women’s purity and family honor. Pointing to the
fact that ideas of honor and shame are embedded
in the monotheistic religions, Delaney (1991) has
argued for the determining role of Islam in the
Turkish context. According to the theory of pro-
creation in Islam, men are creators; they produce
by providing the “seed” in the making of the child.
Women, however, are mere receptors; they repro-
ducebecause they only provide the “soil” on which
the seed is fertilized. Women, therefore, need to be
closely monitored, for the legitimacy of paternity –
and thereby the honor of men – can only be assured
through the monogamy of women.
Other scholars have found the attribution of such
a definitive role to Islam ahistorical, noting that the
notion of honor is contingent on the nationalist his-
tories and social policies of each nation-state
(Kandiyoti 1987). Attention to the role of the state
is also crucial to avoid confining the concern with
honor to the traditional rural community. The
Turkish modernizing elite, for example, who took
it upon themselves to emancipate Turkish women,
granted women legal rights and fashioned the
image of the public, modern woman, while simul-
taneously reaffirming the importance of women’s
virtue and chastity. Women who entered the public
sphere thus had either to downplay their female
sexuality to the point of invisibility or contain it
within the boundaries dictated by men (Arat 1997,
Durakbaça 1988). Furthermore, now that women
were unveiled and no longer confined to the private
sphere, their honor, previously monitored through
kinship networks, came under the surveillance of
the modern state, as evidenced by the existence
until 1999 of state enforced virginity examinations,
which were routinely performed on political
detainees, women suspected of prostitution, and on
girls in state orphanages, dormitories, and high
schools (Parla 2001).
Soviet modernization, on the other hand, did not
concern itself with women’s chastity, and was far
more successful in promoting gender equality and
ensuring education and careers for women. How-
ever, its effects with regard to gender and honor
among its Muslim minority echo the Turkish case.
Women in the Caucasus, too, faced a double bur-
den: on the one hand, they had to fulfill the com-
munist requirement to participate equally in the
workforce and in public life and on the other hand,
they were expected to sustain the call of their eth-
nic communities for modesty (Heyat 2002).
turkey and the caucasus 219WWHR – New WaysEspousing the view that honor crimes are only the tip
of the iceberg beneath which lies a system of patriar-
chal traditional norms limiting women’s control over
their own bodies and sexualities, Women for
Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) – New Ways, an
autonomous women’s organization based in Turkey,
has been working toward the realization of women’s
sexual rights since its foundation in 1993. The pub-
lication of a reader entitled Women and Sexuality in
Muslim Societies(Ilkkaracan 2000) aimed at render-
ing visible the voices and efforts of women activists,
academicians, poets, and cartoonists living in Mus-
lim countries against practices such as honor crimes
that are wrongfully justified in the name of Islam.
Most recently, WWHR – New Ways has assembled a
working group, composed of feminist activists,
lawyers, academicians, and representatives of non-
governmental organizations, to draft a reform of the
Turkish Penal Code from a gender perspective, a
pressing task as the code continues to sanction the
concept of honor that links the honor of the family
and community directly to women’s sexual behavior.Bibliography
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