>Only when that excuse involves some kind of foreign culture do we separate it out of the morass of all domestic violence into a scary new "honor crime" category.
There's nothing new about "honor crime". We had that in Europe, by Europeans, for ages, and it was a common enough practice up until quite recently (up until the 50s or so). There are lots of studies about honor crimes and the relevant cultural notions behind them.
As for the cultural connection is in there by definition. The "honor" part implies a cultural impetus about what's "honorable" and how a daughter/son/wife/etc should behave, that is not the same as the personal motives (e.g. jealousy, feeling of inadequacy, etc) for general domestic abuse.
In other words, it's a special case of domestic abuse, with it's own, long, history.
And it's by no means invoked only "when that excuse involves some kind of foreign culture". It might seem like that to someone from a place with no major cultural history of "honor" codes and "honor crimes", but in several cultures in Europe, e.g. in Spain, Italy, Greece, etc., honor crimes were a thing (and occasionally pop up still), and we still clearly differentiate them from domestic abuse, have different terms for them etc. In our own country and culture -- no second culture involved.
(Wikipedia: "Honour in the Mediterranean world is a code of conduct, a way of life and an ideal of the social order, which defines the lives, the customs and the values of many of the peoples in the Mediterranean moral") -- as a mediterranean, this is quite accurate.
This is a lot of words, respectfully, none of which respond to my point. I have no trouble believing that Europeans have spent many decades ostracizing people from West Asia.
I know I'm repeating myself but I want to be clear: I'm not apologizing for "honor crimes". I'm suggesting that West Asia and Western Europe share a pattern of violent abuse, but call them different things, and that Europe exploits that to deflect attention to domestic violence by blaming things on the lurid crimes of immigrants.
There are xenophobes that use the term HBV to push their own murky agenda. That’s wrong. But when women from e.g. Kurdistan report about HBV I believe that their stories are worth listening to and taking serious. If we want to do something about these issues we first need to understand them.
There's nothing new about "honor crime". We had that in Europe, by Europeans, for ages, and it was a common enough practice up until quite recently (up until the 50s or so). There are lots of studies about honor crimes and the relevant cultural notions behind them.
As for the cultural connection is in there by definition. The "honor" part implies a cultural impetus about what's "honorable" and how a daughter/son/wife/etc should behave, that is not the same as the personal motives (e.g. jealousy, feeling of inadequacy, etc) for general domestic abuse.
In other words, it's a special case of domestic abuse, with it's own, long, history.
And it's by no means invoked only "when that excuse involves some kind of foreign culture". It might seem like that to someone from a place with no major cultural history of "honor" codes and "honor crimes", but in several cultures in Europe, e.g. in Spain, Italy, Greece, etc., honor crimes were a thing (and occasionally pop up still), and we still clearly differentiate them from domestic abuse, have different terms for them etc. In our own country and culture -- no second culture involved.
(Wikipedia: "Honour in the Mediterranean world is a code of conduct, a way of life and an ideal of the social order, which defines the lives, the customs and the values of many of the peoples in the Mediterranean moral") -- as a mediterranean, this is quite accurate.
It has been abandoned for the last 5-6 decades to virtual non-existence, but it's coming back recently because people come from places where this is still acceptable: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghanistan-wom...