The word ‘femicide’ is barely used in Scotland.

And yet we live in a country where, as the homicide figures have gone down, the femicide figure has gone up. A country where most of the women killed last year were killed by a partner. A country where – unlike in England and Wales – men who kill their wives or girlfriends can use their victims’ suspected infidelity to justify lethal violence as part of a plea of provocation.

Scotland is a country where male violence against women is endemic. Of the near 65,000 domestic abuse incidents recorded by Police Scotland in 2021-22, four in five involved a female victim and a male perpetrator. 

nd it is a country where it is well established that such incidents represent only a fraction of the true scale of abuse, with so much of the harm unreported and unrevealed by women too scared to come forward, and by bystanders who elect not to get involved. A country with a major problem of violence against women and girls and where new efforts are being made to understand the drivers of such terrible levels of abuse – physical or not.

The definition of domestic abuse has rightly broadened to include physical, verbal, sexual, psychological, and financial elements between partners in the home, online or elsewhere. Advertising campaigns by the police and others aim to educate men out of the corrosive attitudes linked to such offences, urging them not to “be that guy”.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Health Matters