Black women are killed at rates that expose a crisis rigidly upheld by structural racism. This page documents national femicide rates for Black and white women from 1999 to 2023, drawing on peer-reviewed research, FBI data, and the Violence Policy Center’s annual analysis.
- Terminology: The Purpose of The Word Femicide
- Long-Term Trend (1999-2020): Two Decades of Disparity
- The 2023 Update–The Crisis Continues
- Heightened Risk Factor: Femicide During Pregnancy
- Further Reading
- Resources
Terminology: The Purpose Of The Word Femicide
The data on this page describes the killing of women because they are women–a crime that requires its own name. The term femicide was popularized by Dr. Diana Russell in the 1970s to prevent the erasure that occurs when gendered murders are subsumed under the gender-neutral term “homicide.” Scholar Jill Radford further defined it as the misogynistic killing of women by men, arguing that naming the crime was the first step toward dismantling the culture that permits it.
When a woman is killed because she is a woman, or because she has defied the patriarchal expectations of a current or former partner or family member, it is femicide. Using that word is not a stylistic choice–it is an act of precision.
“To uncover the fact that Black women are murdered at rates as high as 20 to 1 is heart-breaking and underscores the urgent need to make substantive structural shifts.”
Dr. Bernadine Waller, PhD, Lead Author, Colombia University Irving Medical Center (2024)
Long-Term Trend (1999-2020): Two Decades of Disparity
| Study period | Black women | White women | Ratio | Trend |
|---|
The Columbia University/Lancet study (Waller, Joseph & Keyes, 2024) is the first to analyze femicide trends spanning two decades among women aged 25 to 44–the age range at which women face the highest risk. The data reveals that Black women’s femicide rate remained more than four times higher than white women’s across the entire study period, and reached the same peak in 2020 as it had in 1999–meaning two decades of policy produced no net improvement.
The 2023 Update–The Crisis Continues
Black women killed by males
white women killed by males
the Black rate is
Femicide rate per 100,000 by race, 2023 · Source: Violence Policy Center, When Men Murder Women (2025)
The Violence Policy Center’s 2025 annual report — the most recent data available — confirms the racial disparity persists at alarming levels. The figures below cover femicides committed by a single male offender against a single female victim, drawn from FBI data for 2023.
Heightened Risk Factor: Femicide During Pregnancy
Femicide rates do not distribute evenly across a woman’s life. Research published in Obstetrics & Gynecology found that pregnant Black women are 11 times more likely to be victims of femicide than non-pregnant women. Pregnancy increases a woman’s vulnerability to intimate partner violence, and in the U.S., homicide is one of the leading causes of maternal death — a fact that falls disproportionately on Black women.
This intersection of obstetric vulnerability and racial disparity represents one of the most under-documented dimensions of the Black femicide crisis in the United States.
Further Reading
- The Alarming Rate of Black Femicide in the U.S.
- Black Femicide Trends 2020-2025: The Impact of COVID-19
- Black Femicide: Perpetrator Relationship Data
- Global Femicide Crisis: A Woman Is Killed Every 10 Minutes
- Coercive Control Legislation Global Index
- The Global Femicide Legislation Index
- The Neuroscience of Narcissistic Abuse–and How to Heal
- The Complete Guide to Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
- The Long-Term Consequences of Narcissistic Abuse
- Psycho-Emotional Abuse: The Essential Guide
Resources
- Wakefield, M. (2024). The Alarming Rate of Black Femicide in the Unites States. Narcissistic Abuse Rehab.
- Waller, B.Y., Joseph, V.A., & Keyes, K.M. (2024). Racial inequities in homicide rates and homicide methods among Black and White women aged 25–44 years in the USA, 1999–2020: A Cross-Sectional Time Series Study. The Lancet.
- Violence Policy Center. (2025). When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2023 Homicide Data.
- Wakefield, M. (2020). The Coercive Control Legislation Global Index. Narcissistic Abuse Rehab.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). CDC WONDER: National Vital Statistics System. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Wakefield, M. (2026). The Global Femicide Legislation Index. Narcissistic Abuse Rehab.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d.). Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. U.S. Department of Justice.
- National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Connecticut Children’s. (2024). Black Femicide: A Silent Public Health Crisis.
- Palladino, C.L. et al. (2011). Homicide and suicide during the perinatal period. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 118(5). Pregnant Black women 11x more likely to be victims of femicide.
- Radford, J. & Russell, D.E.H. (Eds.) (1992). Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing. Open University Press.
