Gender dynamics of attempted murders in France

Christelle Hamel, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

A description of the circumstances of attempted murder in France according to living space reveals marked disparities according to the sex of the victims. For men, attempted murder by a spouse is virtually non-existent, attempted murder within the family is only half as prevalent, and the vast majority of attempted murders are committed by strangers in the public space, where the consumption of alcohol and drugs plays an important role. For women, from childhood onwards, the family is a place of overexposure to violence, relayed by the marital sphere. Attempted murders in the public space are linked to sexual assaults. For both men and women, these assaults in the public space are also strongly linked to alcohol and drug abuse, as well as to extreme social insecurity leading to prostitution. Attempted murder is underpinned by a discriminatory logic that can be seen statistically in the characteristics of the victims, but also in their own perception and interpretation of the situations they experience. The perpetrators are overwhelmingly men.

Keywords: Gender Dynamics, Mortality and Longevity, Qualitative data/methods/approaches, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination

See extended abstract.