TNA speaks out on beheading of Aasiya Hassan….
February 22, 2009
by The New Agenda
|The New Agenda’s Amy Siskind wrote an op-ed piece which is posted today on The Daily Beast titled: The Debate Over Aasiya’s Murder.
In the piece we argue:
Aasiya’s murder could serve to elucidate our country’s gravest societal crisis—violence against women. The problem is, her killing has touched off a debate among feminists on several fronts, including whether hers was an honor killing or domestic violence; multicultural relativism; Islamic violence on our shores; and whether we should even be speaking out about this particular murder in the first place. Yet in order for our country to start a much needed national dialogue on violence against women, the feminists of our country need to unite and work together on this most important takeaway—that a woman was senselessly murdered and the laws of our country could not protect her.
The New Agenda hopes that Aasiyan’s murder will be the beginning of a national dialogue about the crisis in our country that is violence against women at the hands of intimate partners. Here’s what we hope will happen:
Whatever their point of view, feminists of this country of all stripes should rally behind Aasiya Hassan, a heroine. Her senseless murder comes within weeks of two other high-profile cases of violence against women: Rihanna’s alleged beating at the hands of Chris Brown, and the allegations against Senator Monserrate, who was sworn in to office and given a committee chairmanship despite being accused of stabbing his girlfriend in the face with a broken glass.
Our country needs to start a national dialogue on violence against women. One in four women will be the victim of violence at the hand of an intimate partner in her lifetime. One in three female teenagers in a dating relationship has feared for her safety. Domestic violence costs our country $67 billion a year, including property loss, ambulance services, police response, pain and suffering, and the criminal justice process. As Aasiya’s case shows, the laws in place simply do not work. It is time that the feminists of all stripes come together and work to raise public awareness about violence against women. We need to carefully dissect the causes and figure out solutions. And in due course, some savvy politician needs to make this issue her own and help to champion our way forward together.
Please go to The Daily Beast and comment, or post a comment on our Facebook discussion , or leave your thoughts and comments here on our site. We welcome all feedback from our members on this important issue.
I think of domestic violence as verbal and physical abuse. Referring to rape and murder as domestic abuse lessens the horror of rape and murder, imo. Domestic violence by itself has a hard time gaining public notice. If we label rape and murder as domestic violence, then those two crimes would likely fall out of public attention.
“I think the real danger to us, in terms of advocacy, is making it sound like honor crimes are worse than crimes committed by non-Muslim men.”
Honor killings ARE worse. Take rape for example… if a woman is raped in our country, her parents will console her and take her to counseling services to help with the trauma. In a Islamic Fundamentalist society, a rape victim will be murdered by her father just because she was raped. In our country, the rapist will be arrested and imprisioned. In an Islamist Fundamentalist society, men will shrug off the rape as men will be men.
And I use the term Islamic Fundamentalist to distinguish between muslims who practice honor killings and muslims who lack a sexist viewpoint. The Middle East is varied, and some muslim-majority countries are better toward women than other muslim-majority countries.
Attempting to reconcile opinions such as Chesler’s and the
cultural-relativist feminists, I think there is a difference, and it can be found in the internalized belief system of the killers.
The difference is between emotion and intellect, the irrational and the rational, and the core values and perceptions about what is good and what is bad. While all of these woman-killings and abuses are rooted in beliefs about women and family belonging to men, and other misogyny, the difference is not merely one of degree. There is a very different perception of the event.
The wife-beater may rationalize his acts, he may kill in cold blood moved by vestigial emotion about what he irrationally feels to be “his”, or in hot-blooded anger or despair followed by excuses and justifications of “passion” or “high provocation” or “being distraught” or “extreme depression” or “temporary psychosis” and other mitigation, but he does not actually hold a core rational knowledge that what he did was a good thing. Rather, what these men all have in common is a focus on themselves, and whatever the rationale, it boils down to why he believes that he is “good”, because what happened was in some way caused by his own victimization. He is looking at himself and events as they affect him by way of explanation.
The problem with the honor killings, which indeed are overwhelmingly Muslim, is that whether or not public lip service is given to these acts being wrongful (as in against the law), honor killers do not have to explain why they themselves were “justified” in the sense of excusing their own behavior or maintaining their own “goodness”. It is just not about them. They were not acted upon by provocation or circumstances or whatever, and do not necessarily have to feel subjectively victimized. Rather, they can perceive themselves to be neutral actors doing something that objectively is necessary and “good” because she did evil. This is why you will see honor-type killings carried out by other than husbands and boyfriends, such as brothers, and in fact incorporated to an extent in sharia law.
This has a different from a killer who believes “Evil happened because she so tormented me” or “I was so pushed by the circumstances.” I suspect this difference is what some are reacting to. The underlying misogyny indeed has the same foundations, and may indeed have the same or similar outcomes, but in process it is manifesting differently because of the religious beliefs. With the honor killing, the actors are not vested in justifying their own inherent goodness (which is irrelevant); rather they are judging the inherent badness of the woman’s behavior (which is the only relevant consideration). This indeed is worse.
