Thousands of Women Killed for "Family Honor"
February 22, 2002 9:33 AM   Subscribe

Thousands of Women Killed for "Family Honor" This story was done by the National Geographic News...the photo gallery was heartwrenching. Don't go there if you just ate.
posted by bunnyfire (48 comments total)
 
It's been going on since forever, but now that there's a war on (but not against Islam, which, as we are constantly reminded is a peaceful religion) it's getting a lot of media play.

To recap, the word form the media cognoscenti is that Islam is a peaceful misogynistic and hateful religion that we should as the free west be tolerant of bomb silly.
posted by dong_resin at 9:54 AM on February 22, 2002


from the article:
'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. "Females in the family—mothers, mother-in-laws, sisters, and cousins—frequently support the attacks. It's a community mentality," said Zaynab Nawaz, a program assistant for women's human rights at Amnesty International.'

not an easy one to tackle.

more articles on 'honour killing' in pakistan, india and the uk.

thanks for the knee-jerk reaction mr dong (why does using that expression bring a smile to my face?), i don't think i'd have to look back very far to see the idea of 'women as property' lauded in a western society.
posted by asok at 10:00 AM on February 22, 2002


I think the larger question here is whether the West ought to pressure other cultures to conform to its values. Is there a such thing as a universal human right? Or are rights relative to the particular culture?

Are human rights organizations any different than missionaries or other spreaders of particular value systems? Where does one draw the line between universal values and cultural preferences?

Personally, I approve of the work being done by Amnesty and other rights groups. But I think there is a lot of doublespeak about these types of questions within liberal and intellectual circles. i.e. cutural differences are relative until we comes across something that really offends our particular values. Then it changes from being a cultural difference to a human rights violation of some sort.

Just curious what people think about this.
posted by boltman at 10:06 AM on February 22, 2002


My only point, asok, was that I've noticed a marked increase in news magazine type stories of how backwards things are over in the dusty, non-western, Islamic-dominant bits of the globe are since 9/11.
These shitty conditions are hardly new, just the light in which they are being presented, which seems to carry the undertone of "look how sick this culture is", without saying it outright, because that would be hateful.
There's a bit of a double message going out, similar to "hate the sin, not the sinner."
posted by dong_resin at 10:10 AM on February 22, 2002


Using the expression knee-jerk brings a smile to my face, by the way. Sounds so dirty.
posted by dong_resin at 10:13 AM on February 22, 2002


Is there a such thing as a universal human right?

Yes, the right to not be killed is universal and should be applied as such. What needs to happen though is that the people in these societies who oppose such practices need to stand up and do something about it. If they need help in doing so, the more advanced cultures should offer them support, tools, and refuge if necessary. And by advanced culture I mean one that doesn't sanction murder, period.
posted by cell divide at 10:21 AM on February 22, 2002


boltman, I think you're a horribly stunted apologist, and I'm sure that all the (for example) slaves in Sudan appreciate your generous sense of tolerance for other cultures.

The day I thought really, really hard about female genital mutilation was the day I became an ex-multiculturalist.
posted by dhartung at 10:21 AM on February 22, 2002


fair point mr dong, i mis-understood your post. maybe my eye's are a bit hazy from all the 'knee-jerking'?
posted by asok at 10:29 AM on February 22, 2002


Oh, it's not you, I'm just too stupid to really pull off "clever."

From now on, I'm sticking to clogging up MetaTalk with chit-chat.
posted by dong_resin at 10:35 AM on February 22, 2002


i was looking to see if the state dept. had a stance on it and came across this speech by madelaine albright:

In too many parts of the world, the habit of treating women as second class citizens is deeply ingrained. This habit can show itself through such actions as domestic abuse, honor crimes, genital mutilation, dowry murders and even the killing of baby girls. There are those who suggest these practices are cultural and there is nothing anyone can do about them. I say they are criminal and we all have a responsibility to stop them. (Applause.)
posted by kliuless at 10:36 AM on February 22, 2002


The West doesn't need to pressure other cultures into accepting our values. To a certain large extent, all of this US/western backlash is a reaction against the very real fact that common people tend to flock toward our tacky, tawdry, unevenly-egalitarian culture. I am not saying our culture is perfect, far from it. it is just that it, in the words of Bill Bryson, "We have created a philosophy of retailing that is totally without aesthetics and totally irresistible."

