Women's Studies International Forum 41 (2013) 204–214 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Women's Studies International Forum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wsif Gender equality and immigrant integration: Honor killing and forced marriage debates in the Netherlands, Germany, and Britain Gökçe Yurdakul a,⁎,1, Anna C. Korteweg b,1 a Humboldt University Berlin, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Diversity and Social Conflict, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany b University of Toronto, Department of Sociology, 725 Spadina Ave., Toronto, Ontario M5S 2J4, Canada article info synopsis Available online 24 August 2013 The past decade has seen a surge in media and policy debates on honor-based violence, honor killing, and forced marriage in the Netherlands, Germany, and Britain. Drawing on political debates and policy responses to these forms of violence, we analyze how understandings of “gender equality” inform distinct approaches to immigrant integration. The Dutch case shows how the idea of gender equality can sometimes be used to include Muslim communities in the larger population, by generating policy responses that are more likely to position immigrants as full members of society. Alternatively, as the German case most clearly illustrates, the idea of gender equality can inform the stigmatization of Muslim communities and lead to exclusionary immigration policies. In Britain, gender equality discourses stand in tension with discourses on race, with some NGO's accusing government of failing women out of fear of being accused of racism. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction agenda and related policies. However, often “gender equal- ity” remains undefined. Instead, the term is used to signify Over the past decade, the issue of honor-based violence something that Muslim communities lack, without specify- (including honor killing and forced marriage) has entered ing what this lack consists of. Indeed, research shows that policy debates in immigrant-receiving countries like the recent policy developments in European countries did not Netherlands, Germany, and Britain. We analyze how parlia- necessarily lead to deeper framings of gender equality ments and other state institutions use gender equality discourses in politics and media (Lombardo & Meier, 2008). discourses as they discuss honor-based violence, often but There is a need for an intersectional approach that pays not always in highly stigmatizing ways. We focus on state attention to multiple social divisions such as gender, sexual authorities' framing of gendered violence in Muslim com- orientation, citizenship status, and religion (Verloo & Walby, munities in order to understand how such gender equality 2012). As we analyze approaches to honor-based violence, discourses define who belongs to the political community. we argue that “gender equality” is too often a blunt concept Gender equality discourses are prevalent in political and leading to one-size-fits-all policies. From an intersectional media debates regarding Muslims in the Netherlands, perspective, gendered violence in Muslim communities needs Germany, and Britain. In such debates, gender equality is to be understood in the context of migration, the receiving generally defined as the equal treatment of men and women, country's culture and politics, the ongoing racialization of mostly in labor market, education, and welfare as well as in Muslims in the West, as well as the changing gender relations other areas of social participation. Discourses on gender within both Muslim immigrant communities and majority equality have multiple framings depending on the political society. This allows us to take seriously Heidi Safia Mirza's question: ⁎ Corresponding author. “What is behind this growing concern for the hitherto invisible 0277-5395/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.07.011 G. Yurdakul, A.C. Korteweg / Women's Studies International Forum 41 (2013) 204–214 205 and marginalised ‘Muslim woman’?” (2010: p. 55). Coming Gender equality and immigrant communities: addressing from a Black British feminist perspective, Mirza argues that honor-based violence many scholars walk on “eggshells” for fear of being labeled “racists” while promoting their views on Muslim communi- Honor-based violence can be defined as a family-initiated ties. It is not our intention to avoid questions of race or deny violent response to the perception that a woman has violated the existence of gendered violence within Muslim commu- the honor of her family by crossing a boundary of sexual nities. We instead point out that current gender equality propriety (Korteweg, 2012; Sev'er & Yurdakul, 2001). Honor- policies are not addressing questions of racialization at all based violence, then, is a form of domestic or familial violence, (in Germany) or inefficiently (in Britain) or insufficiently (in rooted in particular gendered power relations. We argue that the Netherlands). We argue that an intersectional approach, honor-based violence is a form of gendered violence, which in which takes both the existence of gendered violence and the the immigration context needs to be understood in relation to realities of anti-Muslim racism into account, is needed in the history of immigration to the new country and the ethnic combating violence in Muslim immigrant communities. Our and religious background of each specific immigrant commu- intersectional approach builds on the work of Glenn (1999) nity, as well as in relation to the immigrant-receiving country's and Yuval-Davis (2006) to argue that categories of difference integration policies, understandings of gendered violence and and inequality (such as gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, responses to domestic violence. Yet, honor-based violence does sexuality, and religion) should be not be understood in not only capture a particular form of gendered violence. The isolation but rather as becoming meaningful in relation to idea of honor-based violence also does the political work of each other. The social–political processes that mutually marginalizing immigrant communities, by singling them out as constitute the meanings of categories of differences in perpetrators of an “exotic” form of violence that signals their relation to each other also produce specific understandings “backwardness” (Abu-Lughod, 2011; Korteweg, 2012; Korteweg of subjectivity, agency, and power (see also Choo & Ferree, & Yurdakul, 2009, 2010). 2010; Davis, 2008; Geerts & Tuin, 2013). Furthermore, we take The idea of “gender equality” plays a particular role in this into account the ways in which intersectional processes of political marginalization of immigrant communities; the so- meaning–making produce particular material and institutional called backwardness of Muslims in particular is interpreted practices that reproduce and/or disrupt inequalities (see also as their failure to accept gender equality norms. Yet, in both Verloo, 2006; Yuval-Davis, 2007). research and public debate gender equality is often poorly In our analysis of policy documents, news media, and defined, consisting of multiple comparative measures of parliamentary debates, we also show that discussions of women and men's achievements, statuses, legal protections, gender equality and honor-based violence, honor killings, well-being, and life outcomes (David & Guerrina, 2012; and forced marriage range from exclusionary to inclusionary. European Commission, 2012; Krizsán et al., 2011). Despite In the exclusionary trends, immigrants become Muslims who this, gender equality has become a ubiquitous yardstick for are depicted as outsiders and problematic subjects (Spielhaus, measuring whether governments uphold principles of fairness, 2011), who need to be carefully monitored and governed by justice, and adherence to liberal principles in a multitude of state authorities, because they have “bad” gender equality governance domains. We take this observation as the starting practices, which have to be corrected by “integration policies”. point for our analysis. Rather than looking at honor-based In the inclusionary trends, immigrants are a priori seen as full violence through the lens of gender equality, we analyze how members of society, which in turn creates the possibility for the idea of gender equality informs understandings of honor- immigrant participation in governance, as immigrants become based violence in ways that profoundly shape the political resources in the policy-making and implementing process membership of those from immigrant communities. The of policies to address honor-based violence. This opens up meaningofgenderequalityitselfbecomessecondarytoits the possibility of portraying Muslims (and others) as people use as a tool to stigmatize Muslims and others from immigrant who can become truly full, active citizens, not only subjects communities. deserving protection or subjects of persecution. These trends Each country in this study has specific gender equality can operate simultaneously within one country, though we regimes as a result of different historical and political found a tendency towards exclusion in Germany and trajectories. In both the Netherlands and Germany, ap- towards inclusion in the Netherlands when it comes to proaches to gender equality have historically focused on discussions of gendered violence. Discussions in Britain increasing women's labor market participation. In the were more ambivalent when it comes to the exclusion