Towards an Understanding of Gender-Based Violence and Femicide

Despite the country having made huge strides in uplifting women in the country, gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF) remains a multifaceted complex phenomenon that requires urgent and comprehensive attention in South Africa. Central to combating and eliminating GBVF is an understanding of the reasons for the continued prevalence of GBVF. By looking at the theories of gender and violence through a feminist lens, this chapter aims to firstly, provide a theoretical framework which can offer a deeper understanding of the violence that is targeted towards women and girls and secondly, to highlight how these causes act as barriers to combating the scourge. By looking towards an understanding of GBVF, this chapter seeks to address a fraction of the many complex questions that arise when studying an issue like GBVF. It must be noted that it is not the objective of such a discussion to position feminist theories against each other or to construct a gendered hierarchy of suffering or to completely ignore the fact that men also suffer from several forms of violence. The intention is to provide an understanding of how theories can be applied to the analysis of gender specific violence with the aims of the elimination thereof. This study remains uniquely positioned to shed light on the complex issues of sex, gender, race, power, politics, and their intersections with GBV.