Femicide—the killing of a female because of her gender—is becoming an increased object of sociological enquiry, rectifying years of invisibility. The article presents results from ethnographic interviews with three migrant women who survived “failed femicides.” A “failed femicide” is defined as an attempted femicide where the medical examination of the victim confirmed a life-threatening event, the victim had been hospitalized in emergency, and she or the perpetrator had described the event as an attempted murder. It is argued that failed femicides should be added to the growing literature on domestic violence, on the one hand, and femicide, on the other. The article presents narratives from three survivors of failed femicide attempts among Ethiopian female migrants in Israel. They present an interesting contrast to large-scale, quantitative, ethnocentric, male-oriented studies of femicide focusing on Western women. Since few women actually survive femicide attempts, the nature of the small sample should not deter the scholar from the depth of migrant women’s plights.
The survivor narratives were analyzed by means of thematic analysis. The analysis produced five key categories: village society in Ethiopia; cycle of domestic violence; motive; weapon; and recourse to authorities. The themes provided understanding into these migrant women’s subjective experiences and the ways they understood events. While no generalizations can be made, the article may encourage comparisons with other failed femicide survivor narratives from other migrant women originating and residing in different settings. With the increase of migrants the world over, non-Western survivor narratives may become an increasingly important tool for policy-makers and for academics to understand how femicides occur, how migrant women perceive them, and how they can be combated
The sociological literature on femicide, compared to intimate partner and other forms of gender violence, is scarce. While feminist sociology has addressed the inaudibility of women, femicide remains invisible. Femicide rates are social facts worthy of sociological attention. Like suicide, femicide has to be defined and analysed according to type. The article postulates possible reasons for the invisibility of the phenomenon, such as the unpleasantness of the subject, scope, its conception as a radical feminist idea, fuzziness, its identification with other concepts like genocide, and methodological difficulties in researching it because of the impossibility of researching dead women first-hand, missing data and the difficulties in comparing data cross-nationally. None of the seven posited hypotheses could account for the dearth of sociological literature on the subject. Suggestions for enhancing the visibility of femicide are made, with a call to unearth the phenomenon and remove its invisibility in sociology.
Almost four decades have passed since the term femicide was coined in 1976. This new word had a political purpose, in that it intended to produce changes in the social order which tolerated the violent death of women. Since that time, the word has generated a theoretical concept that encompasses the killing of a woman as a specific social phenomenon. Femicide is an effort in sociological imagination that has been successful in transforming conventional perception, public awareness, scientific research and policy making. This article undertakes to review how femicide has evolved in social research. It analyses the most important theories explaining femicide: the feminist, sociological, criminological, human rights and decolonial research approaches and their theoretical significance. It discusses Mexico as a case study, exemplifying how a new English term was then translated into another language and applied in a very specific socio-political context, so that it became instrumental in changing reality and improving the lives of women. Finally, the article proposes a framework where femicide is understood as a social phenomenon that demands an interdisciplinary approach. The authors recommend a systemic, multifaceted model in order to improve both scientific analysis and prevention.
Following its defeat in the Second World War, Germany began to reevaluate its cultural assets. Critiques of "black pedagogy" and its effects on child-rearing practices led to the liberalization of the German family. Parents and kindergarten teachers began to promote values such as responsibility and autonomy, and it appeared that "black pedagogy" would become a thing of the past. The present paper assesses this claim by engaging in a qualitative analysis of interviews with eighty Israelis who live in Germany, coupled with one hundred further responses to an online questionnaire. The findings suggest that, in contrast to the notion that child-rearing methods have changed, the troubling practices of the past have persisted. While confirming the presence of values such as autonomy, politeness and pacifism, respondents reported on the stubborn presence of blind obedience to disciplinary measures aimed at preserving order. After presenting those findings, the paper assesses the effects of this persistent pedagogy, finding both a lack of creativity and lack of empathy in German adults. In the child-rearing practices of the early 21st century, Israelis see characteristics that may have provided fertile ground for the Holocaust. They perceptively discern the character traits that allowed ordinary Germans to collaborate with the Nazi regime. It may be that the Israeli cultural trauma magnifies those perceptions, but the respondents insist that traces of black pedagogy can still be found in Germany today. Some even fear that if this pedagogy persists, it could once again lead to a repeat of what happened during the Third Reich; this time, in the seemingly multicultural and modern liberal country of Germany.