“The Tradition Effect: Framing Honor Crimes in Turkey” looks at the ways in which institutions such as as Turkish laws, international media and the EU perpetuate the continuing of honor crimes. Kogacioglu challenges the notion that traditions are solely a cultural phenomenon and separate from these institutions. When it comes to Turkey’s admission into the EU, for example, policies about men and women are subject to “gender mainstreaming,” and honor crimes subsequently fall from the forefront of attention, showing how the EU’s complacency in weak policies uphold honor crimes. International media, as well, creates the dichotomies of the Middle East in opposition to Europe, medieval in opposition to modern, the West in opposition to the non-West, etc. By calling honor crimes a tradition and framing them as something susceptible to spreading, the media puts Turkey into the uncivilized category of countries.
“Updating the Gendered Empire: Where Are the Women in Occupied Afghanistan and Iraq?” discusses how the military is another institution that has harmful effects on women. Masculinity is pertinent to nation-building, so we get very masculine notions of what danger and security are. The military is an institution that upholds these gendered notions of the nation but doesn’t make women safe. The U.S., in trying to build an empire, also plays a role in upholding the patriarchal aspects of the military.
My question for this week is: would it be effective to simply inject more women into these institutions so that they have a voice? What exactly should be done to try to undo what these institutions are doing?
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