Femicidio: la forma più estrema di violenza contro le donne / Fémicide : la forme la plus extrême de violence faite aux femmes / Femicide: the most extreme form of violence against women

Femicide, as the extreme form of violence against women, is a little-known phenomenon because of the lack of studies and data collection in Italy. The article provides an overview on the main criminological and feminist international literature in this field and, conceptualising femicide and its different declinations in both feminist and scientific research, highlights particularities of the crime of femicide. The examination of this kind of crime requires a specific approach, different from the one employed for studying most criminal homicide categories, because it is a gender crime, a masculine act arising from power relationships between genders given by the fact that men possess a more dominant role in society. Femicide, in fact, is the final act of the male violence cycle against women, and it is placed at the top of this violence.As the present work argues, and in contrast to public opinion and media representations, this phenomenon neither is a typical behavior of different and foreign cultures, nor may be referred to situations of social disadvantage or cultural marginality, but it is part of “normal” relations and disputes between men and women, such as male violence against women. This means that most situations considered to be quite safe for women can potentially be associated to some risk of becoming a victim. Indeed, femicides are perpetrated at victims’ homes or in their family homes, by male partners.Subsequently, the author analyses both the international literature and Italian data coming from sociological and criminological research.The second part of the article is dedicated to explaining the results of a survey on a sample of articles from newspapers, conducted by the femicide study group of the Antiviolence Centre “Casa delle donne per non subire violenza” of Bologna. This study identifies some of the characteristics of femicides in Italy, the social environment where it occurs, the profile of the authors and of the victims and, especially, the clear links between this crime and violence against women. Le fémicide, comme forme extrême de violence faite aux femmes, est un phénomène encore méconnu car il existe encore peu d’études sur le sujet en Italie. à l’issue d’une revue de la littérature criminologique et féministe internationale, cet article vise à définir le concept de fémicide et ses différentes déclinaisons dans la recherche scientifique et dans la lutte politique féministe. Le texte met en évidence la particularité de ce délit, qui doit être considéré différemment par rapport aux autres formes d’homicides. En effet, il