Op-Ed Style Post #2: Based on Short Paper No.2: Femicide: An Ignored Problem in the United States

“Well I was and yet I was invisible, that was the fundamental contradiction. I was and yet I was unseen.” Ralph Ellison (1952). This statement eloquently illustrates how femicide persists in the United States today as it has done throughout history. The lack of the term in American society shows how invisible women’s murders are despite their severity and scope. There were 1,604 women killed by men they knew in the US in 2020. In line with the worldwide pattern of femicide, this seems to be happening in the United States too. Despite having a strong feminist presence, the US hasn’t kept up with the rest of the world in terms of putting a name to the problem. Many countries across the world frequently use the terms femicide and feminicide and some have even enacted policies. In contrast, this problem of gendered violence remains nameless and largely ignored in the United States. There seems to be a lack of attention from both the public and private sectors despite the problem’s severity and scope. I want to emphasize that without a label, it’s hard to draw attention to the issue and make it a social issue. There have been a lot of social problems throughout history that are blatant, but when they stay nameless, invisible, and unspoken, little can be done about them. Often, unnamed societal problems go unnoticed for years. Without public attention, the mass media cannot report on it, social movements cannot emerge, and legislators cannot enact laws and legislation. Examples of this occurring in the United States include the discovery of child abuse. It was not until the mid-1960s that laws were enacted to protect children. Before this, they were essentially unprotected under the law since no laws existed protecting them from abusive parents or guardians. Once the label was created, people were able to advocate for laws, and change was pushed forward. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls movement and Black femicide are current issues that relate to femicide in the US. It is not comparable to the amount of media coverage other movements or news have received, such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Furthermore, both cases involve women who have been killed largely due to their gender. A compelling argument can be made that each of these cases constitutes feminicide, as the US government has failed to adequately intervene to prevent such abuse from occurring. Due to our society’s heavy patriarchy, murders of Black and Indigenous women are directly related to their gender. A lower social status probably influences how the government responds as well. As an example, the Mexican state failed to intervene when many women were murdered in Ciudad Juarez in the 1990s. Many people attribute the government’s failure to act to the fact that they were women and low status. I have aimed to demonstrate how femicide and feminicide remain largely ignored in the United States because there are no labels for them. We might be able to bring more attention to this issue if we embraced the terms. The use of such framing in other countries around the world has been quite successful in bringing about this change by showing that it violates women’s human rights. In the absence of naming the problem, the United States suffers from the phenomenon without gaining sufficient attention. I believe we should look at what other countries who suffer from the same condition have done to encourage recognition and even legislation. The fact that these other countries have adopted laws, such as Mexico, does not mean that the problem has been solved. In no way am I implying that everything has been resolved. However, recognizing that a problem exists, naming it, and creating a law, etc. creates the momentum for meaningful conversations to be held and lasting changes to be implemented. It is a slow and arduous process but worth all of the work.

Ellison, Ralph. (1952) Invisible Man. New York: Random House.