ICE MOUNTAIN
by KATARINA VISINTIN
This time I would like to dedicate this space to a battle that is very close to my heart. Violence against women. I know that many people wave their hands at this phrase because they have heard it so many times. That is why I am writing it again. Because it concerns every individual and the wider society. Because the numbers prove that this is a social problem that still exists. It smolders like embers and, even if some try to cover it with ashes again, it does not go out. Because it exists among your co-workers, neighbors, relatives and friends.
Let’s first look at what the data says, on both sides of the border. In Italy, 97 women were murdered last year. 87 of them died at home, in the family or in a partnership. In 62 cases, the murderer was a partner or ex-partner. The number is lower than the year before. Nevertheless, there are still 62 women who were killed by the man with whom they shared their lives. That’s about five per month. On November 25 last year, Istat added an even broader picture, confirming that almost a third of Italian women, just over six million, have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. The danger does not come from strangers, but from partners, relatives and acquaintances. Of these women, only more than 13 percent report them. In Slovenia, the picture is different in scope, not in substance. According to the Statistical Office, 28 percent of women who have ever lived in a relationship have experienced at least one form of violence from a partner, most often psychological, and more than 12 percent have experienced physical or sexual violence. For almost half of them, the violence lasted for more than five years, which is significantly more than the EU average. About one in five reported it to the police, although almost two-thirds of women told someone about it. Last year, police handled more than 1,100 cases of domestic violence and issued more than 900 restraining orders.
Two years ago, I chose this very topic for my thesis, namely how journalists write about violence against women. Only then did I really learn what this violence means. When we hear “violence against women”, most of us think of murder. We must be aware that femicide is only the tip of the iceberg. It is the most extreme act in a system based on gender inequality. It is usually preceded by other forms of violence and abuse that are still ignored or underestimated by society and institutions today. The word femicide itself was coined in 1976. It was introduced by Diana Russell to name the murder of a woman because she is a woman, and to take this experience out of the formless category of “murder” in which she had previously lost herself.
So what lies beneath the surface? The United Nations Declaration defines violence against women as any act that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to a woman, including threats, coercion and arbitrary deprivation of liberty. It is therefore not just about hitting or beating. This also includes psychological violence, physical, sexual, economic and verbal violence, stalking, rape and, finally, femicide.
These are actions that are subtly hidden in everyday life. I’m referring to the scenes when someone humiliates you with laughter, when someone touches you at a celebration without permission, when you simply don’t have your own account and always have to ask your husband for money, when a stranger is staring at you on the bus. Then there is the stalking of your partner after a breakup, who doesn’t allow you to go to the park in peace. None of this makes it to the newspapers. And yet, almost every story that we end up just reading too late starts like this.
This is exactly what I understood in my thesis only with time. Violence against women is not a series of individual riots, it is a historical constant of society and its culture, which normalizes violence in private and public spaces. Roots that go back to the unequal distribution of power between men and women reinforce control, social roles and its stereotypes. And that is why the word “tragedy” in newspaper headlines bothers me so much. Tragedies are unexpected. Femicide, however, is not. It has its beginning, its stages and its witnesses.