The form of gendercide we see in the news is femicide (also called feminicide).  This is the deliberate killing of women in a context where there is no reciprocal killing of men — as in dowry murders, honor killings, femicide, and the rampant murder of indigenous women (called MMIW, for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women) .  Typically the victims are teen girls and young women.9

Femicide accounts for about 3% of gendercide.   Although the number of women killed in these ways is dwarfed by other forms of gendercide, the killings have special significance because of their sheer brutality.  They terrify women into submission and reinforce patriarchal norms.  In many countries, these crimes are neither investigated nor prosecuted, making women’s rights and equality with men a practical impossibility.

In Latin America, killing of women (el feminicidio) has climbed to unprecedented levels in the last decade. Drug cartels and para-military activity have exacerbated violence against women in these already macho societies.  To make matters worse, drug cartels are expanding into sex trafficking because it is more profitable and less risky (for them).  This contributes to the rising number of female deaths.10

In the US and Canada, the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) has emerged in the news after decades of law enforcement neglect and media yawning. In the US, these deaths were neither reported nor investigated due to jurisdictional disputes and uncertainty as to whether tribal, county, state, or federal law enforcement should handle them.  Recent Congressional legislation now requires tracking of these deaths and protocols to establish jurisdiction and swift investigation.11

A word about terminology:  femicide, or”feminicide,” is the killing of women in contexts where there is no equivalent of killing men.  Femicide includes intimate partner murder (the culmination of behaviors in which a man seeks to intimidate and control his partner), dowry murder,  honor killing, and the killing of women associated with rival groups (gangs, tribes) as a strike against the group’s men.  The asymmetry of femicide leads advocates to define it, rather confusingly, as “killing a woman because she is a woman.”  Women do occasionally kill their male partners, but rarely as the culmination of behaviors intended to intimidate and control.