Article 98 that is usually invoked.
Question: Do you want the law changed even if most Jordanians (men and women) were against changing it?
I really think that honor crimes are disgusting but I’m not sure surpassing the law is the right thing to do.
Hareega, are most men and women against changing the law, and who says that? If the poll is not conducted 100% anonymously we will never know the real feelings. May be if you ask me infront of some group of people I may tell you Iam against changing the law and Iam a man , ask most woman infront of anybody or alone with all the assurances that her opinion is anonymous and she will still have misgivings about going on the record against the law. Many things are kept to oneself for a variety of reasons. Many people at one time were against hijacking planes, many are against childern killing themselves as suicide bombers but how many dare voice that.
I find it interesting that you are blamed for maiming your culture by linking the concept of honor by to vaginas, as opposed to those who KILL for the concept.
You do your culture honor by speaking out. (And you got one too!)
a.rehman, i’m pretty sure if a poll was conducted that the majority would be against changing the laws, just read the comments on articles online, and those are the opinions of people who are computer literate! So ya, we don’t deserve democracy. you cant change the law without changing the mentality, and you can’t change the mentality without changing the law. its a vicious circle. what we can do is demand stricter punishments by the judges.
Tololy:
Next time you get bummed out about blogging, just remember these posts of yours about all these honor killings.
Right Farah, which proves my point that we are not free to speak our minds and most say let others do that why should we get involved. You are right many don’t deserve democracy because they don’t want the pain of being the first to take the first step, change is usually painful. That is where the government can help and force something down the throats of the reluctants , believe me they will secretly bless the government for that. Read the history of blacks in America and the pain they endured till the seventies and even till now to small extent. Lots of suffering but see now a black running for President.
In every culture there s a small but vocal and aggressive minority that shape the majority fate because the majority are laissez faire
An anonymous survey was taken about this subject, in late 2005/early 2006. In it, 89% of the representative sample said they support stronger penalties for “honor” killings, 3.5% said they didn’t care one way or another, and 7.5% said they like things just the way they are.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Honor-Jordan-National-%2522Honor%2522/dp/9957860704/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205605018&sr=1-1
A.Rehamn,
The Parliament with some of its female members , which was elected by people, voted with its vast majority against changing it. In Jordan we still have 87% of WOMEN supporting the right of the husband to beat his wife in a poll conducted anonymously two years ago. I have to admit that we’re still a socially retarded population
Thanks Pat , I thought so. Try another survey were names are rerquired and you will get another set of results. Apathy and avoidance. If we don’t acknowledge it it is not there attitude.
Hareega but that is to be expected, can’t imagine a woman MP to support changing the law publicly, WHAT WILL OPPONENTS SAY? SHE MUST BE HIDING SOMETHING. Men must lead the call for change comsidering the social retardation you rightly mention On the other hand who says the parliamnet reflects the public’s will in Jordan.? Although somehow they are elected by popular vote there are issues that outweigh other issues.
[...] the aim of killing a female in both wa’d and honor crimes is to preserve family honor. A loose concept with burdens carried by women and privileges enjoyed by men. For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. [...]