Why Not Femi(ni)cide?: The Cultural Politics of Naming Gender-Based Killing in the U.S.

carla escobar, yale university

This paper explores why femicide failed to resonate within U.S. feminist movements and broader civic conversations despite efforts by activists in the 1970s-1990s to raise awareness. Through archival research, the paper examines three significant events that highlighted lethal violence against women: the serial killings of Black women in Boston (1979), the killings in San Francisco and Los Angeles (1981-1985), and the Montreal Massacre (1989), where 14 women were killed for being feminists. It analyzes how these events, though significant in feminist activism, did not successfully shift the U.S. societal understanding of femicide as a distinct and urgent social problem. The study contrasts this with the successful societalization of femicide in Mexico, where the term was institutionalized and became a symbol of systemic violence against women. By analyzing archival materials from organizations like the Clearinghouse on Femicide and Take Back the Night, the paper highlights the cultural and institutional barriers that prevented femicide from becoming a recognized term in U.S. feminist and public discourse.

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 Presented in Session 39. Gender- Based Violence and anti-Feminism in Online and Offline Spaces