Suzanne Lazy und Leslie Liebowitz: In Mourning and in Rage
In memory of our sisters, women fight back!
In 1977, about a year after Diana E.H. Russell first used the term femicide, a series of murders by the so-called "Hillside Strangler" began in Los Angeles, in which tortured and killed women were found on roadsides. Instead of classifying the murders as gender-specific killings of women, the police and media focused on the living conditions and alleged randomness of the victims. Suzanne Lazy and Leslie Liebowitz developed a feminist analysis of violence with their media performance In Mourning and in Rage. Together with women's shelter residents, the hotline for survivors of sexual violence, feminist communities and relatives, they developed a public ritual of anger and grief:
The two American artists knew the concept of Diana E.H. Russell and were also in direct exchange with her about gender-based violence and the establishment of the term because the term femicide did not come out of nowhere and helped to organize concepts and occupations and to give artists a voice.
