Let's call it "femicide"

This video is a superb short white-board presentation of how COVID has made life much more dangerous for many Latin American women, subjecting them to violence and even death at the hands of intimate partners. Do take a look.

Watching it made me wonder: is the United States seeing a similar increase in this time of the coronavirus and shelter-in-place orders? Informed reporting proved surprisingly hard to track down.

Early in the pandemic, all the conventional media -- New York Times, LA Times, etc.  -- ran prospective stories about a likely rise in domestic violence. Clearly the danger jumped to mind.

A little later on, some local media like the Mercury News ran more nuanced reports.

Since the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place orders first took effect in March, law enforcement and victims advocates have feared the lockdowns would lead to an eruption of domestic violence, with families effectively isolated in their homes amid mounting social and financial pressures caused by the pandemic.

... More than two months into the lockdown [June 2020], there is some evidence these fears are coming true. Data from local law enforcement obtained by this news organization show East Bay agencies are seeing a rise in domestic violence crimes during the stay-at-home orders. San Jose has seen a slight decline, but other crimes in the city have dropped far more precipitously during the pandemic, so the level of domestic violence stands out.

And victim advocates worry the true numbers may be worse, as the pressures of life in isolation force victims to suffer in silence.

Academic expert opinion is still ready now to warn that once we get beyond COVID (if we do), there will be a surge in violence against intimate partners -- mostly women. But they are not reporting the actual murder statistics that experts in other countries seem able to uncover. Here's such a U.S. summary published in the New England Journal of Medicine: 

Domestic-violence hotlines prepared for an increase in demand for services as states enforced these mandates, but many organizations experienced the opposite. In some regions, the number of calls dropped by more than 50%. Experts in the field knew that rates of IPV [Intimate Partner Violence] had not decreased, but rather that victims were unable to safely connect with services. 

Though restrictions on movement have been lifted in most regions, the pandemic and its effects rage on, and there is widespread agreement that areas that have seen a drop in caseloads are likely to experience a second surge. This pandemic has reinforced important truths: inequities related to social determinants of health are magnified during a crisis, and sheltering in place does not inflict equivalent hardship on all people.

Though I have no reason to doubt this, it would be more impactful if it dug under generalizations.

The few reports of killings of U.S. women being highlighted in the media during the pandemic seem to focus on places and people many media consumers might consider exotic: for example, Teen Vogue looked at murdered enlisted U.S. soldiers, while ProPublica has published investigations of killings in remote Alaskan villages.

Feminists in Spanish-speaking countries (and in Brazil) have insisted murders of women are a particular crime which deserves its own name: "femicide." Maybe we'd be able to see the prevalence of woman-murder more clearly if we adopted the label.