Western culture lures those whom the intellectual elite, aristocracy, and religious leadership would control. Nevermind that we have our own versions of all these things. Our culture seeps through the silt of the global population like dingy rainwater.

Reading things like this, I am not sorry.
posted by umberto at 10:38 AM on February 22, 2002


I completely disagree with anyone who says cultural practices cannot change, they can and can be made to do so. I agree with kliuless, this is criminal. Completely criminal.
posted by bittennails at 10:40 AM on February 22, 2002


that was from a speech by madelaine albright bittennails :) but i agree too!
posted by kliuless at 10:44 AM on February 22, 2002


The day I thought really, really hard about female genital mutilation was the day I became an ex-multiculturalist.

I don't understand this sentiment at all. You can be a multiculturalist and not support female genital mutilation. There are certain fundamental human rights that need to be respected; beyond that, we should also respect cultural differences. And, frankly, I don't think it's all that hard to decide which practices violate fundamental human rights.
posted by anapestic at 10:44 AM on February 22, 2002


It is horrifying to me that we need even discuss whether or not ritual murder -- regardless of the reasoning behind the practice -- is wrong. Have we really sunk so low that we can weave our minds around arguments to the contrary?
posted by Dreama at 10:47 AM on February 22, 2002


dhartung, you're being unfair to Boltman. Seems to me he's only asking some interesting, valid questions. Just because you have already answered them for yourself doesn't mean your answers differ from his.
posted by Doug at 10:47 AM on February 22, 2002


ahh, sorry kliuless...it's funny never really liked Albright, but that is a great sentiment.
posted by bittennails at 10:49 AM on February 22, 2002


boltman, I think you're a horribly stunted apologist

This for what, asking a question (a good one, imo) without the requisite amount of outrage? Seems like the air is getting kind of thin up there on the moral high ground, Dan.
posted by rodii at 10:49 AM on February 22, 2002




Culture is not a static thing, it's dynamic and evolving. As a few have noted, it is barely out of the memory of the living here in the West when women were considered little more than chattel in our own societies.

Therefore, it is not outside the realm of possibility to consider that other cultures might be encouraged to revisit their ideas and values without the label of cultural imperialism being attached to that effort.

Multiculturalism need not presume that all cultures must be preserved in plaster for all time exactly the way they are right now like specimens in a natural history museum. It should assert that all cultures have a right to develop and evolve on their own terms. The problematic assumption is that they will all develop to be somewhat similar to our own culture. We have the opportunity to influence other cultures by showing them the value of our own, but we shouldn't assume that it will be adopted out of hand. That doesn't preclude working toward the goal of securing basic human rights, it just makes the outcome less certain.
posted by briank at 10:58 AM on February 22, 2002


the writer makes clear:
In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Crimes of passion, which are treated extremely leniently in Latin America, are the same thing with a different name, some rights advocates say.

"In countries where Islam is practiced, they're called honor killings, but dowry deaths 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," said Widney Brown, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

This problem has to do with deeply traditional/ patriarchal/ religious societies, not with one faith in particular.

The day I thought really, really hard about female genital mutilation was the day I became an ex-multiculturalist.

I definitely agree with the sentiment, but think this overstates it a bit. I'm a multiculturalist in that I think an awareness and respect for cultures and traditions in and of themselves is necessary for a modern human being, but as a modern human being I also recognize that there are certain traditions that deserve to be left behind.
posted by Ty Webb at 11:01 AM on February 22, 2002


As a few have noted, it is barely out of the memory of the living here in the West when women were considered little more than chattel in our own societies. -briank

Yeah, but I haven't heard too many cases of genital mutilation in the West, even in the history of the West. I agree they did some pretty fucked up stuff, like burning 'witches' at the stake, etc. Hell, they even dug up William Tyndale's bones and burned them.(For translating the Bible into the common tongue) But the key is that the West changed. Those things don't happen in the West anymore, or at least not in any large, accepted way.

