Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T02:25:36.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Love Kills: Power, Gender Dichotomy, and Romantic Femicide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Federica Gregoratto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article conceptually investigates a type of gender murder, “romantic femicide.” I understand this as the extreme form of violence that occurs as a result of men's incapacity to cope with their (female) partners’ autonomy and power. The incapacity is not merely an individual pathology but is rather rooted in the dynamic of recognition characterizing love under structural conditions of gender dichotomy. After having sketched out the current discussion about femicide and its shortcomings, I argue for the hypothesis in three steps. First, I draw on a feminist theory of recognition in order to outline a nonviolent form of love. Lovers of this sort would depend on their partners and, at the same time, try to affirm their independence of them. Second, I show how such an interdependence bond would entail a dynamic of mutual empowerment. Third, I argue that love becomes a relation of domination as result of gender dichotomy. The dichotomization of two gender identities, “man” and “woman,” splits the interdependence bond in a way that allows only man's unilateral exercise of power and makes mutual empowerment impossible. Violence might be required for maintaining the dynamic of dominance; finally, romantic femicide may result from the unsustainability of such a structure.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 32 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Feminist Love Studies, Winter 2017 , Winter 2017 , pp. 135 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. 2013. Americanah. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Adorno, Theodor W. 2005. Minima moralia: Reflections on a damaged life (1951). New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Agnello Hornby, Simonetta, and Calloni, Marina. 2013. Il male che si deve raccontare: Per cancellare la violenza domestica. Milan: Feltrinelli.Google Scholar
Allen, Amy. 1999. The power of feminist theory: Domination, resistance, solidarity. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Allen, Amy, Forst, Rainer, and Haugaard, Mark. 2014. Power, reason, justice, domination: A conversation. Journal of Political Power 7 (1): 7–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Beauvoir, Simone. 2011. The Second Sex. Trans. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany‐Chevallier. London: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Jessica. 1980. The bonds of love: Rational violence and erotic domination. Feminist Studies 6 (1): 144–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benjamin, Jessica. 1988. The bonds of love: Psychoanalysis, feminism, and the problem of domination. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Jessica. 1995. Like subjects, love objects: Essays on recognition and sexual difference. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ben‐Ze'ev, Aaron, and Goussinsky, Ruhama. 2008. In the name of love: Romantic ideology and its victims. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. 2008. Taking another's view: Ambivalent implications. In Reification: A new look at an old idea, ed. Honneth, Axel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Caputi, Jane. 2001. Advertising femicide: Lethal violence against women in pornography and gorenography. In Femicide in global perspective, ed. Russell, Diana E. H. and Harmes, Roberta A.New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Caputi, Jane, and Russell, Diana E. H. 1990. Femicide: Speaking the unspeakable. Ms.: The World of Women 1 (2): 34–37.Google Scholar
Chawla, Sandeep. 2012. Welcome remarks. In Femicide: A global issue that demands action, ed. Laurent, Claire, Platzer, Michael, and Idomir, Maria. Vienna: Academic Council on the United Nation System (ACUNS).Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Donald A. 1996. More than victims: Battered women, the syndrome society, and the law. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 2004. The reasons of love. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 1998. Romantic love and personal autonomy. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 22: 162–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gazzola, Monica. 2010. Amore violento. In Il corpo delle donne, ed. Zanardo, Lorella. Milan: Feltrinelli.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1993. The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love, and eroticism in modern societies. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Helm, Bennett W. 2009. Love, friendship, and the self: Intimacy, identification, and the social nature of persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Honneth, Axel. 1995. The struggle for recognition: The moral grammar of social conflicts. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Honneth, Axel. 2014. Freedom's right. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howe, Adrian. 2014. Fatal love. Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity 2 (1): 4–24.Google Scholar
Illouz, Eva. 1997. Consuming the romantic utopia. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Illouz, Eva. 2013. Why love hurts: A sociological explanation. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Jónasdóttir, Anna G. 1994. Why women are oppressed. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Jónasdóttir, Anna G. 2011. What kind of power is love power? In Sexuality, gender and power: Intersectional and transnational perspectives, ed. Jónasdóttir, Anna G., Bryson, Valerie, and Jones, Kathleen B.New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jónasdóttir, Anna G., and Ferguson, Ann, eds. 2014. Love: A question for feminism in the twenty‐first century. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva F. 1999. Love's labor: Essays on women, equality, and dependency. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Laurent, Claire, Platzer, Michael, and Idomir, Maria, eds. 2012. Femicide: A global issue that demands action. Vienna: Academic Council on the United Nation System (ACUNS).Google Scholar
Lipperini, Loredana, and Murgia, Michela. 2013. “L'ho uccisa perché l'amavo”: Falso!. Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 2005. Power: A radical view. New York: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1989. Love's bond. In Examined life: Philosophical meditations. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Radford, Jill. 1992. Introduction. In Femicide: The politics of woman killing, ed. Radford, Jill and Russell, Diana E. H.New York: McMillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Radford, Jill, and Russell, Diana E. H., eds. 1992. Femicide: The politics of woman killing. New York: McMillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Russell, Diana E. H. 1990. Rape in marriage. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Diana E. H. 2012. “Femicide”: The power of a name. In Femicide: A global issue that demands action, ed. Laurent, Claire, Platzer, Michael, and Idomir, Maria. Vienna: Academic Council on the United Nation System (ACUNS).Google Scholar
Russell, Diana E. H., and Harmes, Roberta A., eds. 2001. Femicide in global perspective. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Spinelli, Barbara. 2008. Femminicidio: Dalla denuncia sociale al riconoscimento giuridico internazionale. Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Spinelli, Barbara. 2012. Femicide in Europe. In Femicide: A global issue that demands action, ed. Laurent, Claire, Platzer, Michael, and Idomir, Maria. Vienna: Academic Council on the United Nation System (ACUNS).Google Scholar
Wartenberg, Thomas E. 1990. The forms of power: From domination to transformation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Eleanor. 2012. The romantic imaginary: Compulsory coupledom and single existence. In Sexualities: Past reflections, future directions, ed. Hines, Sally and Taylor, Yvette. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Wilson, Margo, and Daly, Martin. 1992. Till death us do part. In Femicide: The politics of woman killing, ed. Radford, Jill and Russell, Diana E. H.New York: McMillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Yodanis, Carrie L. 2004. Gender inequality, violence against women, and fear: A cross‐national test of the feminist theory of violence against women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 19 (6): 655–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed