Femicide: what about the men?

“When men kill women,” [Karen Ingala Smith] wants to stress, “they are doing so in the context of a society in which men’s violence against women is entrenched and systemic. When misogyny, sexism and the objectification of women are so pervasive that they are all but inescapable, can a man killing a women ever not be a sexist act?”

…Since the launch, reports of the census have inevitably been pissed on with the question: “What about the men?” Like the commenter’s cliché “Not all men”, it’s a question noisily applied to derail feminist arguments, and sometimes it is worth answering and sometimes, well, no. This time, the what-about-the-menners are claiming that in concentrating solely on female victims the census is itself sexist. But when men kill their partners they have usually been abusing them for years. When women kill, they themselves have usually been abused. In the decade up to 2012, 93.9% of adults who were convicted of murder were men.

— Eva Wiseman, Why femicide won’t end until we have a truly equal society

The what-about-the-menners pretend that women can be “sexist against men”.  They can’t, because women lack the institutional power and privilege necessary to discriminate against men.  Criticizing men is not sexism.  Saying unflattering things about men is not sexism.  Pointing out the power, privilege and abusiveness of men is not sexism.