Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World,Newly updated [Paperback]

Jan Goodwin (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 31, 2002

In recent years, the expanding movement of militant Islam has changed the way millions think, behave, dress, and live, but nowhere has its impact been more powerfully felt than in its dramatic, often devastating effect on the lives of women. Award-winning journalist Jan Goodwin traveled through ten Islamic countries and interviewed hundreds of Muslim women, from professionals to peasants, from royalty to rebels.  The result is an unforgettable journey into a world where women are confined, isolated, even killed for the sake of a “code of honor” created and zealously enforced by men. 

Price of Honor brings to life a world in which women have become pawns in a bitter power game, and gives readers a provocative look inside Muslim society today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spurred by her experiences as a young girl's mentor in Pakistan, American journalist Goodwin ( Caught in the Crossfire ) here surveys 10 countries in the Islamic world, interviewing hundreds of women and many men, concluding that the treatment of women is a barometer of the twin forces of modernity and Islamic extremism. Her book is solidly researched (she relates that Islam originally enhanced women's rights) and stylishly written, though her dependence on long quotes makes a few sections ponderous. Some of her stories are shocking: the sad fate of a girl bartered in marriage at age 11; the sexual abuse in jail of numerous women in Pakistan arrested for sex outside marriage ; the death threat against a Jordanian television commentator who criticized a smear campaign against women. Goodwin's account also includes thoughtful interviews with an Afghan resistance leader trying to use Islam to fight fundamentalism and an American-educated woman in the United Arab Emirates trying to balance freedom and faith. Goodwin suggests that the United States, overly dependent on imported oil, should beware of Islam's growing fundamentalism.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this astonishing book, the product of four years of living in the Islamic world, journalist Goodwin ( Caught in the Crossfire , LJ 3/15/82) examines the movement that is aggressively spreading a fundamentalist version of Islam throughout much of the world. Her interviews with Muslim women in ten countries both fascinate and disturb, for their candor reveals the movement's profound and often devastating effects on them. Maintaining that Muslims understand the West far better than Westerners understand Islam, Goodwin warns against the Western ethnocentrism that could jeopardize both security and energy resources. Instead, she urges greater understanding of "the world's fastest growing religion" and of its treatment of women, who "are the wind sock showing which way the wind is blowing in the Islamic world"--or as one interviewee put it, "the canaries in the mines." The work itself enhances this understanding. A necessary purchase.
- Cynthia Widmer, Downingtown, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Revised edition (December 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452283779
• ISBN-13: 978-0452283770
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #454,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The reality is plain to see. September 27, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I fail to understand reviewers who dispute the realities coveyed in Jan Goodwin's book. I am a westerner who has lived in a Gulf state for 5 years, and I find the daily assault on the dignity of women harrowing. I have befriended a 21 year old local Moslem women. She is a very smart, ambitious university graduate, but the crushing narrowness of options open to her is terrifying. She can't travel, she can't work in an office with men, she can't even speak to a male in public. She facing an arranged marriage with a cousin, after which her career days are over. The reality is everywhere, plain to see. It just takes a look at the newspapers - recently, the Gulf News (UAE newspaper) reported that a man got a four year sentence for killing his wife by crushing her skull with a rock. The same issue reported that a Sri Lankan housemaid was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Justice? This happened in March in the UAE, which is a relatively liberal Islamic country. As a matter if interest, in every adultery case that I have seen reported, the women gets a heavier sentence than the man. Those who question the reality of the book, wake up. One issue which I don't understand: Moslems say that in the Quran, women are respected. Why do I never see this translated into reality?

69 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I was move to tears and then to action. This book change my March 29, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I almost want to talk with some of these reviewers after reading this book. My Husband has travelled throughout the Midle east and said that much of the book is true. I am a Muslim and would like to first say that Islam as revealed through the Quran and Prophet Muhammad is very different from what is practiced throughout most of the world. Ms.Goodwin was just offering insight she moved me with her vividly written illustations. For all who are LOL you do not live it. I have met some people who live it right here in America. The overall message I think that she is saying is that women are being oppressed because men want power and they are able to exercise power over women in forms that are abusive and it is accepted because it is masked as religion. THIS IS NOT WHAT THE QURAN TEACHES. This book made me want to do something. After starting my family and being an at home Mom for seven years(my choice) I am applying to Law School to try to help women here and abroad. I left this book Knowing that I am Blessed because both my husband and I are Muslim and realize that the cultural aspects of the regions is not Islam or what is revealed in Quran. She points out the irony of what the leaders present and what the practices are. She shows the reality of many women's lives I was move to tears and then to action. This book change my outlook on life not Islam. My best advice is read the book then read the Quran Ahmed Ali has agood translation available at Amazon.com

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Must Read" In Times Like These! November 3, 2001

By Tracy Davis

Format:Mass Market Paperback

This is one of the most informative and interesting books I have read in quite awhile. Jan Goodwin provides an excellent examination of both Islam and Islamists -- not always the same thing, especially in today's world. The first chapter has an understandable recreation of the birth of Islam, and how its prophet, Mohammed, viewed women. This beginning is severely contrasted with the ways in which many Muslim countries treat and sometimes oppress women -- all the while, stating that the Koran allows this behavior. Through interviewing women from several Muslim countries -- Afganistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and others -- Goodwin presents a disturbing picture of how women are depicted and controlled, despite the freedoms guaranteed to them by Islam. There are several surprises: who would have thought that women have more freedom (comparatively) in Iran than in Pakistan, which had a female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto? That women raped in many Muslim countries are blamed and shamed, perhaps even killed by relatives, even if the rape occurred due to home invasion? And that 'hymen restoration surgery' is offered in some countries where if a bride is not a virgin on her wedding night, she will be killed. These examples are just the beginning of an in-depth look Muslim women. Of course, not every situation is negative. Many women have a good sense of what Islam really says about their rights; also, there is a good sense that, as in all religion, the extremists may get the press, but the average believer knows the truth of their beliefs and the rights for both men and women. I have recommended this book to several of my classes as a place to begin studying the background for world events.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Provactive September 18, 2002

By A. Lord

Format:Mass Market Paperback

This book was extremely interesting and very provocative. Goodwin writes well and the stories she recounts are fascinating. The primary weakness of the book is its focus on upper-class women as opposed to women from the working-class but the book is still well worth a read.

I'm surprised to see so many reviewers criticize Goodwin for being anti-Islamic or even wrong. The book is not at all a criticism of Islam-in fact, Goodwin goes out of her way to show the differences between fundamentalism and more traditional forms of Islam (which she argues is extremely liberal in its view of women and their rights). Through a discussion of the legal codes imposed by fundamentalists as well as the coercive tactics used by the Islamicists, Goodwin demonstrates that it is fundamentalism, not Islam, which strips women of their rights (and she points to the dangers of Jewish and Christian fundamentalism in this regard as well).

Critics who claim that the stories Goodwin recounts are not typical would do well to think about the laws in places like Saudi Arabia. It is a fact that women there are forbidden to drive, forbidden to mingle freely with men, forbidden to dress as they please, forbidden to leave the country without male permission etc.-these are the laws and if you think women are pleased by these laws, ask yourself if you would really like to live under these conditions yourself. Critics would also do well to remember that human rights organizations (including Arab groups) have pointed out that the Arab world's backwardness is, in part, a result of their treatment of women (by denying women education and the right to work, these countries handicap themselves by using only half of their potential)....

Many people have pointed out that one of the primary causes for the rise of fundamentalism is the extreme poverty of the Middle East-how ironic to realize that fundamentalism will lead to even greater poverty in the future by denying half the workforce the right to an education and the right to work. Read more ›