Analysis of Femicide in Ecuador: An Anthropological Perspective

Abstract

Femicide is seen as a recent phenomenon in Ecuador; however, it is the extreme expression of the violence exerted by men on women and a manifestation of forms of normalized social relationships, that is, the persistence of male dominance. Anthropology opens the possibility of analyzing the deep dynamics of relationship structures in the social space, where culture reproduces a patriarchal ideology, which affects the construction of masculinities. The study compares violence indices created by non-governmental organizations to data collected by state agencies, highlighting information handling flaws that prevent effective public administration. Thereby, cultural aspects related to femicide are analyzed from an anthropological perspective. This contributes to discussions on concrete policy approaches, that are based on the assumption of an urgent need to address the problem of femicide.