Abstract
Femicide is intrinsically part of gender-based violence, and the two are inevitably linked at all levels. Yet, despite having a common origin, there is a need to analyze femicide as a problem that must be recognized, in social and legal terms, as having its own, particular features. To achieve this, an analysis of 102 concepts was carried out through a frequency count in Google Scholar, followed by their categorization, saturating in six dimensions: economic, social, legal, political, ethical, and cultural. The methodology used a higher-order association of hierarchies by establishing a dyad-triad-tetrad model that shows only the most representative combinations extracted from the definitions of greater weight and scope. From this, it emerges that the current concept of femicide is defined on the basis of a dual social-ethical category in view of its frequency of use in Google. This highlights the distance between what, a priori, seems to implicitly allow for any definition of femicide and the existing reality that favors private or institutional interests.
TopIntroduction
Violent behavior against women is commonly accepted in daily life until it manifests in serious events that are in fact the visible extreme of the endogenous processes of violence that surround the phenomenon of femicide. These crimes emerge from a continuum of attitudes and behaviors of rising levels of violence that culminate in a woman's death (Lovera, 2006). This violence requires special attention because it is so socially normalized that even female attitudes can help to perpetuate it. Although the most general way of understanding the concept is as the death of a woman at the hands of a man (particularly one related to her intimate surroundings) as the result of a systematic process of violence, the reality is that the gravity of such an event means that it cannot merely be considered a private matter (ECLAC, 2016). In the public sphere, the institutional structures of society, be they familial, educational, religious or state, are based on patriarchal ideals in which the pre-established role of women has arisen from the idea of intellectual, biological and historical inferiority conferred on them by men. These roles help justify the aggressions against women. In this way, women become doubly victimized and escape from this ambience of violence and access to justice following an attack become impossible (Chejter et al., 2005).
From 1980 onwards1, the struggles of feminist movements succeeded in bringing this problem into the public domain, always with the aim of obtaining legal recognition of the crime. The purpose was to ensure that women's deaths were no longer treated as mere facts pertaining to the general nature of a homicide and that the motivations for these crimes were recognized, analyzed and dealt with as separate phenomena (Cortéz, 2019). However, a gradual and often uphill battle has been necessary to achieve this objective, which in itself highlights the fact that the characteristics that frame femicide have their root in the sense of inferiority and contempt that has been allotted to women in society, and that branch into the different ways in which femicide can manifest (Bourdieu, 2000). This is how the conceptualization of femicide is not limited to a single phenomenon, since it is a concept that evolves and adapts to the various forms of denigration and subjugation that women can fall victim to under the different cultural constructions of society (Medina, 2015).
Perceptions of the crime always place the man as the sole perpetrator of femicide by characterizing the problem as a private affair. However, the impunity often accorded to the man, or the ideological or cultural justification that can be derived from wider society are the crucial factors that make it impossible to eradicate this phenomenon and that perpetuate its existence (Perez & Lizárraga, 2017). Patriarchal mindsets, in which the idea prevails that women are weak or likely to end in ruin without the companionship and care of a man (Manieri, 1978), have produced repression and different forms and degrees of violence, perhaps arising from the human instinct to abuse and prey upon what is seen as inferior or fragile. Therefore, there is a need for a radical change of thought wherein the condition of women within society is not subject to retrograde and conservative ideas.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Abuse: Any intentional action that harms or injures another person, examples of types of abuse, institutional abuse, women abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, etc.
Machismo: Aggressive male behaviour that emphasizes the importance of being strong rather than being intelligent and sensitive.
Femicide: The killing of a woman by an intimate partner and the death of a woman as a result of a practice that is harmful to women. Intimate partner is understood as a former or current spouse or partner, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.
Sexual Violence: Any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments, or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work.
Victim: Someone who has been harmed by crime; person who has suffered from someone's actions.
Patriarchy: A state or stage of social development characterized by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family in both domestic and religious functions, the legal dependence of wife, or wives, and children and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line.
Gender: Refers to the socially-constructed set of expectations, behaviours and activities of women and men which are attributed to them on the basis of their sex.
Gender Violence: Harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, the abuse of power and harmful norms.
Definition of the Crime: A crime is an offence that merits community condemnation and punishment, usually by way of fine or imprisonment.