The problem with extreme multiculturalism is that it presumes that all practices are equally valid within the context of their culture. I do not believe that this is true. While I certainly respect certain cultural traditions, I think the cultural tradition of satee (throwing widows on their husbands funeral pyre) is stupid and wrong, for example. That is a cultural tradition that should be abolished(and was abolished, by British occupiers and reformist Indians alike). If we don't accept slavery in the West, one of our many antiquated 'cultural traditions,' why the hell should we accept it as valid in any other culture? I guess if you don't believe that slavery is inherently wrong, then you can take the position that it's right for them, but just not right for us. I find it incredibly ironic that people take a relativistic opinion of extremely absolutist, judgemental cultures, and end up defending them.

The problematic assumption is that they will all develop to be somewhat similar to our own culture.

I don't want all cultures, or any cultures to be like Western culture. That would make the world a fairly homogoenous, boring place, in the grand scheme of things. However, that does not mean we should not be allowed to point out things in other cultures that we find wrong and repulsive (we can criticize our own culture, why can't we critique others?). I'm not saying all cultures other than the West are bad (as some would accuse me of believing), but I am saying that we should be free to conduct an even-handed analysis of different cultural practices without fear of intellectual and emotional persecution.
posted by insomnyuk at 11:20 AM on February 22, 2002


However, that does not mean we should not be allowed to point out things in other cultures that we find wrong and repulsive (we can criticize our own culture, why can't we critique others?). I'm not saying all cultures other than the West are bad (as some would accuse me of believing), but I am saying that we should be free to conduct an even-handed analysis of different cultural practices without fear of intellectual and emotional persecution.

Did I not say the very same thing?
posted by briank at 11:25 AM on February 22, 2002


Lest we forget:
* we had slaves in America 137 years ago. That's only two full generations ago.
* women got the vote 82 years ago. My grandma is older than that.
* blacks (oh, gahd, I suppose I need to say "African-Americans", although I'm sure Carribean-Americans weren't getting the vote either... I'm certain the discrimination was entirely based on the tone of one's skin) got the vote 37 years ago... and in some states, it can well be argued that they're still being disallowed.

And let's not also forget:
* there are still racist bastards who are lynching blacks.
* queer-bashing is becoming a sporting even in some regions.
* women still don't have earning parity with men.
* mutilation of the penis is still acceptable practice in this society (he says, using deliberately inflammatory language).

The point? Cultures need time and internal motivation to change. Slavery, sufferage, etc: they were changed not because some bad-ass came and thumped the country into submission, but because the people within decided they wanted change.

I think it's horrendous what's practiced in some countries. But I also believe that they will evolve -- and more quickly than our nation has. There is no need to browbeat them.

And if, by bizarre chance, they don't evolve? Then that's the will of the majority population within them. It's sad that those who live in that culture and don't accept the cultural standards are going to suffer... but, then, it's a real bitch being born to a poverty family on a dirt farm in Alabama, too. Suffering is pretty universal, and there's a lot that can be done in our own backyard before we go pointing fingers at others.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:27 AM on February 22, 2002


about the mutli-culturalism thingie: respect and championing of human rights doesn't turn you into a western-centric chauvinist, simply for the reason that no country or region has a monopoly on human rights. Some countries are worse than others, but the truth is that the fight for human rights can, and should, be fought all over the world. It's not something WE teach to THEM, but rather everybody's problem.
posted by signal at 11:31 AM on February 22, 2002


The great irony to me in terms of this kind of widespread problem, is that most of these practices seem to stem from an ancient belief that female sexuality is inherently problematic, and must be controlled. I mean, genital mutiliation, castration of the clitoris...the point is to keep women from seeking or enjoying sex. And yet, as I think common experiece in western society suggests, if the men can just let the women loose and encourage them to explore their sexuality however they like, then the men are going to get laid a lot more, and the sex is surely better.

I can see that at a primal level, there is a certain attractiveness to the idea of maintaining a society in which all women are basically submissive sex slaves. Western culture has certainly produced a great deal of fiction dealing with that subject. And yet, in my reading/viewing of such material, I've noticed that the sex drives of the women in question are never turned off.

