Femicide (murders Of Women): Definition, Types And Causes
Inequality and gender violence are recurring in the history of societies. With the advancement of feminist movements, these issues have acquired much greater visibility than they had a few decades ago in much of the world.
In this article we will define the different types of feminicide the most extreme consequence of gender violence, and we will analyze what its causes are from a psychosocial perspective.
The term “feminicide” refers to a specific type of homicide in which a man murders a woman, girl or girl because she is female. Unlike other types of murder, femicides They usually occur in the home as a result of gender violence They are also categorized within hate crimes, given that they occur in a context in which the feminine has been stigmatized for years.
The word “feminicide” is in dispute; There are authors who affirm that it includes any murder whose victim is a woman, regardless of the gender of the person who commits it or what her motivations are.
Femicide is the most extreme manifestation of abuse and violence from men to women. It occurs as a consequence of any type of gender violence, such as physical attacks, rape, forced motherhood or genital mutilation.
Data and statistics
It is estimated that every year Around 66 thousand femicides are perpetrated in the world However, it must be taken into account that the number of cases of gender violence tends to be underestimated and that many countries do not differentiate between homicides and femicides.
While 80% of murder victims are men, when we talk specifically about family or intimate homicide the percentage of men drops to a third. This is one of the factors that explain why feminicide requires to be distinguished from the rest of the murders
The countries with the highest rates of feminicide are El Salvador, Jamaica, Guatemala, South Africa and Russia. More than half of the 25 countries with the highest rate of femicides are in America; In addition to those mentioned, the list includes Honduras, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.
Killer’s motivations
The motivation for the crime is one of the main peculiarities of feminicide in relation to other types of homicide.
According to Diana Russell, who is credited with popularizing the word “femicide,” some of the main motivations for these murders They are anger, hatred, jealousy and the pursuit of pleasure.
Other variables that Russell considers relevant are misogyny, the sense of gender superiority and the conception of women as possession These variables are culturally transmitted and favor violence by men towards women.
On the other hand, murders of women within a couple are also statistically linked to the consumption of alcohol or other drugs by the murderer, although these actions cannot be attributed solely to a purely biochemical phenomenon.
Types of feminicide
Diana Russell and other authors have proposed different types of feminicide that differ above all in the relationship between the victim and the murderer and in the motivation for the crime
1. Intimate and familiar
While family femicides are committed by men within your close or extended family the concept “intimate feminicide” is usually used to talk about the murder of the partner or ex-partner, regardless of the legal relationship between the two people.
Intimate feminicide is related to the consumption of alcohol and other substances and accounts for 35% of all murders of women (not only those committed by men), which makes it the most frequent of all types of feminicide.
Honor killing is a special type of feminicide which is committed against women who are said to have dishonored the family. Common reasons for “dishonor” include being a victim of rape and being accused of adultery.
Likewise, dowry murders are perpetrated in India, Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh. After marriage, the husband’s family harasses and tortures the wife as a method of extortion to obtain a larger dowry. In these cases the woman may be driven to suicide or be murdered, often burned alive when her family does not agree to pay.
2. Lesbicide
It is not difficult to find historical periods in which the murder of women as punishment for being homosexual was legal. For example, in 13th century France a law was passed according to which women had to have a limb amputated the first two times they had sex with women, while the third time they had to be burned.
A crime similar and frequently linked to lesbicide is corrective rape ; consisting of sexually abusing a homosexual woman with the aim of making her behave as if she were heterosexual or simply as punishment. It is a way of trying to impose a supposed “natural order” through violence and power.
Today homosexuality, both in women and men, continues to be condemned by most religions and is illegal in countries such as Iran, Libya, India, Pakistan, Morocco and Nigeria. These conditions promote violence against homosexual people since they legitimize it from the institutions.
3. Racial feminicide
In racial femicides the gender component is added to an ethnic factor : In these cases the murderer kills the victim both for being a woman and for having cultural and physical traits different from his own. It is a mixture of elements that generate hatred in a totally irrational way, although culturally induced by historical dynamics of discrimination.
