that murder would simply be seen as an isolated crime. Sex-selective abortion discourse in the United States goes further and paints an incident in the United States in the same way that it is perceived to occur in a foreign country.
Legal scholar Leti Volpp’s article published in 2000, “Blaming Culture for Bad Behavior,” further points out that not only is culture blamed for the behavior of immigrants, but the understanding of culture is fixed and unchanging. To illustrate her point, she compares the dominant American discourse about underage marriage between Caucasian Americans and Mexican Americans. In the context of Caucasian Americans, underage marriage is generally viewed as outside of the norm, whereas underage marriage among Mexican Americans is attributed to culture.
Volpp’s work explains why this disparate treatment occurs. First, Volpp explains that the dominant American paradigm assumes that immigrant culture is fixed while mainstream American culture is fluid:
We sometimes assume culture to be static and insular, a fixed property of groups rather than an entity constantly created through relationships. This assumption is made much more frequently for outsider communities such as communities of color. Culture, for communities of color, is transformed into what Paul Gilroy calls a “pseudo-biological property of communal life.” Under such a paradigm, culture for communities of color is a fixed, monolithic essence that directs the actions of community members. Racialized culture thus becomes an essence that is transmitted in an unchanging form from one generation to the next.
We can contrast this racialized culture to culture that is considered to be “hegemonic”—the culture established as the norm. Hegemonic culture is either experienced as invisible or is characterized by hybridity, fluidity, and complexity.55
Much of the discourse on sex-selective abortion among immigrant communities assumes that the culture of immigrants is fixed. It does not leave any room for the possibility that behavior changes with context as well as over time.
Second, practices of immigrants are assumed to be “rooted” in their culture while practices of Caucasian Americans are not. Volpp points out that “[t]hese visions of culture influence our perceptions of individual acts. For communities of color, a specific individual act is assumed to be the product of a group identity and further, is used to define the group.”56
Third, by grounding the practices of immigrants in their culture, the practices are framed as misogynistic and contrasted with the practices of Caucasian Americans. Volpp writes:
Even while voluntary or forced adolescent marriages occur within white American communities, we do not conceptualize these practices as cultural phenomena characterizing white America. Rather, this undesirable behavior is projected beyond U.S. borders and characterized as an abhorrent practice imported by immigrants that undermines enlightened Western norms. This projection allows the United States to maintain a self-image as a progressive state with a progressive culture—especially in the arena of women’s rights—by naming as “other” the source of backward behavior.57
Volpp further points out that contrasting immigrant culture with mainstream American culture “has the effect both of equating racialized immigrant culture with sex-subordination, and denying the reality of gendered subordination prevalent in mainstream white America.”58 Thus, if parents from the mainstream culture were to abort a female fetus because they want a boy, people would not automatically assume that they are misogynistic.
Anna Korteweg, a Canadian-based sociology professor, observes a similar phenomenon. She studies honor-related violence, which she defines as a “family-initiated, planned violent response to the perception that a woman, as wife or daughter, has violated the honor of her family by crossing a boundary of sexual appropriateness.”59 Identifying the dichotomy between how immigrant culture and mainstream culture is viewed, she notes that “discussions of honor killing and honor-related violence stigmatize and racialize immigrant communities while positioning immigrant-receiving societies as free of ‘barbaric’ violence in contrast.”60
In her study of Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany, she also points out the overemphasis on culture in discussions about violence within immigrant communities. She notes that media reports suggest that once a girl from certain immigrant communities has done something to disgrace her family, they must resort to murder. These accounts fail to describe situations where solutions outside of murder are sought.61
Korteweg rightly argues that culture is important in understanding the practice of honor killing but cautions against viewing it as a “monolithic, deterministic force.”62 She warns against giving too much weight to culture in understanding the behavior of Asian and other immigrants. She also emphasizes context and points out that many immigrant children are often exposed to a different social context at school and in their homes.63 However, she does not explain how the concept of honor killings itself gains meaning from context. The context-based lens I propose here provides a new perspective.
In a small rural community in Pakistan, a family may feel a very strong sense of honor/dishonor if their daughter violates a community norm, for example by dating a boy (or another girl). In Canada and other migrant-receiving countries, the situation is different—immigrant families do not always live in close proximity to one another. Many do not have to encounter on a daily basis people who consider what their daughter did to be shameful. Moreover, in parts of Pakistan, communities may condone the murder of that girl. There is no similar mainstream community in Canada that would condone this behavior.
Thus, the murder of a daughter by her father in Canada for having premarital sex where the crime is not done in reaction to the “community” carries a different meaning than if the crime is committed in Pakistan where it may be encouraged and/or condoned by the community and done to preserve the father’s honor in that community. To put it another way, a crime is considered to be a “hate crime” (which usually means the criminal liability is escalated) only in reaction to the context where the crime occurs. A crime that is considered a “hate crime” in Pakistan should not be considered a “hate crime” in Canada just because the perpetrator is of Pakistani descent. This is not to say that honor as a motive does not exist in any circumstances in a murder of a daughter by her father for the breach of a cultural or religious norm.
In the early 1990s debates erupted about the use of the “culture defense” in cases where Asian immigrants were being tried for criminal offenses. Those discussions provide useful examples of how immigrant culture is treated in mainstream discourse. The core question in feminist legal literature on this topic was: against what standards should Asians be judged—the standards of the dominant American culture or the standards of the culture of people in Asia? For example, if a Hmong man kidnaps and rapes a woman as a way of marrying her—a practice undertaken in their country of origin—should he be able to refer to his culture in his criminal trial? Take another example—should a woman who attempted to kill herself after she killed all her children to escape domestic violence be able to present evidence about a similar practice of parent-children suicide in the country she emigrated from?
Doriane Coleman argued against the introduction of culture in criminal trials. She contends that the behavior of immigrants in the United States should be judged against American standards and not by the standards of the immigrant’s country of origin.64 Leti Volpp acknowledges that it is a problem for feminists if men use “culture” as an excuse for causing physical or mental harm to women. But she further argues that the cultural background of the defendant should play a limited role in a trial.65
If we understand culture and context to be separate, we gain insight into both the debates over the culture defense in trials and the debates on bans of purportedly harmful practices of immigrant women. Rather than refuse to admit evidence of culture, courts should admit and consider information about the culture of the country of origin of the