What I'm getting at, is that I think the most basic cultural difference is that western men generally believe that women should have sexual feelings, and that those feelings are valid, and should be acted upon. Heck, I wish they were acted upon more often. From an eastern perspective, making the jump from an idea of women as uteri and masturbation vessels to watching an episode of Buffy might be too much to take. I'm not saying I have a solution, but I hope along with the rest of you that these people join us someday in the 21st century, or even just move a few centuries ahead of where they are. Say, to the Rennaisance.
posted by bingo at 12:04 PM on February 22, 2002


Slavery, sufferage, etc: they were changed not because some bad-ass came and thumped the country into submission, but because the people within decided they wanted change.

How would you describe the American Civil War, other than as the Union thumping the Confederacy into submission over slavery?
posted by jaek at 12:13 PM on February 22, 2002


jaek: I would describe it as the Union thumping the Confederacy over federalism vs. states' rights, using the emancipation proclamation as a way to create unrest in enemy territory.
posted by bingo at 12:16 PM on February 22, 2002


bingo: female sexuality is held in tradiational cultures to be a threat because it implicitly threatens the (a) the virginity of a girl prior to her marriage and (b) exclusivity sexual access to such a girl by her husband thereafter. They both derive from the paramount necessity to assure that one does not end up devoting resources to raising some other man's child.
posted by MattD at 12:35 PM on February 22, 2002


I would describe it as the Union thumping the Confederacy over federalism vs. states' rights

the reason why the Southern states were obsessed with "state's rights" was because "state's rights" protected the institution of slavery from Northern attempts to weaken it.
posted by boltman at 1:01 PM on February 22, 2002


MattD: I know. The "ancient belief that female sexuality is inherently problematic, and must be controlled" that I cited above, of course came at least in part from the reasons you suggest. However I think that the "paramount necessity" you refer to can now be acheived through increasingly cheap paternity tests, not to mention birth control. And, in keeping with what I said above, I would rather not marry a virgin anyway; one of the great joys of living in a society that is relatively sexually free is that two people can come to a sexual relationship having both already learned from a variety of sources what they like and how to please their partners.
posted by bingo at 1:16 PM on February 22, 2002


Yeah, but I haven't heard too many cases of genital mutilation in the West..

What does it say about our society that circumcision of males is acceptable while for women it is considered mutilation. I find it odd that some of the reasons given for female genital mutilation, health, and social acceptance are the same as the ones given for males. Is it unethical to perform an elective medical procedure on an infant incapable of giving consent? Is this a double standard? Aren't we all off topic?
posted by euphorb at 1:33 PM on February 22, 2002


boltman, I think you're a horribly stunted apologist.

dhartung, I think the practices described in the article and some of the others mentioned on this thread are appalling, and I have no problem with international efforts to change them. I was trying to suggest that the line between human rights violations and cultural preference is murky, and that this is rarely acknowledged. For example, is there a universal right to:

-free speech?
-unionization?
-health care?
-property?
-a jury trial?
-family planning?
-democratic representation?

Now add to the mix the fact that opportunistic Western governments often hiijack of the "human rights" rhetoric to justify everything from war to economic exploitation. But I also think, for example, that our government had a moral obligation to intervene in Rwanda given the scale of the disaster there. So I think it's really hard to know where the line should be drawn regarding this type of thing.
posted by boltman at 1:37 PM on February 22, 2002


euphorb: What does it say about our society that circumcision of males is acceptable while for women it is considered mutilation.

It's my understanding that there is a significant difference in terms of how one's sexuality is affected, between having the foreskin removed and having the clitoris removed. The foreskin is a protective hood, whereas the clitoris is the primary point of sexual stimulation. I'm not saying that male circumcision is necessarily right, btw. But I do think it's a lot different.

boltman
: The reason why the Southern states were obsessed with "state's rights" was because "state's rights" protected the institution of slavery from Northern attempts to weaken it.

I almost agree with you, but it's not as if the North as a whole had some kind of moral agenda to "weaken" slavery in the south. The issue was that the North had more influence in the federal government, and the South tried to form their own union. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't come until the Civil War was almost two years old, and even then it excluded North-South border states, and states that had already come under Northern control. After the war, the 14th Ammendment was passed, effectively clarifying that the United States is one country and not a group of countries, each of whom can leave whenever they feel like it.

