*from the Chicago Sun Times

Seven of the eight victims were the world’s most frequent and perhaps oldest target of hate crimes — women.  

It is heartening to see demonstrations across the nation, led by Asian women and supported by all, protesting the xenophobia that has created an uptick in crimes against Asian Americans. It should, however, be said that whether or not Asians specifically were targeted in the Atlanta area spa attacks on March 16, it was a hate crime, with seven of the eight murder victims being the most frequent and perhaps oldest target of hate crimes — women.

Eternally blamed for a fall from grace by virtually every religion, but particularly in Judeo-Christian culture and teachings, women have long been shunned and often murdered for non-conforming ideas or behavior. We were — and are — stoned for “infidelity,” for loving the wrong person, for refusing to bend to a husband or a father. 

Opinion

We were the vast majority of the estimated 50,000 people burned at the stake as witches not only in Salem but throughout Europe and Africa. We are burned and otherwise killed today for “dishonoring” the family in India, Afghanistan and Africa. We are considered to be temptresses by the fact of our very existence by Orthodox Muslims and Jews, and sexualized, raped and murdered by occupiers in every war — as the “the spoils of war.”While more men are killed each year throughout the world — in wars, gang fights, robberies and by each other — women are killed almost exclusively by men. According to the United Nations and other world agencies that monitor health and homicides, nearly half of all women killed are not killed by a stranger but by their intimate partner.

According to the UN Study on Homicide, in 2019 approximately 87,000 women were killed worldwide, with 50,000 women a year dying at the hands of intimate partners and family members, mainly through domestic abuse or “honor killings.”

Overall, homicide is committed largely by males, with most of the victims being other males. In 2017, males made up 84% of all offenders and 78% of all homicide victims; However, 78% of all intimate partner homicide victims were female. From 2003 to 2014, the Centers for Disease Control found that approximately 55% of female homicides for which the circumstances were known were related to intimate partner violence.

But it’s not just intimate partners who bear the brunt of male ire. According to Human Rights Pulse, six women are killed every hour by men globally and one in three women are affected by gender-based violence in their lifetime. And it is not just in “less developed nations.” It is easy for many to dismiss these numbers as “about the other” when we read about the hundreds of women who disappeared from the factories of Juarez or those who’ve been the victims of gangs in Honduras or the sex traffickers of Eastern Europe.

And as the uprising of the women in Britain tells us, the United Kingdom is no exception, with one woman killed by a man every three days. That rate of femicide has remained unchanged for over a decade. 

To read the complete essay,  go to: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/3/29/22357020/atlanta-spa-massacre-misogyny-femicide-hate-crimes-marilyn-katz