In the Name of Honor

Although honor killing is part of the culture in Pakistan and Turkey, it is a serious injustice against women. I will be watching a documentary about it and an actual film. I will use content analysis, looking for whether certain aspects of those cultures creates motives for honor killings, and if so, what these are. I expect reasons for these killings to come from how patriarchy dominates in these societies to the point that women are treated as second class citizens in their homelands. I also expect to find that they are treated more as the property of a man or family than a human being. While culture in an important motive, I also expect to find another motive- one that relates to bias in punishment for “honor crime”. I will search for gender bias- men and women not being given equal punishment for the same crime. Also, I will see if fake honor killings are occurring as revenge for self-satisfaction. Culture can have a great impact on people. Because of this, I will see how these countries’ cultures might affect their societies, creating ideals such as bringing honor, proving masculinity, and social pressures. All of these can lead to honor killing. I seek to gain a lot of knowledge of a sensitive topic, and lead to more research to fight against a “hidden” crime. We need to address this issue, because if culture is shown to influence motives that lead to honor killing, then many women can be given justice and punishment for the perpetrators