At any rate, in terms of my original response to jaek's post, the aspect of this tangent relevant to the thread is that even after the war, blacks in the south continued to be oppressed and mistreated, supporting, perhaps, five fresh fish's statement that slavery was not triumphed over because a benevolent power used force to make it so. Slavery technically ended, but in most cases the slaves effectively became serfs. It seems to me that all the major advances in the rights of black Americans have come as the result of the struggles of oppressed black people, not benevolent white people.
posted by bingo at 1:50 PM on February 22, 2002


The National Geographic should be applauded for this -- it was not so many years ago that they were turning a blind eye to human rights issues in countries they did descriptive stories on, on the theory that their interest was geography, not politics. And truth be told, many other media were in the same boat (or still are).
posted by beagle at 1:52 PM on February 22, 2002


Footbinding RAWKS! w00+! And it’s not about oppressing women or anything, ’cause my grandma did it to me!

Why do I feel like there’d be stronger denounciation from some of you if we were talking about a culture that lopped off boy’s pee-pees?

F&#k the prime directive.
posted by mimi at 2:42 PM on February 22, 2002


I nearly became physically sick after seeing the photos posted on the aformentioned web site. Now, I'm just extremely angry.

Is there a universal human right? Are there objective rights of autonomy? Yes, yes, and yes. The Nazis in the Nuerenburg trials in 1945 tried to play the cultural relativist card, claiming that it was a part of their immediate culture to view the Jews as an inferior species, and thus, it was permissable to kill them under the clause of ethical relativism. Bullshit. As mentioned in the trial, rights of autonomy, the universal human right, is ubiquitous, and crimes against humanity go across all cultures. Therefore it is the right and duty of humanity to stop these crimes, regardless of the cultural ties that so many of these crimes have. Of course, we can pick apart almost every society in the modern world and find breaches in this clause (the practice of infanticide in Inuit culture, etc) which we continue to ignore, if not support. However, we must remember that their is a HUGE difference between ethical relativism in the mere subjective decision making process of the individual (like choosing not to eat pork because of personal religious preferance) and ethical relativism as a tyrannical objective force instantiated against people in that culture, either by a select few in power or from the annals of that culture, which again, usually becomes instatiated by a select few in power. Their is a big fucking difference in the embracing of culture in order to abstain from pork, and embracing culture so you can mutilate, rape, pillage, dominate, subvert, and annihilate people who fall short of your specific cultural expectations. Of course, when we have the later, we get what we now see as all too common - people who abuse the annals of their specific culture, and who subsequtaly disavow their own culture, in an attempt to control others. This has been going on waaaaay since the inquisition (and before that too). Do we really need to question the subversive element of ethical relativism any longer?

Sorry for the long rant folks, but fuck it. I am sick and tired of people who attempt to support and defend the rape and killing of innocent people under the guise of ethical tolerance and cultural relativism. Death is not relative. It is a physical, objective truth, and we must approach these objective truths with objective answers, not an illogical relativistic half-argument propogated by some kushy ivory tower elite who accepts every zeitgiest that comes his/her way in the name of "diversity". We are not defending the right to abstain from pork, the right to abstain from sex, or the right to wear a fucking veil. Death is Death. Rape is Rape. This shit has to be stopped.

Okay....I think I am beggining to calm down a little. Count to 10.....Ahhhh...Sorry folks.
posted by tiger yang at 2:48 PM on February 22, 2002


boltman: I was cranky in my first reply. Sorry about that.

Essentially what you've brought up is the problem Huntington has outlined as the clash of civilizations, which is essentially a realistic acknowledgement that there are societies and polities out there in the world that do not share our values -- at least not to the extent, say, that the US and Europe do. Islam, as a very rough cultural definition, is one of the civilizations that may have fundamental differences with the West -- not just in terms of women's rights, or religious freedom, but in the relationship of the individual to the state and the structure of the economy. This is not to say that they are in any way (for example) genetically incapable of absorbing our "superior" values, but only to recognize that as a population they may choose a path that, at the very least in the short run, means conflict with the West.

