By Andrea Lambe*
Femicide. How common is it in Cyprus? Is it important to consider it as a gender issue and in the context of violence against women?
According to Eurostat data (2022), Cyprus is among the top 5 countries with the most femicides in proportion to population.
Based on such data, many conflicting opinions have surfaced about whether it needs to be examined both socially and politically, and as a gender issue. These views lead to discussions to address the phenomenon, part of which is the role of the media in understanding, constructing perceptions and attitudes, as well as exacerbating or reducing femicides.
Since we live in the era of social networks and the majority of the world learns about current affairs and news from the Internet, it is important to consider the role of the digital media in this matter. How does the media “construct” the phenomenon of femicide? What role does the way of framing the phenomenon play in the diffusion of specific perceptions and ideas, leading to corresponding attitudes and actions? How does the way of framing the phenomenon is influenced by social, gender perceptions or stereotypes?
To answer these questions, I conducted my postgraduate research “The social construction of intimate-partner femicide in the Cypriot news media: a critical gender-frame analysis”, which was published by the University of Glasgow in December 2023. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/83987/
The research question is how the Cypriot media socially construct intimate-partner femicide, utilising gendered frameworks. To answer this, an extensive data sample was collected, consisting of 2,681 articles, from 31 Cypriot digital newspapers referring to 26 incidents of femicide by intimate partners, which occurred during the decade of 2012-2023, or to the phenomenon of femicide in general.
The aim is to identify and analyse the social collective gendered representations resulting from the news. This includes considering the addition or absence of femicide incidents to the media agenda, based on a feminist and social constructionist theoretical background, operationalising a critical analysis of gender-framing as a methodology.
The study also focuses on the socio-historical and political context of Cyprus. In particular, there is an analysis of the relationship between gender and the country’s complex, compound history, which renders Cyprus an interesting case study. It was found that the gender order in Cyprus – as in almost all countries – is based on gender differences and dichotomies that interact with religious and nationalistic doctrines, raising a patriarchal foundation of power relations that position women as “the other”.
These gender differences are cultivated from childhood through processes of socialisation and social institutions such as family, education, politics and religion, drawing lines and shaping relationships between women and men, as well as contriving their identities, roles and social status. These lines establish and normalise grounds for exclusion, inequality and violence in relation to gendered hierarchies and norms, which are propagated, enforced and internalised as universal expectations and norms.
A striking example is the personification of the Virgin Mary on the basis of ecclesiastical models, which imposes on women as their natural role in society virginity, motherhood and dependence on male existence, characteristics which are claimed to make woman equal to man. “The exaltation of woman finds its highest expression in the person of the Virgin Mary, and especially in her contribution to the incarnation of the son and Word of God… the peculiarity of woman and the functions she performs in the Church makes her unquestionably an equal member to man.”(excerpt from the website of the Church of Cyprus on the role of women, translated from Greek to English).
By promoting such standards, the Church of Cyprus may intervene in state matters to prevent or enforce civil legislation against women’s rights and freedom. For example, the legalisation of abortion was established in recent years (in 2018), unlike other European countries, due to the denial of the Church and its public “war: against it. However, as part of the process of secularisation of Cyprus, abortion was legalised under specific circumstances (Global Solutions, 2022).
Apart from religion, an important element in the construction of the gender structure in Cyprus is the framework of nationalism, peace and conflict. With the national problem of Cyprus, the so-called “Cyprus problem’, and the discussion between the two communities (Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots) to build individual and collective identities, shaping all aspects of the “political” in the country, exceptions of other shortcomings, deficiencies and problems in the Cypriot society, such as gender and sexuality inequalities, are produced and perpetuated.
For instance, all the proposals that we present as a country for the solution of the “Cyprus problem” are promoted by male politicians (who are the vast majority) based on male models and perceptions that have structured our public national history, which is mostly war-centric with the 1974 war and the Cyprus issue as the quintessential events of Cyprus’ history. In turn, our public national history is based on the male “gaze” and experiences, with the female side silenced or overlooked.
