Violence against women is a global problem that manifests itself in innumerable ways and in nearly every culture. In an interview with National Geographic, Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, made a beautiful point: "In countries where Islam is practiced, they're called honor killings, but dowry deaths (which account for 5,000 deaths a year in India) and so-called crimes of passion have a similar dynamic in that the women are killed by male family members and the crimes are perceived as excusable or understandable."

I think this is mushy.

These killings have a "similar dynamic"?

Dowry killings are about dowry [money] and target young married women. Honor killings are about young women who are for the most part unmarried and seen to be (sometimes falsely) sexually active.

Saying these things are similar is sort of like saying the cultures of India and Saudi Arabia are 'alike' because they oppress women. Huh? Yeah, and they're all brown skinned!

Is there any reason for this mush, other than to excuse horrific crimes for reasons of 'multi-cultural sensitivity'?

To fight this sort of thing, specificity is necessary. You need to know the problem to address it. Mush like this contributes to the problem more than the solution.

Shorter TCF: Who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes?

Pithy. It is a pity you're wrong. Honor killings predate Islam in most cultures where it exists and it doesn't exist everywhere there is Islam. It is also practiced by non-Islamic peoples.

Correlation is not Causation.

How's that for a pithy quote. More accurate too!

called, in very strong terms, for the strongest possible prosecution of this man and for a policy of zero tolerance within our community and every community against domestic abuse and abuse against women."

How in the world is this "[excusing] horrific crimes for reasons of 'multi-cultural sensitivity'?"

It wasn't so long ago in this country that a black man could find himself hanged for insulting a white woman's honor by looking at her with a look somebody else percieved as lust.

Clearly such injust practices have no place in the modern developed world. However, even while we righly condemn them when they occur in traditional cultures, we should remember that historically speaking, we aren't so far away from that sort of behavior ourselves.

There is nothing in the Koran, the book of basic Islamic teachings, that permits or sanctions honor killings. However, the view of women as property with no rights of their own is deeply rooted in Islamic culture, Tahira Shahid Khan, a professor specializing in women's issues at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, wrote in Chained to Custom, a review of honor killings published in 1999.

"Women are considered the property of the males in their family irrespective of their class, ethnic, or religious group. The owner of the property has the right to decide its fate. The concept of ownership has turned women into a commodity which can be exchanged, bought and sold."

So technically T, you may be correct. The Koran does not teach it. The culture itself does. Very nice how you can split the atom that way.

Sharia advocates the death penalty for all kinds of "crimes", including crimes of morality, including having sex outside of marriage, the usual cause of "honor killings".

No, the Q'uran doesn't say you should kill a woman for refusing to obey her male superior on any issue that does not fall under Sharia. It only says disobedient women are to be first locked in their homes, and should they refuse to relent, they can be beaten.

But sure, Islam is fine for women. You run with that if it works for you.

And CAIR? We're listening to what CAIR has to say these days? Really?

Friggin' unbelievable.

That said, I've heard of Cinnamon before, and disagree with her on virtually everything. Except this. Even a broken clock....

".... have a similar dynamic *in that* the women are killed by male family members and the crimes are perceived as excusable or understandable."

What the "honor killings," "dowry deaths," and "crimes of passion" have in common is this: "women are killed by male family members"

and their deaths

"are perceived as excusable or understandable."

It wasn't mushy for me.

The part I trouble with was not acknowledging that women similarly are often excused for committing "crimes of passion" against their spouses. And that "crimes of passion" are, in theory, crimes that are not premeditated. It seems to me that, by their nature, honor killings and dowry killings are decidedly calculated.

But I think the gist was Westeners are as guilty as "exotic furriners" to murder family members for petty, emotional reasons.

You must like looking at bell curves and seeing flat lines.

You may wish to read the actual articles that T links to.

If you folks want to believe that the 40,000 or so racist lynchings (we only have statistics on 4000) are in some way indicative of one family member killing another that goes on at the rate of 5,000 a year according to the UN, go for it.

Please have the decency not to call yourselves feminists though.

We must disagree on this topic. The faithful must be willing to assume some responsibility for the actions that are taken in the name of their faith. Mitt should have said something about the Mormon church's stance against equal rights for African Americans and his failure to do so speaks negatively of him. Christians should speak out against fanatics that kill doctors at Planned Parenthood clinics. And, Muslims should take a vocal stance against honor killings and other terrorist acts that are justified in the name of their religion.

according to the National geographic website:

"Complicity by other women in the family and the community strengthens the concept of women as property and the perception that violence against family members is a family and not a judicial issue."

Ever hear of a jealous husband getting the support of his mother-in-law to kill his wife?

Me neither....

Islam says if a woman is sexually active outside of marriage, she should be executed.

According to some scholars, she should be granted a trial of sorts first. But Sharia is so primitive it has few of the elements that we would recognize as jurisprudence today. There are some provisions for calling witnesses, and that's about it.

However, with Islam stating specifically that impurity should be punishable by death, do you really expect that the culture of honor killing wouldn't flourish under Islam? That it will not continue to do so?

It's like Hirsan Ali wrote about FGM--no, it's not Islamic, nor it is a universal throughout the Muslim world. But it fits well with Islam because of this religion's preoccupation with controlling women's sexuality and its emphasis on keeping them "pure". Same with honor killings--there's a weak argument to be made that it's cultural and not Islamic, but dang, it seems to go well with Islam and you don't see Muslims having put a stop to it in 1,400 years, have you?

The other thing to remember is that after 1,400 years the cultures in question have been largely formed by Islam, and the two (cultural values vs. Islamic ones) are so intertwined as to be almost interchangeable. This is rarely brought up but it is a fact.