Women’s bodies and lives as symbols of patriarchal codes: Honor killings

Abstract

Violence(s) imposed on non-western women during aggressive ritualized occurrences and, in the hereafter, meta-analysis of pain inflicted upon women is discussed particularly in the domain of honor crimes. Representational languages framing trauma in global discourses of naming and human rights are scrutinized, asserting that women’s perspectives must be centric to the discussion. Orientalist frames and control over women as symbols of honor and patriarchal codes maintain tensions of dichotomies between modernity and tradition and cultural relativism. These are thus challenged by emphasizing women’s burdens – as situated individuals – of multi-layered struggles which unfold from purporting to depict women’s realities. The naturalization of women’s suffering is further amplified when constrained within a one-dimensional representation claimed by regional and global injustice. This article contributes to critical feminist interventions in spaces representing women’s realities in a process which deconstructs and diverts the post of modernity and colonialism toward equality and dialogue across socio-political racial and gendered markers.