This process also results in the political positions and proposals on issues on Violence Against Women, femicides, the rights of LGBTQI+ people, etc., being overshadowed or considered of secondary importance. Such proposals have begun to surface in recent years, escaping the “shadow” of our national problem, as a small number of activists have begun to enter political circles.
In this context and on the foundation of the theoretical background for the relationship between media and gender-based violence and femicide, many similarities and differences with previous research were presented. These include elements such as repeated gendered patterns of the victim, the presentation of violence against women or femicide as a social problem, and others.
Starting specifically with the conclusions, regarding the gender frames used in Cypriot newspapers, these are categorised as frameworks, first of the victim, second of the perpetrator, and third of violence against women. Gender frames for the victim range from representing her as the “innocent” victim – as “the mother” and “the victim of bad circumstances”, to the “guilty woman” – as “the prostitute”, “the Gold Digger”, the “troublesome woman”, and the woman who abandoned her partner.
The perpetrator is portrayed first, as the “partially guilty” man – “the jealous man”, “the psychopath”, “the enraged man”, and the “victim of bad circumstances”. Second, as “the good man” – “the Saviour/Redeemer”. Third, as the “bad man”.
Violence against women is depicted first, with male violence as “Love”, second, with femicide as an individual and isolated incident without reference to gender or domestic violence, and third, with femicide as a structural social problem and crime of gender/domestic violence.
An important element I would like to emphasise is the racial perceptions of violence and femicide, which interacted with “discourses” of colonialist, hegemonic, racist rhetoric often invoked by the media to criticise the problematic aspects of migration, multiculturalism and the incompatibility of non-European cultures with the morality and core values of European society, such as Cyprus.
An example given is that the identity of victims with immigrant backgrounds is constructed as subordinate victims of patriarchal “postmodern” culture, and perpetrators with immigrant backgrounds as misogynists and violent. This difference is depicted by the media as a result of the migrant/refugee status, indirectly creating hierarchical social divisions that render the intersectional position of either victims or perpetrators as a means of perpetuating or receiving violence.
On the other hand, there are media representations that focus on the problem of femicide and violence in the context of racism affecting the social structures of national culture, immigration policies, conditions for the integration of migrants and the “translocational” position of victims. All of these frames are not used exclusively in each article, but the majority of them contain a multiplicity and patchwork of framing methods. In this regard, the femicide victim is in most cases passively discussed (with the exception of the “mother” frame), placing more emphasis on intersectional characteristics and providing justifications and “reasonable” or “rational” explanations for the actions of the perpetrator.
Furthermore, there are a large number of articles that unleash hatred and criticism towards the State and the social and cultural structures of Cyprus. These frameworks therefore, for the case of Cyprus, show on the one side, the construction of a sexist representation of femicide, and on the other side, the promotion of femicide as a public social problem through associations with the phenomenon of violence against women and social structures. That is, on the one hand, there are techniques of romanticisation, dramatisation of the phenomenon, victim-blaming and perpetrator-absolving, and justification and normalisation of femicide and violence. On the other hand, links between femicide, gender-based violence and social inequalities are presented, as well as recognition of the responsibility of the State, the competent Authorities and the media, in the exacerbation and continuation of femicide.
Last, but not least, a major difference between older and more recent journalism is the fact that in articles written before 2019, more sexist representations and framing appear. After 2019, mainly after the femicide of Sofia Zenonos, more articles presented femicide as a serious social problem, with the blame falling on both the perpetrator and the patriarchal gendered and racial structures. This is logically due to the socio-historical evolution and change of ideas about gender roles and stereotypes, which are also reflected in the ideology of the journalists and the media they represent. Another aspect that was crucial for this shift, is the fact that many activists and social organisations rose up and protested against discrimination against women and patriarchy.
In conclusion, according to the research, despite the sexist, racist agenda that most media showcase, they prove that they have the power to evolve and promote social phenomena in order to combat them, proving their importance in society. This is evident from the ability of some journalists to criticise social structures, and especially of self-criticism.
*Sociologist, MSc University of Glasgow
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