The closest thing we have right now to a world ethics is the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights. I have some problems with that declaration -- too much of it is vague, and the fact is the UN is nothing like a sovereign responsive government in terms of being a body to turn to for enforcement -- but right now it's all we have, and it's significant (or should be) to even conservatives because unlike the League of Nations it goes beyond the notion of national sovereignty as the buck-stopper and establishes the individual as the basis for any system of rights.

The assumption is that anyone joining the UN club is implicitly endorsing that bill of rights.

Now the question becomes not one of imposition and cultural imperialism, but a transaction. For example, Turkey has been liberalizing its constitution under pressure from Europe. Is this because Europe is being a cultural bully? Well, the Osamas may see it that way, but the fact is Turkey is seeking membership in the EU club, for very straightforward economic reasons, and human rights reform has been set as one of the key bases for admission. The flip side is that the EU and other states still have freedom of association -- we don't have to trade with governments that ignore basic human rights. In practice we usually do anyway on the theory that our cultural influence has more effect when we're actually present, in addition to our own very pragmatic economic reasons. But we reserve that as a negotiating ploy.

Cultural influence goes in other directions, too, of course. Right now the entirety of Europe is pretty much united on the idea that capital punishment is immoral, but the US takes a different position. And just as there are people inside the US who agree with that pressure on us, so there are people in the societies we might pressure who fully agree with that direction.

I don't believe that the Huntington clash is an absolute (which is a wrong way to interpret what he says anyway), but I do believe it's a risk. The US and Europe will continue a push-me-pull-you on capital punishment, but even as that does not affect our basic relationship, there will be concepts such as honor killings or FGM or Greek-style pedophilia in Kandahar that will provoke societies and polities to examine their differences. I submit that it is these cultural issues that are much more important in 'causing' terrorism than economic ones (and Huntington disciple Kaplan essentially agrees). But they're not wholly distinct either.
posted by dhartung at 3:09 PM on February 22, 2002


My Anthropology professor was talking about this very thing today, and what he said was that in India at least, the practice of bride-pricing is officially illegal now due to retribution of this sort.

He also said that retribution on women was NOT extremely common until relatively recently, when western commercialism entered the culture and a sort of arms race began, with expectations of bride-prices getting higher and higher, but the ability to pay for them staying basically the same.

Something to think about when we are condemning their back-asswards culture for killing women.
posted by Hildago at 3:41 PM on February 22, 2002


These things are sick. There are certain inalienable human rights. The right not to be abused is one of them.

I can not speak for the the vast majority of nations where abuse of women happen. But in India dowry has been illegal for a very long time. It has also been in practice openly fairly longly too. The practice of dowry has to do with sheer greed and ruthless people's exploitation of the constraints of traditional structures. I want to address only the practice of dowry.

To put it in highly simplistic terms: In the current social structure in India, the ability/scope/social environment for women to find someone they want to marry is limited in many parts/communities of India. It is considered the responsibility of the head of the family to get the daughter married off. The social pressure to get one's daughter married within a certain age is very high. The family is usually more concerned with finding the daughter a bridegroom than to make a moral point about Dowry. (I am talking largely about deep rural regions, but it is practiced in urban areas too).So people are easy to blackmail. And some people when they are dissatisfied with what they get, become animals. They are not different from other criminals who commit rape, paedophilia etc.

The problem is difficult to rectify. In urban areas of India, you have special cells in the police departments who specialize in redressal of women's abuse. These are usually managed by sympathetic women. If anything, they err on the side of women. But most women, even when they feel something might go wrong, dont manage to gather enough courage to reach for help. Many others, dont know who to reach. In many parts of rural India, cops are simply jaded/corrupt/dont know how tackle such issues. There are a good number of voluntary organizations that try to work with women. But they are usually cash strapped and can not cater to the really vast number of rural poor.

It is also more complex than it appears from the surface. I heard of one woman from a conservative family who fell in love and married someone from outside her community. Both family's eventually apparently accepted the marriage. A few months later, the boy's family came back to ask for Rs 500,000 (which is not a lot in $ terms, but a fair amount of money in India in those days) or else they are gonna kill the woman. The father didnt want to test the strength of that statement. So he paid. Would the cops have acted if he complainted? The question is - Act on what? The boy's family probably would have said that the those guys are trying to wreck the marriage anyway. I dont even know whether the daughter and her husband know.

