You may want to specify WHICH 'women support (even encourage) violence and even murder of other women, especially in the form of Muslim "honor killings"' before going on about WHY they do it. Who, exactly, are you accusing of "complicity" in such dreadful acts?

Eric:

This is an important point I hadn't thought about before.

Perhaps it's all about security for both the men and the women who participate in these practices. They think their culture is at seige from the slutty West and so they cling even tighter to the aspects of their culture we in the West would be quickest to question: genital mutilation and honor killing.

The answer: keep draining that swamp. Introduce freedom to Iraq and other countries can follow.

The same thing happens in US culture to a MUCH lesser degree. The "cult of thin" and pressure that lead to eating disorders are almost entirely the result of pressure on women from women. Ask most guys and they *like* comfortable curves on women; ask most women and they think the guys like the stick figures.

I bring this up because it indicates that there is possibly a reason for that sociological pressure that goes beyond culture lines; perhaps there are evolutionary roots to this kind of behavior that can't be eradicated.

My first answer, is that many of these women are brainwashed to think they're worthless, evil, and immoral creatures. that's fairly common in abusive religions. Take the polygamous colorado-city mormons, who take wives as young as 13 and then rape and abuse them for many years in the act of raising offspring. Any attempt to break out of the community results in excommunication from everything they've ever known. In the muslim world, women stepping out of line are often killed and mutilated. Think about this like hostage psychosis.

Additionally, here's a really great book called 'The moral animal' about the (brace for it) evolutionary advancement of society, and it makes large guestimates about how society evolved based on cultural similarities, and animal behavior(mostly mammal/gorilla). Here is a very, very brief synopsis which only applies in theory:

In all (yes all) socities, slutty women are desired by men, but mostly just for sex. Virgins, on the other hand, are better 'mates'. Men want to just sleep with one, but invest time in the offspring of the other. While the man is interested in both sex and raising offspring, the women (who still enjoy sex) are primarily looking for a relationship with which to bear children (which is why playgirl doesn't sell as well as playboy, which sells as well as comso).

If you consider all of society engaged in a zero-sum game to create offspring from your DNA; the greatest strength women have is witholding sex. If men think they can get sex and leave; they probably will (in general). If they think they have to make an investment, they will be more choosy about who they invest that time with.

Now if all women are choosy, but a few will sleep with everything that moves, men will spend less time with the choosy women for the sure thing. The remaining women will then have to settle for either one of those men, or grab one of the 'remaining' men, which is less suitable.

Since muslim women in many of these countries don't have any choice in mates, or sex, or abuse for that matter, the game doesn't completely apply. But it doesn't explain why girls don't really like 'sluts'. Again, this is an oversimplification.

I didn't read the esmay column first, so my previous answer doesn't entirely answer her synopsis, but I think it still is worth considering. On top of that, many feminist groups are legally based, and as they have no affect on legal change in these countries, make press releases (sometimes) but that's about it.

On the other hand, there are many international feminist groups/humanatarian groups who are intricately involved in trying to sway the muslim world. However (as always) large nations do not want to get involved with the difficulties of telling another nation what to do. For the same reason, human rights abuses are rarely stopped, because unless you're going to bring troops to do something about it, it doesn't do much good.
Still, there are lots of things out there, a book called "lolita in Tehran" (I think) about teaching feminist literature to Iranian women (who are not even supposed to read, and would probably be in deep trouble if caught). There is also the movie 'the circle' about the same type of thing. So stuff is out there, just largely ignored.

Women are well known to be vicious to their own sex, as men are to theirs. That seems to be ingrained in our natures, I'm increasingly coming to think. The solution is difficult, as a Conservative once said.

alchemist, your points are well-taken, but I don't think you're talking about the same people Eric is. International feminist groups that actually go out into communities and do hands-on work are wonderful, but they're not the ones who have the media microphones or churn out academic articles that get cited. Neither, as far as I know, are the ones that do pro bono legal work for destitute women.

The attention-getting feminist figures seem to have plenty of energy to mount The Vagina Monologues in every municipality with a population over 300. It seems odd that all they can manage on the international scene is praise for the state-provided day care systems in social democracies in Europe. Yes, I'm generalizing, but I read pretty widely and don't think I'm coarsening the overall picture by much.

Alchemist wrote:
"However (as always) large nations do want to get involved with the difficulties of telling another nation what to do."

And yet, historically, large nations have always told the smaller nations what to do. Ancient Egypt, Babylon, China, Greece, Rome, the West in the 19th century, created great empires and dominated the lesser peoples around them. It was only toward the middle of the 20th century that the West became infected by the virus of Political Correctness that made "imperialism" into a "dirty" word. This was spread by the Communists and their "Long March" though our institutions. A major part of this was a distorted interpretation of Christianity promoted by the Communist-infiltrated Federal Council (later National Council) and World of Churches.

Political Correctness is the cancer of the West. We must destroy it.

Error: "....large nations do not want to...."

Yes, large nations do spend alot of time telling nations what to do when it stands to their benefit.
The Sudan is agreat example. there is nothing to gain for stopping genocide, so countries use big words, but little action. The same is true with the Iraqi Kurds in the 80's, Rwanda, and even the Jewish people in the Haulocaust.
Pollitical correctness does have some serious flaws, but we also have to learn that everyone does not understand the same ideas. For example: I hear rumors that the 'ok sign' in english, means 'f___ off' in Iraq. This is an extreme example, but communication is the key to solving alot of group vs. group problems. If we use a language which conotates communication, and not englame it, maybe we could solve more problems. (maybe not?)