Both Women Are Dead

Farzana Parveen was beaten to death with bricks outside the Lahore High Court in 2014. Her family killed her. She had married a man they didn’t approve of. The Western press called it an honor killing. The politicians called it barbaric. The pundits used it to prove that Islam was incompatible with “civilization”.

Three months later, in Dallas, Texas, a man named Ronald Lee Haskell knocked on the door of his sister-in-law’s house. He tied up six people. He shot them execution style. Four children. Two adults. He did it because his wife had left him. The Western press called it a family tragedy. The politicians sent thoughts and prayers. The pundits wondered what could have been done.

Different crimes. Same root. Same ownership. Different words.

Three women are killed by intimate partners every day in the United States. Every. Day. Over a thousand a year. A mass shooting worth of women every single year. No breaking news. No presidential address. No flags at half staff. Because it’s not a crisis. It’s just Tuesday.

What is an honor killing? A man kills a woman because she violated his sense of ownership. She left. She cheated. She refused. She existed in a way he didn’t approve of. What is domestic violence homicide? A man kills a woman because she violated his sense of ownership. She left. She cheated. She refused. She existed in a way he didn’t approve of. The motive is identical. The control is identical. The ownership is identical. The only difference is the passport.

The moment she leaves is when she is most likely to die. Not when she stays. When she leaves. The system tells her to leave. The system doesn’t protect her when she does. The “why didn’t she leave” question is a death sentence disguised as advice. She stays because she can’t afford to leave. No savings. No job. No housing. No childcare. The economic abuse that precedes the physical abuse. The dependency that is designed, not accidental. The same system that keeps her poor keeps her trapped. The same politician who votes to cut the social safety net votes against the Violence Against Women Act. The money goes up. The protection doesn’t.

The majority of domestic violence homicides involve firearms. Women are five times more likely to be killed when a gun is present in the home. The same politicians who protect the guns protect the men who use them. The Lautenberg Amendment prohibits domestic violence convicts from owning firearms. The loopholes let them buy them anyway. The laws exist on paper. The women die in practice.

When a Muslim man kills his wife, it’s cultural. It’s religious. It’s proof that Islam is incompatible with Western values. When a white Christian man kills his wife, it’s an isolated incident. It’s mental illness. It’s a tragedy. The pathology is assigned to the brown man. The sympathy is assigned to the white one.

The dead women are the same amount of dead.

Intimate partner violence in same-sex relationships is even more invisible. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 43.8% of lesbian women and 61.1% of bisexual women have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. Transgender victims face even higher rates. But the police who respond to the call don’t know who to arrest when both parties are the same gender. The courts don’t know who to protect. The shelters that receive federal funding under the Violence Against Women Act have turned away transgender women because the law doesn’t explicitly protect them. The violence is the same. The invisibility is worse. The system doesn’t just fail to see it. The system refuses to look.

Doctors who don’t screen. Hospitals that send women back to their abusers. The injuries that are “accidents.” The bruises that are “clumsiness.” The system that sees the wounds and looks away. A study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that only about 15% of domestic violence victims who visit emergency rooms are identified as such. The other 85% are sent home. To the person who hurt them. Theresa Saldana was stabbed ten times by a stalker in 1982. She survived. She went on to advocate for anti-stalking laws. But before the attack, she had reported the stalker to the police. Multiple times. Nothing was done. The system didn’t fail to see the threat. The system chose not to look. The medical failure isn’t a failure at all. It is a choice. A choice to not see. A choice to not ask. A choice to not name the thing that is killing her.

Latin American countries have specific femicide laws. Mexico. Brazil. Argentina. Colombia. They name it. They count it. They prosecute it differently. The US doesn’t even have a federal domestic violence statute. The Violence Against Women Act expired and was reauthorized only after years of fighting. The law is an afterthought. The women are an afterthought.

The children who survive. The orphans of femicide. The kids who watched their father kill their mother. According to the Childhood Domestic Violence Association, 1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year. Those children are three times more likely to repeat the cycle. They are twice as likely to attempt suicide. They are the living casualties of a war we refuse to name. And when the mother is killed, the courts often send the children to live with the family of the killer. The same family that produced the man who murdered their mother. The system that protects the murderer’s rights over the child’s safety. The generational damage of a culture that calls femicide “domestic.”

Homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women. Not childbirth. Not complications. Murder. Women killed because they were pregnant. Because they wouldn’t have an abortion. Because they did have an abortion. The same politicians who call themselves pro-life ignore the women killed by their partners during pregnancy. The fetus is sacred. The woman carrying it is disposable.

“Crimes of passion” used to be legal defenses. Men who killed their wives for cheating got lighter sentences. Some countries still have this. The US has its own version. The “heat of passion” defense. The “temporary insanity” defense. The “good man who snapped” defense. The legal system has always made room for men who kill women. It still does.

Qandeel Parveen was a Pakistani social media star. She was strangled by her brother in 2016. He said she brought dishonor to the family. The world was outraged. The Western press covered it for weeks. The pundits used it to prove that their culture was backwards.

In 2018, in Frederick, Colorado, a man named Chris Watts strangled his pregnant wife Shanann and smothered his two daughters, Bella and Celeste. He killed them because he was having an affair and wanted a new life. The initial news coverage called him a “quiet family man.” The neighbors said he was “normal.” The sheriff said it was “a tragedy.” The man who killed his pregnant wife and two children was described with the same word used for a car accident. A tragedy. Not an atrocity. Not a femicide. A tragedy.

Same crime. Same motive. Same control. Different word.

If a man kills a woman because she left him, because she refused him, because she existed in a way he didn’t approve of, what do you call it? If he’s in Islamabad, you call it an honor killing. If he’s in Indianapolis, you call it a tragedy. The corpse is the same. The motive is the same. The control is the same.

The only difference is the word we use to hide it.

And the word is not an accident.

The word is the camouflage.

The word protects the system.

The system protects the man.

The man kills the woman.

Shanann Watts was pregnant. Bella was four. Celeste was three. They were strangled and smothered by a man who wanted a new life without them. The news called him quiet. The neighbors called him normal. The sheriff called it a tragedy.

Farzana Parveen was beaten with bricks by men who said she dishonored them. The news called them barbaric. The politicians called it proof of a backwards culture.

Both women are dead.

Both were killed by men who believed they owned them.

The only difference is the word.

And the word is killing them still.

Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook.  Subscribe the Vanguard News letters.  To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue.  Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.

Categories:

Tags: