Stop calling it a domestic dispute

Haezreena Begum Abdul Hamid

A 19-year-old college student was stabbed 61 times and left by the roadside in Kelantan.

In Sabah, a woman was allegedly murdered and dismembered by her former fiancé after their engagement broke down. Her body parts were discovered in rubbish bins across Sepanggar.

In Perak, another woman lost her life in a violent killing that shocked the public and raised fresh questions about violence against women and institutional accountability.

These are not merely isolated murders. They are part of a disturbing pattern of gendered violence that Malaysia still struggles to confront honestly.

The brutality matters. The overkill matters. The humiliation of the body matters. The control, obsession, rage, jealousy and entitlement behind these acts matter.

And increasingly, criminologists around the world recognise these killings for what they are: femicide.

What femicide means

Femicide is not simply the killing of a woman. It refers to the killing of women because they are women – often within contexts of domination, possessiveness, misogyny, coercive control, rejection, separation or a perceived loss of ownership over the victim.

The recent Malaysian cases reveal deeply troubling criminological patterns. A woman stabbed 61 times is not simply being “killed”. Such extreme violence often reflects rage, dehumanisation and emotional overkill.

In criminology, excessive stabbing, mutilation and dismemberment frequently point toward personal rage, humiliation, possessiveness – and a desire not only to kill, but to erase, punish, dominate or destroy the victim symbolically. Dismemberment cases are rarely random. They often involve an intense emotional or relational dimension between offender and victim. The body itself becomes a site of control long after death.

This is why these crimes cannot simply be reduced to “loss of temper”, “relationship disputes” or “personal problems”. That language dangerously minimises what is happening.

What we are witnessing is part of a wider continuum of violence against women. Before the killing, there is often stalking, threats, emotional abuse, coercive control, jealousy, intimidation, monitoring of movements, social isolation or repeated harassment. In many femicide cases globally, the warning signs were present long before the murder occurred.

Yet society normalises them

We still hear statements like these:

“He was just jealous.” “

They were having relationship problems.”

“She should have left earlier.”

“He couldn’t control his emotions.”

Such narratives subtly shift attention away from the perpetrator’s violence and onto the victim’s choices.

More dangerously, they obscure the structural reality that many women live under constant fear, coercion and control long before they are killed.

From a criminological perspective, femicide is fundamentally about power. Many perpetrators cannot accept rejection, separation, loss of control or the autonomy of women. Violence becomes a means of reclaiming dominance. In some cases, the murder is intended not only to end a life but also to punish perceived disobedience, humiliation or abandonment.

The brutality itself sends a message. This is why the number of stab wounds matters. This is why mutilation matters. This is why the intimate relationship between victim and perpetrator matters. These are not random details but indicators of the gendered nature of the violence.

A deeper conversation

Malaysia urgently needs a deeper national conversation about femicide and violence against women.

At present, such cases are still largely treated as ordinary murders under general homicide laws.

But when patterns repeatedly involve intimate partners, ex-partners, obsessive jealousy, coercive control, overkill and gendered domination, we can no longer pretend these are isolated incidents disconnected from broader social realities.

The issue is not only criminal justice. It is also about culture, socialisation, masculinity, entitlement and how society teaches some men to perceive women as extensions of ownership rather than autonomous human beings. It is also about institutional failure.

Too often, warning signs are dismissed until tragedy occurs.

Reports of harassment, stalking, threats, domestic violence or coercive behaviour are frequently minimised as “private matters”.

Families and communities may notice troubling behaviour but hesitate to intervene.

Victims themselves may remain trapped due to fear, emotional manipulation, financial dependence, shame or lack of protection.

Then society acts shocked after the killing.

But femicide rarely begins with murder. It usually begins with control that is tolerated, threats that are ignored, violence that is minimised and fear that women are expected to endure silently.

Malaysia must move beyond reactive outrage. We need stronger early intervention mechanisms and more serious responses to coercive control and stalking. We need better protection systems for women facing threats, improved risk assessment frameworks, and far greater public awareness of the warning signs of escalating violence.

Most importantly, we must stop treating violence against women as ordinary. When women are stabbed dozens of times, dismembered, hunted down or murdered by those closest to them, society cannot continue describing these cases merely as “domestic disputes gone wrong”.

We must finally call it what it is: femicide.

Dr Haezreena Begum Abdul Hamid is a criminologist and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Malaya.

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