The power of feminicidio

Mexican anthropologist Marcela Lagarde Rios used the term feminicidio in 2006 when she translated Femicide: The Politics of Women Killing (a collective work edited by Diana Russell and Jill Radford) as Feminicidio: La politica del asesinato de las mujeres. The book applies feminist theory to show that people inflict much global violence against women and girls because of their gender. Forms of violence include pornography and genital mutilation used in attempts to control women and their sexuality. In this context femicide is not homicide but a "misogynist murder"—a hate crime against women. It is pervasive and unacknowledged because people use culture and social norms to justify, ignore and accept the phenomenon as a normal feature of the male-female relationship.

Lagarde Rios explains that although the exact Spanish translation for femicide is femicidio, she chose to translate the meaning into feminicidio because "in Spanish femicidio is a homologue of homicide and means only the murder of women". Lagarde Rios wanted to ensure that people would understand the term feminicidio in reference to hate crimes specifically committed against women. This would prevent it from becoming generalized and meaningless.

Mexican activists first coined the term feminicidio in the late 1990s to refer to frequent murders of women in Ciudad Juarez, where a killer kidnapped, sexually abused, killed and dumped them on wasteland. However, the idea that feminicidio refers exclusively to this type of crime is a common stereotype. Lagarde Rios says that although the categorisation of the typical Juarez victim as a young, poor, sweatshop worker is valid, not all victims of violent crime fall in the same category.

In feminicidio as a gender hate crime, Lagarde Rios stresses that in most cases partners murder women at home. This means that the wider definition of feminicidio encompasses violent sexual assault committed by strangers and attacks perpetrated at home by someone close to the victim. Feminist research shows the latter is the type of violence most likely to affect women in any culture or country.

Lagarde Rios asserts that femicide exists in Mexico and other places because of a misogynistic culture that ignores violence against women and blames them for the violence they suffer. Investigators have not adequately probed the Juarez murders, despite related rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In fact, to avoid further investigation in criminal cases, authorities often cite victims of unknown attackers as prostitutes; and say that women killed at home chose to be in relationships with violent men. When officials do investigate these crimes, incompetence and failure to enforce the law usually allow murderers to escape punishment (see Nadia Alejandra and Rubi Escobedo).

Campaigns against femicide in Mexico have helped enact institutional policies to prevent violence against women. During her term as a federal deputy in Mexico, Lagarde Rios helped pass the 2007 General Law to Provide Women with Access to a Life Free of Violence. This law defines violence against women as misogynistic violence against women who are in imbalanced relationships characterized by physical, psychological, sexual and economic abuse. It says that feminicidio is an extreme form of this violence, which often causes death.

Other measures in place to ensure that officials properly investigate hate crimes against women include Fevimtra—Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Women and People Trafficking—and the National Fund for Alerts Against Gender Violence.

Activists are currently campaigning for authorities to codify feminicidio into the laws of different states, such as Chihuahua, home to Ciudad Juarez. Mexico City has already done this, but people wonder if legislation is enough to extract misogyny and racism from institutions. Without an effort to educate investigators, will Mexico ever learn what happened to people like Nadia and Rubi?

Nonetheless, I find that it is helpful to use feminicidio to describe violence inflicted on women because they are women. Doing so promotes awareness about the problem. When we name feminicidio to describe situations where killers ended the lives of their female partners, we assert the severity of crimes that qualified personnel must investigate. Words are power, and in this case a powerful word could be a precursor to justice.

Cath Andrews is a professor of Mexican history.