So now I’m the man: Intimate partner femicide and its interconnections with expressions of masculinities in South Africa

Intimate femicide, the killing of a woman by an intimate partner, is the leading cause of female murder in South Africa. Research on men who kill in South Africa has highlighted the psychologi-cal damage caused by exposure to severe adversity in childhood, but this alone does not explain the gendered context of these murders. This article presents analyses from in-depth interviews with 20 incarcerated men who killed their partners and explores their views on and relationships with women. We show that the men sought to perform exaggerated versions of predominant ideals of masculinity, emphasizing an extreme control of and dominance over women. We show killing as an ultimate means of taking back control in a context where gendered relationships legitimize men’s use of violence to assert power and control. Interventions to prevent intimate femicide need to be highly cognisant of the gendered context