Femicide is the killing of women because of their gender. It can refer to mass murders of women or individual crimes directed at women, such as spousal abuse or honor killings. Femicide is a hate crime that targets women because of misogyny or sexism. It is a form of gendercide and can also include passive forms of killing, such as neglecting girl children.
Femicide is, in a general sense, the killing of women precisely because they are women. However, this term can have several applications and a single meaning is not necessarily all-encompassing. It can describe a mass murder of women, akin to genocide, directed only towards a gender rather than a similar cultural or ethnic background. Femicide can also refer to other forms of homicide perpetrated specifically against women, such as the killing of women by their partners or husbands and “honor killings” of female family members and wives.
In general, femicide is seen as a hate crime that specifically targets women because of the misogyny or sexism felt by the perpetrator against the victim. The term was first coined in the early 19th century and was initially used as a general term to refer to the murder of a female victim; it has since been refined to have more specific meanings. It is generally easier to differentiate homicides with female victims from feminicides by considering the gender of the victim and the attitudes of the killer. If the victim was killed because she was a woman, it usually qualifies as femicide.
The term “feminicide” generally has two main applications: one is on a large scale and the other has a narrower focus. As a large-scale term, it is typically used in a similar way to “genocide,” referring to mass murders of women or women simply because they are women. This can be used in a situation like the targeted killings of women in some countries, especially lesbians or poor women. It can also refer to practices in countries where boy children are more valued than girls and girls may be left to starve or otherwise die. Passive femicide of this kind is just as destructive as more active crimes and still qualifies in the sense that it is carried out specifically against women.
Femicide can also refer to individual crimes that form a larger pattern and are directed at women. This can include situations of spousal abuse, targeting a woman in a relationship, eventually escalating until the woman is killed. There are also some cultures or countries where “honor killings” targeting women can occur. Such murders are usually committed by a family member or a woman’s husband who has acted in a way that has “disgraced” her family, and the woman is killed to restore this lost honour. Femicide is used as a specific form of “gendercide”, which refers to any killing that targets a specific gender, and is in contrast to killings that target men or “viricide”.
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