ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a recurrent phenomenon that has recently occupied ample space in Italian society: the so-called femminicidio (femicide), the murder of women at the hands of their male partners. Women are killed not so much out of jealousy, fear of abandonment, in a moment of uncontrolled rage, or because they stopped loving their partner (as the news of their deaths often report) but because they dared to assert an unsettling autonomy and independence. Learners will familiarize themselves with this phenomenon and with the language that carries stories of domestic violence and psychological abuse.
