Men kill more women when times get tough

Women dying from COVID-19 aren’t just dying from the disease but also from the increase in family violence brought on by stay-at-home orders. A new University of Guelph study finds that there has been a steady increase in femicide over the period of the pandemic. The lockdowns haven’t turned non-violent men into violent men, says study author Dr. Myrna Dawson, But the associated isolating conditions for women and children put them in greater peril. Femicide, which refers to the murder of women because they are women, is most commonly associated in Canada with the Dec 6, 1989 Montreal Massacre. The United Nations defines femicide as the most extreme form of violence and discrimination against women and girls. Women are victims of this kind of power-motivated violence by an intimate partner almost four times as often as men. Men experience a higher rate of murder overall but more often die from gang violence or random crime.

AK