ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the studies to ascertain whether there are gender differences in attitudes towards ‘honor’ based violence and killings similar to the established paradigm for general interpersonal violence, and if there is any consistency across populations. Collectivist honor cultures are inherently patriarchal and are thus characterized by differential and unequal gender roles. Honor’ based violence has been reported widely across collectivistic cultures, for example, in the Mediterranean, North America, and Latin America. Result of the increased media, social, political, and academic awareness of ‘honor’ crimes in Western Europe and North America, it soon became apparent that the mechanisms underlying perpetrators’ motivations for ‘honor’ violence and killings could be quite divergent from other forms of interpersonal violence. Substantial body of work has advanced explanations of ‘honor’ based victimization against women, in terms of the cultural dimensions and universal perspectives of patriarchy and gender inequality. The number of non-fatal ‘honor’ violence cases is undoubtedly far greater.
