From Love to Death: Sociological Analysis of Safe Space Violations and Phenomena Intimate Femicidism in Indonesian Society

Abstract

Intimate femicide, or the murder of a woman by a partner/ex-partner, is the culmination of the tragedy of an acute cycle of gender-based violence. In Indonesia, this phenomenon is categorized as an ordinary crime, ignoring a fundamental sociological dimension: the violation of the safe space of the domestic domain. This research aims to analyze how social norms and patriarchal systems turn intimate relationships into deadly zones while dissecting how public discourse reproduces violent ideologies. Specifically, this study traces the sociological processes that escalate dominance to fatal violence. The Theory of Gender Sociology that becomes the main framework of analysis is the Coercive Control Theory of Evan Stark combined with the concept of Hegemonic Masculinity (R.W. Connell), helping to explain the systematic attempts of perpetrators to dominate. Meanwhile, to dissect the reproduction of violence in digital narratives, this study adopts Critical Discourse Analysis (AWK) by Norman Fairclough (1992; 1995) through three dimensions: Text Analysis (examining linguistic elements that rationalize perpetrators); Discourse Practice Analysis (highlighting the amplification of framing mainstream media by netizens); and Social Practice Analysis (linking findings to power structures).The results of the study show that intimate femicide is a logical consequence of the relationship marked by men's sense of entitlement to women's autonomy. Analysis of social practices confirms these findings by attributing them to the Theory of Male Proprietariness, in which the reduction of motives in social
media is a reflection of an ideology that naturalizes male control. Coercive control has transformed domestic space into a location of absolute surveillance and power. This study concludes that sociological recognition of femicide as an embodiment of structural failure is urgent to formulate prevention strategies that target the roots of toxic masculinity at the community level.