Rape and Femicide: The Foundations of Empire’s Power
In anticipation of the relaunch of the AGAPE Seminar & Studio in January 2025, I am publishing a series of dispatches revisiting the histories, theories, and proposals developed during our earlier gatherings. Each installment is designed to clarify and expand upon the key concepts that emerged, laying the groundwork for the conversations ahead.
Building on the argument that racial capitalism is a virulent variant of patriarchal imperialism, this dispatch examines the forms of patriarchal violence at its core: rape and femicide. It outlines how these violences have mutated through their co-evolution with the techniques and technologies of racializing rule and the relentless imperatives of capital accumulation.
Rape and femicide as means of inflicting trauma are not incidental to the functioning of Empire—they are foundational. As theorist Rita Laura Segato argues, these acts are public assertions of power, instruments of domination that serve to enforce submission and terrorize communities into compliance. By targeting women, Empire severs relational bonds, fractures communities, and distorts care. This violence is not merely physical; it is also systemic and communicative, a language of control designed to perpetuate the hierarchies upon which Empire depends.
Ana Mendieta, Siluetas series, 1973-78
The Historical Roots of Femicide
Empire’s reliance on femicide can be traced to the rise of patriarchal systems, predating the global structures of domination we recognize today. Women, especially those who were carriers of ancestral knowledge, were deliberately targeted. Healers, midwives, and spiritual leaders—often branded as witches—were among the first victims, as their roles sustained networks of care that challenged the consolidation of power. Rape and femicide became primary tools to dismantle these networks, erasing the relational systems women embodied and asserting control through violence and annihilation.
Rape and femicide have been adapted to meet Empire’s changing needs. With the onset of colonization, femicide became a central mechanism of imperial expansion. Conquest was not limited to the seizing of land and resources; it was also an assault on relational systems that resisted imperial domination. The sexual violence inflicted on Indigenous and African women during colonization was not incidental. It served to terrorize communities, sever kinship bonds, and render resistance futile. By targeting women, colonizers struck at the heart of relational life, ensuring that patriarchal and imperial hierarchies could take root.
Femicide and the Logic of Empire
As Empire evolved, so too did the role of femicide within its machinery of domination. In the industrial phase of capitalism, femicide was deeply entwined with the exploitation of women’s labor. Women, particularly racialized women, were drawn into factories and plantations, their lives marked by disposability. The constant threat of violence served to enforce compliance and instill fear. Femicide was not merely a product of exploitation—it was an essential mechanism for maintaining control over vulnerable laboring populations.
Today, in the age of logistical capitalism, rape and femicide have shifted to the border zones, off-shored manufacturing plants, and migration corridors that sustain global supply chains. Women working in sweatshops, traveling along migratory routes, or confined to refugee camps are exposed to femicidal violence as a systemic practice. These acts communicate a stark message: women of the lower classes, particularly racialized women, are deemed expendable within Empire’s economic and political order. These acts fracture communities and instill fear, undermining the solidarity needed to resist the exploitative systems governing these spaces.
The Communicative Power of Rape and Femicide
Rape and femicide are not isolated acts of violence; they are deliberate, systemic tools of control. As Segato argues, these acts communicate dominance, inscribing power onto bodies and communities. Their primary function is to generate trauma that fractures relationships, distorts care, and undermines collective resistance.
This violence reinforces hierarchies of race and class by dictating which lives are valued and which are dismissed. The rape and murder of a poor Black African woman—whether working in a sweatshop, traveling a migrant route, or living in a refugee camp—are often trivialized, her suffering rendered routine and forgettable by systems that devalue her existence. In contrast, the rape of a white woman in a professional or domestic setting is sensationalized, framed as a shocking violation of societal norms. Yet even affluent white women may remain silent about their assaults, fearing that disclosure will invite public scrutiny and mark them with the vulnerability typically assigned to marginalized women. This fear is heightened to the degree that any aspect of their life may be perceived as transgressing the standards of propriety, purity, and morality expected of their race, class ambitions, or professional aspirations. These dynamics underscore how sexual violence both enforces domination and reinforces hierarchies of worth and disposability.
The power of rape and femicide lies in their ability to produce trauma that isolates survivors, instills fear in communities, and fragments relational bonds. Trauma reshapes care into a conditional, survival-driven act, corroding the solidarity and mutual support necessary to resist oppression. Survivors are silenced, communities are fractured, and compliance with systems of domination is reinforced.
Moreover, this violence perpetuates cycles of harm. Men of lower classes and “lesser” races, “emasculated” by systems of oppression, are conditioned to reclaim their masculinity by reenacting the sexual violence historically imposed upon their female counterparts—perpetuating harm with the limited means available to them. Some resist this conditioning but adopt a patriarchal saviorism, akin to white saviorism, in an effort to “protect” women from rape and femicide. While appearing well-intentioned, this posture centers male agency and unresolved wounds, sidelining female autonomy and resistance in favor of patriarchal acts of benevolence. Distorted by trauma, the patriarchal saviorism adopted by men of marginalized races and classes inadvertently reinforces the hierarchies they seek to dismantle. By confining, disempowering, and demanding conformity from women in the name of protecting them, patriarchal saviors sustain systems of control rather than fostering genuine liberation.
By distorting care and weakening relational bonds, rape and femicide ensure the preservation of Empire’s hierarchies. Their violence does not simply harm individuals; it undermines the very connections and practices that could challenge oppressive systems. Empire’s evolution underscores rape and femicide as enduring and adaptable mechanisms of control, designed to sever relational bonds and enforce submission across shifting contexts.
Reclaiming Care and Relationality
Rape and femicide derive their power from distorting care and severing relational bonds. To resist this violence, communities must reclaim care as an act of collective resistance. This begins with recognition: naming rape and femicide not as isolated events, but as systemic tools of control designed to dismantle communal ties. By understanding their role in fracturing relationships, we can take the first steps toward restoring the connections they seek to destroy.
Transformation means reshaping care into a relational and embodied practice that rejects Empire’s logic of division. Through embodied practices of recognition, recollection, resistance, and repair, communities can dismantle the structures that sustain sexual violence and rebuild systems of care capable of confronting and undoing its power.
Reclaiming care also requires rejecting the fragmented and conditional narratives imposed by trauma. Instead, it calls for cultivating communities that actively challenge Empire’s reliance on rape and femicide to uphold its hierarchies, fostering relational practices that resist domination and affirm collective resilience.