The problem is ugly in certain parts, it doesnt exist at all in some other parts. In most of South India, some parts of which has historically seen matriarchal societies, dowry is not common.

Its a subject that would make all educated Indians (educated in the true sense of the word) uncomfortable. The increasing affluence of the Indian middle classes has in a way accentuated the problem. If anything, people who originally wanted dowry, now want more. The only silver lining is - many kids today are refusing to take dowry, many women simply put down their foot and refuse to marry if it involves a dowry, the social acceptability of marrying someone on your own has been going up. It is still a long way to go. But we are reaching.

It is not based in history or culture. Its practiced by the same kind of people who run away from having to pay child alimony or rape women or fraud on old people's social security checks. Its just that in the relatively lax enforcement environment of third world countries, these people know that they can get away with more. Dont blame it on culture.
posted by justlooking at 7:11 PM on February 22, 2002


I am sick and tired of people who attempt to support and defend the rape and killing of innocent people under the guise of ethical tolerance and cultural relativism.

Who are these people proclaiming so loudly and frequently their support for this kind of violence?
posted by sudama at 7:41 PM on February 22, 2002


Note: The Nationa Geographic link seems to be broken (at least, on my end.) Anyone know of another way to get it?

Someone mentioned earlier that cultures change in response to internal, not external pressure. This is true. However, to say the third world nations will change more quickly than the United States did is probably false.

Just look at the historical record: The United States has been around for some 225 years. We went from condoning slavery and the oppression of women and other minorities (some of whom were white) to our arguably equal society in that space of time.

Some third world nations have made no (or few) similar strides in a much longer space of time.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 8:16 PM on February 22, 2002


It is horrifying to me that we need even discuss whether or not ritual murder -- regardless of the reasoning behind the practice -- is wrong.

Funny that, as many people consider the death penalty state-sanctioned ritual murder of sorts.
posted by lia at 9:59 PM on February 22, 2002


If good cultural changes happen through external pressure, I am all for it. Some great social reform took place in South Asia due to the active support of the Brits. It is true though that you need internal support, otherwise change isnt lasting.

I have a tremendous respect for US and all that it stands for. But, the whole civil rights movement really took off only in the 1960s. Before that equal rights wasnt really there. lynching was happening even in 1935. Most third world countries won independence relatively recently (most African and Asian ones won independence only in the last 50 years), was born into a fractured world and many got compromised by the cold war. The comparison probably isnt valid on many scores. US as a country came into its own relatively recently, has been driven and peopled large by immigrants, doesnt have thousands of years of cultural baggage and established social habits to fight against.
posted by justlooking at 10:01 PM on February 22, 2002


Funny that, as many people consider the death penalty state-sanctioned ritual murder of sorts. - lia

Troll.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 11:44 PM on February 22, 2002


I don't think it was a troll. She has a perfectly valid point. Not just capital punishment, but euthanasia, war, abortion...there are lots of cases where our society, or at least large fragments of our society, doesn't equate killing with murder.
posted by bingo at 12:39 AM on February 23, 2002


Murder is unlawful killing. Killing in self defense isn't murder. Killing by accident isn't murder. Killing in war isn't (generally) murder. Labeling capital punishment murder is certainly a biased choice, and the keyword "ritual" sort of upped the ante, there, lia. That said, I indicated in my more recent post above that it was an example of a pushback where the US is on the defensive. I don't actually expect that this is an example of a practice that US cultural imperialism is likely to successfully spread around the world (one argument, it should be noted, of the limitations of so-called cultural imperialism!). One case before the USSC right now regards the execution of the retarded as unconstitutional (by the 'cruel and unusual' standard), and has around an even chance of standing, and by such whittles will the practice be gradually extinguished even in the USA.

In other words, not even the US is immune to cultural pushback.

Oh, and ten bucks says Texas is the last US state to retain the practice, or if it's abolished by pen-stroke, the last to maintain an appeal.
posted by dhartung at 2:53 PM on February 23, 2002


Lynching was happening in the 1990s, if not more recently.
posted by sudama at 6:42 AM on February 25, 2002


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