Femicide: notes ona lethal form of violence

Abstract

Violence as a social symptom and femicide in particular, characterized as one of the most extreme forms of violence against women, in recent years holds a place in the public agenda and in mass media. They constitute a problem addressed from a wide variety of discourses with results always distant from the expected ones. In this paper the importance of supporting policies to make violence visible and to build tools which can serve women is recognized. At the same time, the limits of the proposed strategies to eradicate violence are noticed as well as the difficulties to name a victim when this signifier names a person. The possibility of intervention by addressing the uniqueness of each case is raised, based on the subjective position of those with signs of violence. In this sense, psychoanalysis is offered as a practice in which through the use of the word, case by case and without guarantees, degradation of love into hatred can be prevented while work towards helping the subject to leave the position of closure into a deadly enjoyment is proposed.