Honor killings, domestic violence, rape and murder of women (and men too!) in this country should not be tolerated no matter what label you put on it. Why are women even debating this issue?? In America – women are suppose to have 100% rights no matter what faith or culture they are from. We need to scream from the rooftops so to speak against this violence. When I was in college, many years ago now, there was an annual candlelight vigil – called take back the night. Women (and men) walkted through the streets late at night to bring awareness of rape and assault against women… Now – we have feminists argueing about the relevence of an honor killing???
I prefer the term some people have been using on the internet, “women lynchings”. That’s what all these horrendous attacks on women are, hate crimes intended to oppress an entire group of people. And they continue because women are dehumanized in our culture, viewed as not having real value as human beings.
All this outcry recently about an ape cartoon is a good example of people understanding the dangers of dehumanizing a group of people. But the real shame is that we think nothing of doing it to females, who are constantly dismissed as bit&hes, who&res, bimbos, etc. Dehumanizing women doesn’t even register on the outrage meter, it’s simply a national pastime.
How about speaking out about the spree killer who shot 5 people and killed four because he’d been fired from two jobs for sexual harassment? Isn’t this case for comment? The women he killed might have been the women who accused him. Isn’t there something you can say? It happened on Valentine’s Day. http://www.13wham.com/content/.....fault.aspx
Oh, and I do believe honor killings are worse then domestic violence, because they involve a group of people, a systematic condoning of murder that a large segment of the population supports. They send a message to all women within the community. Just as “crimes of passion” in South America are worse because they became culturally condoned violent acts supported by the state, the culture.
It’s hard enough for women to deal with one lunatic in their lives and a system that is not always helpful, but it’s quite another thing when the system blatantly starts condoning the crime and it becomes a culturally supported idea among your friends, family, and community.
The US is just barely out of this stage, I don’t want us to go backwards.
Lynn, I did not hear about the spree killer. But I did read about the murder of a young woman in Hartford CT by her ex-boyfriend. There was a restraining order and she had left the police station five hours before she was murdered by him in her parking garage on Valentine’s Day. Her name was Tania Notice.
I don’t think this post is leaving out these women. I think the post is giving one incident wide exposure for the readers to talk about DV in general. Which is exactly what you did. Thank you.
I am glad you mentioned the spree killer. This is good for me to know.
One thing that I would like to see on TNA is continued coverage of domestic violence crimes in the United States. By doing this we are showing that domestic violence isn’t “domestic” and it isn’t personal. Violence against women is a widespread problem in this country and the world. By doing this we can also show the many faces, sizes, colors, ethnicities, social classes, etc. of victims and their abusers.
Thank you, Amy, for the op-ed piece and keeping the issue of Violence Against Women in the media. Ali, I agree with keeping up continued coverage.
I’d call it Violence Against Women; when people see the phrase “domestic violence”, they often disregard it as a ‘personal matter’ in the home that doesn’t have implications for them.
Keep up the fight!
TO THE MODERATOR: please delete my post just above. I’ll submit it again below with better formatting. Thanks!
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT VIOLENCE MUST BE PREVENTED AND TAKEN SERIOUSLY:
To use in Press Releases and Everywhere:
A new study shows that traumatic childhood experiences such as child abuse can alter the structure and function of genes that control stress, which could increase the risk of suicide in adult survivors. This study, from McGill University, is the first to show a link between psychological trauma and genetic function in humans. This work supports earlier studies showing abuse can alter DNA function. They also found that these genetic changes occur in adults.
Quoting from one article:
Another quote:
The original article citation: “Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse.” Patrick O McGowan, Aya Sasaki, Ana C D’Alessio, Sergiy Dymov, Benoit Labonté, Moshe Szyf, Gustavo Turecki & Michael J Meaney. Nature Neuroscience Published online: 22 February 2009. doi:10.1038/nn.2270
I’m posting this as it gives us more ammunition in our fight (and press releases) regarding violence against women (and children and men).
yttik, I am with you.
I like the comparison with lynching ( I saw the comparison on one of. murphy’s pumapac posts), because society was able to stop lynching and execute appropriate responses.
there is absolutely no excuse that we still have violence and hate crimes against women ranging from verbal abuse to honor killings and beheading in a society who considers itself civil. the lesson from lynching is that there is nothing natural about it and it can be stopped completely, not just reduced. A society where 1 in 4 women was raped and 1 in 3 girls experienced fear for her safety in dating is barbaric.
ER, interesting studies. I am not sure whether any of these studies at this stage are helpful in fighting against violence against women.
For sure somebody finds fault in the studies and instead of exposing violence against women the discussion would be let to study details.
This discussion is all good and well, and I agree it’s necessary, but the solution is quite simple. Demand blind justice. Physical crimes are crimes no matter who perpetrates them or upon whom they are perpetrated. There should be no discussion of family or otherwise routine relations between victim and perpetrator in a court of law period. Any time such a question comes up in court, a feminist lawyer needs to object on the basis of equal protection.
Meanwhile, feminist groups like The New Agenda need to make this a legislative priority in every state. State laws or state constitutions, whatever the route, enshrine it in law that relations do not matter. Assault is assault is assault, so on and so forth. I could see combining this effort with the hate law approach.
I never heard about the other killings mentioned here either. Guess I was busy being bombarded by IMPORTANT news, like the latest football player spraining his big toe or something.
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