Femicide in Europe
Femicide in Italy
In her article, “Men Who Hate Women” (2013), Barbie Latza Nadeau asserts that the number of women abused and murdered by their loved ones in European countries has been steadily growing. Nadeau supports her claims about femicide in Europe with statistics of women killed and included the norms, values and beliefs of both men and women in European culture. Her purpose is to dispel certain myths about domestic violence or femicide being okay in order to decrease the number of women killed and increase the acknowledgement of violence against women in Europe. She seems to have a young audience because she opposes cultural taboos and old ideas about domestic violence against women.
Research shows that the rate of “femicide” is higher in Italy than the United States. How could this be? It is primarily because of the male-dominated society that Italy inherits. According to Nadeau’s article, “in male-dominated societies – such as Italy and Spain – femicides are still tolerated to a large extent” which reflected Italian men’s norms and values that considered men as the head of the family and believes that women must be obedient. When the woman does not obey, the man will feel insecure as he cannot accept the truth which in the end would lead to femicide as mentioned in the article, “70 percent of women murdered in Italy are murdered by their partner or ex partner…” This believes do apply to characters in Othello such as Othello himself. In Othello’s case, he was deceived by Iago who creates this image of Desdemona being unfaithful which makes her disobedient to Othello. In Act IV Scene I, Othello described himself “a monster and “a beast” which shows Othello’s insecurity towards their love. This insecurity ultimately led to the climax of Othello murdering Desdemona out of what he calls “honor”.
In her article, “Men Who Hate Women” (2013), Barbie Latza Nadeau asserts that the number of women abused and murdered by their loved ones in European countries has been steadily growing. Nadeau supports her claims about femicide in Europe with statistics of women killed and included the norms, values and beliefs of both men and women in European culture. Her purpose is to dispel certain myths about domestic violence or femicide being okay in order to decrease the number of women killed and increase the acknowledgement of violence against women in Europe. She seems to have a young audience because she opposes cultural taboos and old ideas about domestic violence against women.
Research shows that the rate of “femicide” is higher in Italy than the United States. How could this be? It is primarily because of the male-dominated society that Italy inherits. According to Nadeau’s article, “in male-dominated societies – such as Italy and Spain – femicides are still tolerated to a large extent” which reflected Italian men’s norms and values that considered men as the head of the family and believes that women must be obedient. When the woman does not obey, the man will feel insecure as he cannot accept the truth which in the end would lead to femicide as mentioned in the article, “70 percent of women murdered in Italy are murdered by their partner or ex partner…” This believes do apply to characters in Othello such as Othello himself. In Othello’s case, he was deceived by Iago who creates this image of Desdemona being unfaithful which makes her disobedient to Othello. In Act IV Scene I, Othello described himself “a monster and “a beast” which shows Othello’s insecurity towards their love. This insecurity ultimately led to the climax of Othello murdering Desdemona out of what he calls “honor”.