So called honour..

[ProfessorPreciseaBug]

Can we please all complain to the BeeB about the phrase honour killing. It is not. It is premeditated domestic murder.

I suspect the simple act of changing the reference in news stories would help change attitudes.

I feel "honour killing" is more to do with the victim than the murderer and implies the victim did something to cause her death.
Although it is usually men who do the murder, sometimes women are involved e.g. in Shafilea Ahmeds case.
I would prefer to use a term that makes it clear these female victims were blameless. Even putting "so called" in front of the term doesn't workforme.

The term honour is relevant

honour murder victim I think describes the awful horror of what has happened a women being murdered usually by a family member there is no justifying her murder by the mainstream media here

I think it is different from the child abuse/porn argument as porn is something many people enjoy watching and between consenting adults (what goes on in the porn industry is of course questionable) child abuse is never anything but abuse/rape so should be called that

Interesting that we've become so inured to murder that it needs an attention grabbing headline

Is it new? In my lifetime I've been unable to care less which paramilitary idiot was killing each other in Northern Ireland for example.

I signed this the other day. Please join.

Sorry, don't think that link worked, here it is in full:

www.change.org/p/bbc-stop-the-bbc-from-using-the-euphemistic-term-honour-killings-to-describe-murder?tk=3j3mCEw6IIIz6eZmZWlZV71MxdfBsaY6yuxX2NWiW3M&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt&utm_campaign=new_signature

I would sign that petition.. except the so called privacy policy stinks. They want to send emails to everyone on my contacts from my computer.

I had a bit of training on 'honour killings' with work as I sometimes work with youths and vulnerable adults.

I think the term also conveys that these murders are part of a conspiracy among certain closed cultures to murder 'disobedient' women. Its not just one man with a twisted view going mad and killing his niece. Its often a family group working together.

I can't think of another phrase that would cover that aspect.

I agree little

Family honour is such an important part of some cultures of course it's a way of controlling women but it's a different form of domestic violence than partner/husband and partner/wife. Often fathers and brothers will be involved and other family members will often support their actions

No such thing as an honorable murder

No one has said anything like that. Nor has the BBC. That petition is misguided and misses the point of why the BBC is using the term.

Along with not calling familial murder of women because they have transgressed arbitrary views of "honourable" behaviour by women. honour killings, it might be nice to call all violence by men again women and children just that: Violence against women and children.

"Honour killings", "domestic killings", "family annihilators", "terrorists", "paramilitary actions" are all predominantly male violence, hence when women perpetrate any of the above they are scrutinised more heavily.

Hmmmm lass you may wish to re read my words because I don't think that you understood that I was agreeing that the honour killings should be re named as murder

I'm still not sure what point you are making. No one here has said they are not murders.

I agree, 'honour killing' is a poor phrase.

lass, unless you are someone who regularly considers carrying out and/or sanctioning honour killings, I do not understand why you think it's so incredibly important that the media should use words that tempt you to click on stories about murdered women?

Personally, if I read about murdered women, I feel awful and angry (and I try to do something about the wider culture if I possibly can). I don't think 'aww, damn, missed a nice bit of grief porn there cos they didn't use the term I like!'

Perhaps I am reading you wrongly, but I am slightly gobsmacked by the way you've managed to imply the choice of terminology should really be all about you and your preferences when browsing the papers.

I would prefer that the BBC keeps reporting "honour killing" as I would prefer the BBC to keep reporting if there are people or societies who think "honour killing" is a legitimate concept.

I've no idea how you managed to spin what I said into your rather nasty comment about missing a bit of "grief porn" - whatever that might be. Possibly means something to you?

As for turning this into what I personally might want to read I would prefer as many people as possible to read about these murders and be horrified that there are families who think honour killing (ie no inverted commas) is justified. If the use of the term in the BBC uses it does so then I do not have an issue with that.

lass, unless you are someone who regularly considers carrying out and/or sanctioning honour killings, I do not understand why you think it's so incredibly important that the media should use words that tempt you to click on stories about murdered women?

I have explained this before and explained it again. Your post is extremely offensive and twists what I said. I would also refer you to Little's and Enthusiasm's posts since you seem to have a problem interpreting mine.

No spin, just reading your posts and rather shocked.

You've not explained anything to me - I've not posted on this thread before.

You've not explained anything to me - I've not posted on this thread before

I have explained in earlier posts on this thread. I repeated the explanation in my reply to you. I did not mean nor even say "explained to you ". I had assumed you had read the whole thread.

'Premeditated domestic murder' doesn't adequately convey all this phenomenon entails, and isn't specific enough.

Something like 'patriarchal control murder' is the most concise phrase I can think of which comes close. I don't object to the media using 'so-called "honour" killing' as part of the reporting as whether we like it or not that's the term people are familiar with.

I think the majority of the article (online or on TV) should refer to murder, with maybe a sentence about how it's thought this was a so-called honor murder due to a woman not being sufficiently obedient.

YY, kick, I think that makes good sense.

I tend the think of the phrase "honour killing" a bit like "ethnic cleansing". The phase helps to give you an idea of the motivation behind the murder. In both cases it is hatred against a particular group of people. So the phrase itself is kind of helpful in identifying the root cause - and without identifying that I don't know how we could fight against the attitude.

I always have a problem when the word killing is used instead of murder.

People are killed in accidents, like car crashes. They are murdered when another person deliberately has the intent to kill them. I know that historically one was a noun and the other a verb, but language can be flexible, particularly when using a noun as a verb, so murder can be a verb, or we can use the phrase committing murder.

the Telegraph today has an article about one man murdering another because of disrespecting Islam. The word murder is used. I do think the phrase could become 'honor murders' which is more accurate.

Murder has been a verb for centuries. I agree with you that 'kill' suggests this is something different from 'murder'.

I also agree that there is a gendered double standard over which killings (all put down, by the perpetrators, to concepts such as izzat or honour) deserve to be translated as 'honour killings'.

I do wonder to what extent all of this is also because of the way we're relatively comfortable, as a society, with quaint and othering terms for gendered murder in the context of Islam, because it allows us to believe that is all hugely and categorically different from the kinds of gendered violence that occur in the non-Islamic bits of society.

I am putting that badly, but perhaps you see what I mean!