“You Don’t Want to Be Perceived as Wild and Unruly”: How Ethnic Minority Women Experience and Negotiate Their Autonomy within Honor-Related Contexts

Abstract

Within honor-related contexts, women’s appearances, actions, and life choices are closely tied to the honor of the entire family. As a result, women who opt to deviate from prevailing feminine honor codes are subject to violence as a means of restoring the family’s good name. Based on the life stories of fourteen Dutch ethnic minority women who deviated from feminine honor codes, this study investigates how women experience their autonomy as a process within their social context. Rather than analyzing this process through a binary conception of autonomy (i.e., agency/coercion), this study highlights women’s experiences through a relational approach to autonomy. In doing so, this study uncovers three overarching themes: (1) honor codes are enforced implicitly through expectations surrounding the role of “the honorable daughter/wife”, and explicitly through a shared religious and/or ethnic identity, (2) women detach themselves from honor codes either by strategically renegotiating honor codes or after experiencing a turning point that triggers an immediate process towards detachment from honor codes, and (3) women’s decision-making processes are accompanied with health concerns caused by lingering guilt, social shame, and isolation.