In the article, “The Tradition Effect: Framing Honor Crimes in Turkey,” by Dicle
Kogacioglu, defines the term ‘honor crimes’ in regards to Muslim developing
countries, such as Turkey (the case study), is portrayed to be a secular state
through their legal and institutional framework; however, the following
questions are stressed in terms of ‘honor crimes’ committed within Turkey: “Why do institutional practices that are
otherwise legitimized through their confrontation with tradition stop at the
door of honor killing? Why, when it comes to honor killings, does the Turkish
Republican contraposition of institution and tradition break down?”
Institutions within contemporary Turkey
deal with dilemmas in the ‘third world nationalism’ through the ideology of
hegemonic ways in regards to social and institutional framework—men are in
charge of the family and they determine the ‘women’s honor’ in reference to the
family—demonstrating the gender politics in Turkey. The term ‘honor crimes’ has
been defined as ‘the murder of a woman’ (by the members of her family) because
of the disapproval of her sexual behavior.
Thus, the observation leads into
focusing on the effects of practicing institutions in regards to the states
status of ‘modern identity’ and how the implications of violence against women
has become a symbol of ‘death by tradition’ in terms of ‘honor crimes’ in
Turkey—feminists must understand the subjectivity of ‘honor crimes’ are still
committed in Muslim developing countries and it has become a burden for all feminists-standpoints in regards to
accepting such gender politics within Turkey.
In the article, “Crafting and Educated
Housewife in Iran,” by Afsaneh Najmabadi, demonstrates the struggle for
Muslim women in the Middle East in regards to the Persian text portraying
pre-modern normative concepts of ‘wife and mother ethics’—from house to manager
of the house, to the educational regimes—women in contemporary Iran will be
observed on the differentiations of genders in the making.
In regards to the ethics mentioned in
the Persian text: “That the father, not
his wife, was the manager of the household and in charge of the disciple and
education of the children (sons, more specifically), and that the biological
mother was not necessarily and at times not preferably the nurturer and
caretaker of the child.” However, this notion was depicted through
modernist works, such as Hasht bihisht
(an earlier text on advice and ethics), instead of a woman becoming part of the
household, the woman is recognized as a ‘subjectivity’ under a man’s
management, but the woman has now become the manager of the household, as well
as committing to be the primary educator of her children. In other words,
motherhood has become a symbol of mediating two concepts through modernity for
women in the Middle East: Progress and women’s rights.
The observation continues on with Kirmani’s
suggestion on the concept of second
school family—the mother of the child trains their them into developing
modern manners and ethics within the Islamic family (culture) structure—however,
disciplinary techniques have become a “general
feature in the rethinking of gender in the Iranian modernist imagination…” Thus,
Iranian women’s movement portrays “the
new individual self through literary, and a new social self through, patriotic
political activities.”
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