Tag: Femicide

Femicide refers to the gender-based killings of women. This is often due to underlying cultural forces that encourage male violence and misogyny. BIPOC women are disproportionately victims of femicide.

It’s Time to End Discrimination in Crash Testing

Men’s bodies and women’s bodies behave differently in collisions due to differences in size, muscle structure and bone density. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which issues five-star safety ratings, does not crash test cars with dummies that accurately represent women. The tests strictly prioritize men’s safety and offer only hope that women may stand a chance. Too often, we don’t. 

Crash test dummies that accurately represent women are available today, and other countries are already planning to require them in crash tests. The U.S. should do the same.

Now Should We Speak Femicide?

Now Should We Speak Femicide?

Men sometimes kill women because they are women. Sometimes, as is likely the case with the horrific killings in Atlanta, men kill women because they are women and because of other aspects of their identity—race, sexual orientation, disabilities. But still, because they’re women. This gendered killing of women has a name: femicide, coined by Diana Russell almost 30 years ago.