In this type of murder, racism not only influences the commission of the crime, but also the fact that the victim is from a less socially valued ethnic group can interfere with the resolution of the case, the legal process and the image that the media give of the deceased.
4. Serial feminicide
This type of femicide usually occurs when a man repeatedly kills women for sexual pleasure sadistic In general, these murders occur due to trauma or asphyxiation.
The victims of serial femicides, like other non-intimate femicides, are more frequently women who work as waitresses or prostitutes.
Serial feminicide is sometimes attributed to pornography, especially that which eroticizes violence. From a gender perspective, this may be due to the normalization of violence that occurs in these pieces of fiction. However, this relationship has not been demonstrated at the moment. It is likely that the use of these materials is not a predisposing factor to carry out the crimes, but rather is part of the preparation process through the act of fantasizing about rape and murder.
Psychological explanations of gender violence
Although gender violence and feminicide could be explained in very different ways from different theoretical orientations, we will focus on two examples: symbolic interactionism and evolutionary psychology.
Symbolic interactionism and patriarchy
Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical current of sociology, social psychology and anthropology that proposes that people We jointly construct symbols that give meaning to reality in its different aspects, guiding our behavior in relation to them.
From this orientation, feminicide could be explained as a consequence of the differences in the roles given to each gender by many societies: it is understood that the public sphere should be controlled by men and women are relegated to reproduction and taking care of the home.
This social structure is often called “patriarchy.” which is supported by written laws and/or implicit norms that reinforce and condition differentiated behavior patterns based on biological sex.
According to sociologist Sylvia Walby, patriarchal structures are manifested in the greater probability that women have of receiving abuse, of taking care of the home and children, of being poorly represented in the media and in popular culture, of earning less than men for the same job and for their sexuality to be seen in a negative way. They also tend to be underrepresented in areas of power and decision-making.
The conception of women as inferior to men makes the social meaning of these murders less negative in more patriarchal environments. From this it could be deduced that there is a greater probability of gender violence and therefore feminicide if the law and culture do not penalize it.
The concept of patriarchy serves to introduce a very relevant dimension to the conception of the problem of feminicide. This makes it not an isolated problem that can be simply reduced to the violent tendencies of some individuals, but rather has to do with the situation of submission of the female gender and the situation of dominance of the male gender.
So, this inherited vulnerability and from economic, political and social causes, it results in deaths of helpless people, who do not see their rights protected by the society in which they live, given that it protects privileges that have nothing to do with the way of life of the majority of people. women. As a result, feminicide should be analyzed from the perspective of the gender perspective.
Evolutionary and biological perspectives
Differences in gender roles are often attributed to the biology of men and women. In particular, it is often mentioned that men have higher levels of testosterone , a sex hormone that influences aggression, dominance and risk taking. However, hormonal differences have not been shown to be responsible for differences in the behavior of men and women.
It has also been proposed that the fact that women become pregnant historically influenced the development of societies since the beginning of humanity, especially after the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle.
From these perspectives the existing biological differences between genders tend to be highly valued, to the detriment of sociocultural influences, such as religion. In any case, it is assumed that in general violence against women, and specifically murders in which they are the victims, cannot be explained solely from the analysis of biological categories such as genes or hormonal differences. This is because although there are clear physical differences between both sexes, any behavioral pattern incorporates a previous learning history that greatly influences its appearance and way of expressing itself.
What can be done?
The measures to be taken to fight femicides cannot focus on just one of the sources of the problem, because everything starts from a problem with several levels of complexity: psychological, psycho-social, and sociopolitical.
Therefore, everything must go through changes at the individual level (development of prevention and mental health programs) and collective level. The latter not only imply changes in culture and sensitivity towards the violence suffered by many women; Furthermore, they include material and objective measures: urban planning that promotes street safety, prison policies that protect victims, etc.
