Hate Crimes with Religious Bias Against Women

Hate crimes with religious bias are usually against the non-religious other. However, among those who share the same religion, stemming from different interpretations of religious content hate crimes can be observed. The Islamic religion did not place serious limitations on men's clothing, but made certain restrictions on women's clothing. This reflects in the social life as follows: The religiousness of conservative men, cannot be evaluated according to their clothes, but the religiousness of conservative women can be evaluated according to their clothes. Therefore, women are more likely to be exposed to hate crimes. In the case of Turkey, the most concrete example of this is the headscarf. Turkey is a country in which both secular and conservative sections live together. And hate crimes with religious against women in the conservative and secular groups of the society can be different. For example, because a woman is headscarved, she may be exposed to discrimination and hate crimes in her/his work and life, and may be seen as a possible danger of sharia by secular people. On the other hand, a woman can be a victim of hate crime and discrimination because she does not wear headscarf. Apart from hate crimes against women due to the restriction of clothing, other forms of hate crimes with religious bias against women can also be observed in the society. For example when a woman is not married or is divorced, she may be subjected to hate crimes with religious bias. Another example is honor killings. So, women who do not follow the norms dictated by the society and religion are victims of hate crimes. The purpose of this paper is determine the reason of hate crimes and discuss with examples reflected in the media in Turkey and how we can keep from/stop hate crimes.