CALL Women & Education 2/2024

Femicide. Definition, analysis and narratives, tools and means of investigation, and educational policies to combat it

 

There is no doubt that the twentieth century has been the “century of women,” who have won a better, almost equal role in society through education, non-domestic work and greater civil and sexual rights, in the family and in relationships with partners. This form of “social success,” however, is being paid for by women with greater commitment in all fields, struggling hard to obtain roles and careers they did not previously occupy.

In the United States and Mexico in the last decade of the twentieth century and at the beginning of the new century, numerous feminists and scholars begin to denounce the phenomenon of feminicide, which is widespread and present in all social classes and in different countries around the world. Violence against women, a brutal response to their desire to grow and emancipate themselves, is finally defined as an act of violence on the female body and psyche, thus the term “feminicide” emerges. This definition of feminicide, aimed at emphasizing the misogynistic and sexist aspect that has connoted the murders of women by men over the centuries, was mainly contributed by Diana Russell, a U.S. sociologist (1982; 2001), and Marcela Lagarde, a Mexican anthropologist (2004). In Italy a first important social and legal denunciation appears thanks to an important study by Barbara Spinelli entitled: Femminicidio, published in 2008.

The symbolic use of the term “feminicide” in the various political campaigns against gender violence has fostered its worldwide diffusion in the media. It appears from these studies, that have multiplied over the years, how discriminatory policies aimed at preserving the status quo of gender inequality have fostered and sustained this phenomenon of violence against women.

Feminicide occurs in every geographic context, whenever a woman suffers physical, psychological economic, regulatory, social, religious, familial or extrafamilial violence, in short, whenever a woman, because of her gender, cannot exercise the fundamental rights of freedom of humanity.

This issue of W&E tends to retrace two research itineraries, firstly by analyzing and narrating the different forms of violence or discrimination exercised against women because of their gender, and secondly by pointing out the legal and social paths to remove such crimes, both by promoting the spread of equal education in the family, school and work environments, and by proposing at the political level a greater spread of anti-violence centers and shelters for women victims of violence. Special attention can be paid to the training of educators and teachers aimed at promoting teaching-learning processes that, from early childhood, nurture a culture of equality and respect

 

Deadline:

Submission of abstract (in Italian and English) to email addresses w&e@pensamultimedia.it;

simonetta.ulivieri@unifi.it: 30/06/2024.

Response to Authors/Authors for acceptance of contributions: 15/07/2024.

Upload by the Authors/Authors of the full paper to the journal's OJS platform in the Pensa Multimedia journal area to be followed by double-blind refereeing: 30/09/2024.

Languages accepted: French, English, Italian, Spanish, German.

Publication by 31/12/2024.

Regarding the writing of essays, please refer to the editorial standards