ABSTRACT
Familicide, the killing of an intimate partner and child(ren), is committed almost exclusively by men against women and children. However, while some cases bear distinct gendered markers that clearly link it with the broader issues of domestic abuse and femicide, other cases – at least on the surface – do not, characterised by an absence of known histories of abuse and by a deep sense of hopelessness arising from a perceived or imminent failure. Resultingly, familicide is often rendered intelligible in media and popular culture through competing frames, some drawn from the psy-disciplines that cast it as the outcome of mental illness or distress and others drawing from feminist analyses that centre gendered power and control. In news reporting, these competing frames often crystallise around a false dualism in which familicide is constructed as an expression of either psychological pain or patriarchal power. This chapter presents a feminist sociological account of familicide that seeks to trouble this dualism in media and popular culture – and how it is scaffolded by the persistence of similar dualisms in some research and media advocacy. In this way, it suggests that interrogating media representations involves also being astute to the language used in research and beyond – including feminist research and activism – and the ways this can inadvertently shape or legitimise limiting cultural tropes of sad or bad men.
