In a rural community in Palestine, I watched a teacher tell a group of women that their husbands do not have the right to beat them, no matter what. “Even if he sees you kissing another man, he does not have that right,” she passionately pressed. One woman immediately interrupted. “If he cannot beat his wife,” she pondered aloud, “how can he take back his honor?” After class, the teacher and I talked about honor in this community. “It’s synonymous with control,” she explained. “Men use honor to convince and condition women to accept their own subordination.” In honor-based cultures, a man’s reputation is vested in the behavior and bodies of the women in his life. While the specifics vary according to culture, honor impacts every aspect of life for girls and women. They do not have freedom to make their own choices because they are reflections of an abstract concept attached to their fathers, brothers and husbands. Their lives are not their own. When an honor code is broken, women are often subjected to …![]()
