Society, Her or Me? An Explanatory Model of Intimate Femicide Among Male Perpetrators in Buenos Aires, Argentina

AuthorMartín Hernán Di Marco,Dabney P. Evans
Published date01 December 2021
DOI10.1177/1557085120964572
Date01 December 2021
Subject MatterArticles
2021, Vol. 16(5) 607 –630
https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085120964572
Feminist Criminology
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1557085120964572
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Article
Society, Her or Me? An
Explanatory Model of
Intimate Femicide Among
Male Perpetrators in Buenos
Aires, Argentina
Martín Hernán Di Marco1
and Dabney P. Evans, PhD, MPH2
Abstract
Intimate femicide perpetrators are rarely studied despite their important role as
drivers of violence. This paper analyzes the explanatory narratives of men who
intentionally killed their female intimate partners in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Twenty-
four interviews were conducted with 12 participants. Data were analyzed using
Atlas.Ti and an inductive thematic coding strategy. Two dimensions—frequency of
physical violence in the relationship and locus of explanation—were used to identify
four narrative archetypes: victim, redemption, extraordinary, and outburst. Greater
attention should be paid to perpetrator life trajectories and narratives including the
gender and violence discourses that shape explanations for perpetration.
Keywords
femicide, intimate partner violence, violence against women, masculinities, narrative,
qualitative research
Introduction
Femicide, the intentional killing of a woman or girl based on gender-related motives,
represents an extreme form of violence (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
[UNODC], 2019). Research and understanding of femicide has evolved since the 1976
1National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina / Research Institute Gino Germani
(IIGG), Buenos Aires, Argentina
2Hubert Department of Global Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Dabney P. Evans, Hubert Department of Global Health, Emory University, 1518 Clifton RD NE, Atlanta,
GA 30322, USA.
Email: dabney.evans@emory.edu
964572FCXXXX10.1177/1557085120964572Feminist CriminologyDi Marco and Evans
research-article2020
608 Feminist Criminology 16(5)
2 Feminist Criminology 00(0)
introduction of the word by Diana Russell during the First International Tribunal on
Crimes Against Women. Femicide occurs across the life course and includes specific
forms such as intimate femicide, occurring between past or current intimate partners
(Corradi et al., 2016, p. 978; Russell & Van de Ven, 1990; World Health Organization,
2012). Throughout its evolution, femicide-related research has primarily been quanti-
tative in nature and limited its focus to victims, with particular attention devoted to
their socio-demographic characteristics, femicide incidence, and, justifiably, the iden-
tification of risk factors (Campbell et al., 2003, 2007; Dobash & Dobash, 2017, p. 135;
Weil & Kouta, 2017, p. 7).
Gaining an accurate picture of the global scale of femicide has been challenging.
National data collection initiatives often use differing definitions for the classification
of femicide making the aggregation of these data for global estimates difficult. In
keeping with Campbell and Runyan’s assertion that femicide includes all killing of
women independent of motive or relationship to the victim, the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, 2019) uses intimate partner/family-related female
homicides as a proxy indicator for femicide (Campbell & Runyan, 1998); these data
are routinely collected and can be aggregated to give a global estimate. In 2017, 87,000
women were intentionally murdered, 58% of which were femicides committed by
family members or intimate partners (UNODC, 2019). This is likely to be an underes-
timate of the true burden; for example, in Argentina some femicides have systemati-
cally been reclassified as suicides (Fernández, 2012, p. 70). Several studies have
identified that the strongest risk factor for intimate femicide is prior experience of
intimate partner violence (IPV) (Campbell et al., 2003, p. 1091, 2007, p. 247). In
Argentina, a recent institutional and political effort to begin accurately measuring this
phenomenon has been undertaken through the 2014 creation of the National Femicide
Register (Corte Suprema de Justicia de La Nación, 2020), among other initiatives.
However, this endeavor faces methodological challenges including underreporting,
the identification of cases from secondary data and differences in data obtained from
multiple sources (Fernández, 2012; Kohan, 2018; Otamendi, 2020). In 2018, 255 fem-
icide victims were identified in Argentina equating to a femicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000
women. Despite growing evidence about the risk factors and scale of intimate femi-
cide, perpetrators—one of the single most important drivers of such violence—are
often understudied despite their important role in comprehending the phenomena.
In contrast to the volume of research on victims, the available research on perpetra-
tors is relatively meager (Dobash & Dobash, 2017, p. 135; Johnson et al., 2019), espe-
cially regarding male perpetrators without a prior criminal history (Dobash et al.,
2009, p. 203). As noted by Ruotti et al. (2011, p. 378) and Segato (2003, p. 23), homi-
cide and femicide perpetrators are the least understood of criminal offenders.
Information gathering among perpetrators is complicated by issues of access, willing-
ness to participate in scientific studies, a dearth of theoretical frameworks governing
perpetration to analyze narratives, and the hesitance of researchers to engage directly
with perpetrators (Adshead et al., 2018; Nee, 2004, p. 3).
Previous studies have attempted to understand the demographic characteristics of
femicide perpetrators, but little work has focused on understanding the drivers of

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