from Wikipedia...
“An honor killing is the murder due to perceived loss, of wider family status owing to the actions or status of the victim. In West, honour killing is almost exclusively associated with killing of female by close family members with the aim of undoing the loss for actions seen to be offense to their culture particularly in term of sexually immodesty ranging from adultery , refusing to accept forced/arranged marriage, being victim of rape to merely refusing to adhere to hijab dress code. If victims are male, then the perpetrator is likely to be the family of woman whom the victim are accused having (adulterous) relationship.”
I’ve never seen a news report of an honor killing of a male, always a female. So these 2 girls ‘dishonored’ their family in some way that ‘justified’ their deaths.
Honor killings are very common in Europe now. I thought it would take longer for them to spread to the US. :-(
Females get pregnant, males do not.
After a lot of study on the subject, the explanation I come up with is this:
In Islamic culture, women are the property of some man -- father, husband, brother. When your property disrespects you by defying you, that lowers your status in the eyes of your peers. The only way you can recover your status is by demonstrating that you will react violently, lethally, to any source of "disrespect"Noticing the similarities between Islamic culture and our domestic "inner city" culture, it's not surprising that both cultures deem it necessary to respond with extreme violence to being "disrespected".When you examine Arab culture, it is even more dysfunctional than our inner cities, in that the men ARE weak. They kill their women rather than risk fighting another male who makes a disparaging remarkSuch violent behavior is necessary in uncivilized, predatory cultures because if you appear weak, then you are prey. Survival depends on not appearing weak
Doctor Sanity's blog has a nice article on the subject as well SHAME, THE ARAB PSYCHE, AND ISLAM