Honor Killings In Jordan

Honour Killings in Jordan

From the start, Marwa was an exception. Growing up in the northern Jordanian city of Irbid, her extended female family members sought marriage after high school, opting out of further education. However, Marwa's father insisted she pursue the latter - valuing education over societal customs. She was able to attend university for an entire year before her life took a dramatic turn for the worst. During one of the routine taxi rides she took to get home from her classes, the taxi driver took her down an unfamiliar route. Demanding to be let out of the moving vehicle, Marwa's pleas went unheard as the driver continued on until suddenly stopping the car and dragging her out. He led Marwa to an empty room and forced himself

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This paper discusses the underlying psychological processes and cultural factors that lead to the commitment of hateful crimes against Jordanian women by evaluating the societies perceptions of women and how they came to that conclusion. Finally, the means of reducing this clear discrimination against women will be derived.

Subtle and automatic discrimination is described by psychological literature as a set of often unconscious beliefs and associations that affect the attitude and behaviour of members of the in-group(the general population) towards members of the out-group (unchaste women) (nap.edu). In the case of Jordan when it comes to honour this type of subtle discrimination can be described as ambivalent discrimination which basically means that the out-groups are not necessarily subjected to uniform antipathy (Fiske et al., 2002). It is related to the social role theory where masculinity and femininity result in the formation of gender moulds. Masculinity is usually praised and given high regards and respect in neo-patriarchal Jordanian societies. Various sayings and proverbs glorify men, their image as well as their masculinity. This ultimately lead to men adjusting accordingly and ultimately consider themselves as guardians of their female relatives allowing themselves to “police and chastise” women (jstor

The importance attached to sexual reputation is one of the ways men police women. While women on the other hand police each other through the spread of rumours (jstor). Women are expected to abide by social norms and conform to the society’s expectations or they might be killed (jstor).Threats are felt because of reputations and rumours that might cause the initial group (the family and\or society) feel threatened by the dishonour that the second group (so-called “unchaste” women) has brought upon them. The integrated threat theory brings about a fine discussion regarding the types of threats, but a type that fits perfectly with honour killings is the symbolic threat. It “primarily involves perceived group differences in morals, values, standards, beliefs and attitudes”. “These arise, in part, because the in-group believes in the moral rightness of it’s system of values” (Oskamp, google books). When the in-group’s values are threatened by the out-group it is considered to be prejudice (Oskamp, google book). In this specific case, an “honourable” reputation is part of the in-groups system of values and any female that breaks away from these social norms is perceived as problematic and threatening to ones values and culture. This threat often comes in the form of public humiliation and more rumours. Societal pressures to conform stresses the importance of cleansing ones honour by