Introduction

Following the media coverage of several murders of ethnicised young women, risks associated with gender-related violence in minority ethnic communities in Britain are high on the public and political agenda (Gill, 2003; CPS, 2004). Why are the risks faced by young ethnicised women being highlighted by national and local mainstream agencies now? In this chapter we aim to unpack how risks that some young women face are constructed and heightened in the current climate of risk in relation to multiculturalism and Islamophobia in Britain. We argue that young women from some minority ethnic communities living in the UK are exposed to particular forms of risk. As gendered subjects they experience greater risk within both the cultural relativism of the British multicultural discourse and the private–public divide that characterises the domestic violence discourse. Multiculturalism, which is underpinned by notions of ‘respecting diversity and valuing cultural difference’, has for the most part engendered non-intervention when dealing with domestic violence rooted in cultural and religious practices in the private sphere of the home. However, in this chapter we also suggest that young women's risk is heightened because they ‘slip through the cracks’ of the multicultural discourse. Since 11 September and the 7 July bombings in Britain, young ethnicised women have become highly visible, but now they are contained and constructed in the public consciousness within a discourse of fear and risk posed by the presence of the Muslim alien ‘other’.

It is said that we are living in a ‘risk society’, however in the case of ethnicised young women and honour killings we have to be cautious of what risks are being selected for public attention and what risks are being marginalised. It is argued that risk theory pays insufficient attention to the role played by gender, age, social class, ‘race’, ethnicity and nationality in constructing differing forms of risk knowledge and experiences (Adam and van Loon, 2000). Lash (1993) suggests that we need to consider the way in which people respond to risk as members of cultural subgroups rather than as atomised individuals. He asserts the importance of understanding group membership, traditional conventions and social categories in structuring our moral values, assumptions and practices in responses to risk.

Slipping through the ‘racial equality’ cracks

The uncompromising recommendations of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry with regard to institutional racism generated widespread political and public response and commitment to racial equality. However, in their efforts to avoid being labelled as institutionally racist, few organisations reflected on the gendered nature of their racial equality policies and practices. Few have stopped to consider that the Lawrence Inquiry was an all-male committee and may therefore have had a male-centred view of racism. In terms of racial equality, it is still a man's world. Thirty years on, the African-American women's saying of the 1970s – “all the women are white and all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave” – still holds true (Hull et al, 1982). Gender is still seen as a white woman's issue, while it is taken for granted that ‘race’ is a black male issue. Black and minority ethnic women appear to fall into the cracks between the two. They are often invisible, occupying a ‘blind spot’ in mainstream policy and research studies that talk about women on the one hand or ethnic minorities on the other.

Black and minority ethnic women still do not seem to be part of the race equality picture of the new millennium. The ‘new language’ of racial equality and inclusion, in the context of the liberal democratic discourse on equality and anti-discrimination, has been constructed around the dominant masculine agenda of objectives and targets, enforcement and evaluation, recruitment and audit (CRE, 2001). The pervasive discourse on social inclusion through ‘respecting diversity and achieving equality’ has at its core the concept of the ‘recognition of difference’. However, the social construction of ‘difference’ does not include the invisible or messy contradictions black women pose by their presence. Diversity is now about good public relations and inclusivity as good business sense (Fredman, 2002): it is more about ‘getting the right people for the job on merit’ and the ‘business benefits of a more diverse workforce’ (Cabinet Office, 2001). It is not, then, about removing exclusionary barriers to participation and equal access. However, when we read of the commitment of public sector organisations to ‘meeting needs’, ‘facilitating access’, ‘flexibility’, ‘embracing difference’, and ‘working in partnership’ with black and minority ethnic people (Cabinet Office 2002), it is assumed that racial equality and social exclusion are gender-neutral experiences.