When The Personal Is Political: The Increase of Female Homicides During COVID-19

Proceedings of ‏The Global Conference on Women’s Studies

Year: 2020

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/womensconf.2020.12.126

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When The Personal Is Political: The Increase of Female Homicides During COVID-19

Kalfa Maria

 

ABSTRACT: 

Recently during the pandemic, a social problem has emerged and come to the fore, which is still treated in some countries like Greece as a ‘private / family affair’. “Passion crimes”, “jealousy”, “honor” often describe in the journalistic discourse crimes of sexual violence, which deprive many women of their lives around the world. More specifically, according to recent UN data, on average, 137 women around the world are murdered daily by their partner or a relative. The term homicide is used for the murders of women and girls, for murders committed because of their gender. This term became known to the general public after the latest incidents of gender-based violence in Greece that cost the lives of girls and women who were murdered solely because of their gender. The purpose of this article is to highlight issues related to the murder of women, to highlight issues related to the power how this ‘power’ is cultivated by the direct and indirect environment. The family and wider social context teaches us to be ‘resistant’ to the expression of aggression and persistence of boys, forgetting that in this way the conditions are created for the legitimation of the exercise of power (physical, etc.).

Keywords: homicides, gender-based violence, Discourses, covid-19.