Week 11 Readings: Kogacioglu & Enloe

Dicle Kogacioglu's piece is about honor crimes and their framing within Turkish society. An honor crime is when a women's family murders her because they do not approve of her sexual behavior. These kinds of crimes have been framed by Western society as a traditional cultural norm but third world feminists point out the disregard of power structures and inequality plagued by this stance (119). There is a value placed on family honor at the expense of the woman by the legal system. "Legally when an adult murders a woman, the penalty is increased if the victim is a minor and a family member. Yet, while these articles and others point to alternative ways that existing laws could be applied, criminal judges and prosecutors almost never take up these alternatives" (123). When interviewing civil court judges, they sympathized with their colleagues in the criminal court as taking an appropriate understanding of social norms into consideration when sentencing, ultimately lowering the punishment of the perpetrators committing honor crimes. Honor crimes are different depending on different institutions and governments. To me, this tradition is egregious, I mean how can people be slaughtered by their own family because of their personal choices? Thinking this, I have to remember that people hold different things as important and in different societies, different things are held to the highest measure, but it's still hard for me to wrap my brain around this.

The second piece by Cynthia Enloe is about the power of the Iraq and Afghanistan military and how that power is held over women creating a power dynamic between men and women in these countries. The military is an institution with immense power and because women are not actively seen by the United States, Enloe says that this causes them to be forgotten in policies that are enacted by foreign agencies. She invites us to examine the notion of women's status within society being directly affected by the military and invites us to examine why women who do participate in the government sector are seen as not important and unpolitical.

Both of these readings invite us to examine the multiple ways that perpetuate women's oppression in that are both sanctioned by institutions. Just like every group of people, women's rights are directly affected by institutions around the world, all human rights are. What is it going to take for these institutions to change the way they view their people? How much can foreign entities intervene when we can't claim oppression because it is subjective? What can be done within these countries and by external agencies to ensure the path to equality is being taken?