A number of recent articles have suggested that February 2013 will go down in history as the month when South Africa finally began an earnest fight against epidemic intimate partner and gender-based violence. Femicide is no rare occurrence in the country, but in the last three weeks two particularly brutal, high-profile murders have captured media attention and galvanized activists.

The two late victims, Reeva Steenkamp and Anene Booysen, represent two very different parts of South African society: Steenkamp was a white model and law school graduate famously attached to a beloved Olympic athlete; 17-year-old Booysen was black, and few had heard her name while she was still alive.

The proximity of their murders—Steenkamp posted a ...