Italy’s parliament on Tuesday approved a law that introduces femicide into the country’s criminal law and punishes it with life in prison.
The vote coincided with the international day for the elimination of violence against women, a day designated by the U.N. General Assembly.
The law won bipartisan support from the center-right majority and the center-left opposition in the final vote in the Lower Chamber, passing with 237 votes in favor.
The law, backed by the conservative government of Premier Giorgia Meloni, comes in response to a series of killings and other violence targeting women in Italy. It includes stronger measures against gender-based crimes including stalking and revenge porn.
At no point did anyone suggest that they weren’t prosecuting murder against men, nor did they suggest they would do so with less effort. All this law does is allow the courts to take misogyny into account so that motive isn’t ignored or downplayed during the charging proces.
Yes, they prosecute murder for both genders. I’m asking why the hate crime aspect that increases the sentence is not the same.
To be clear, I think the femicide change is a good thing, just unnecessarily restrictive.
It doesn’t necessarily increase or decrease the sentence.
Are you asking why genders are different, and why violence isn’t equal? That’s a very deep topic the law is attempting to partially address.
You are incorrect. The relevant laws can be found in the Italian penal code. Article 575 sets the minimum punishment for homicide at 21 years. Article 577 lists circumstances that would upgrade this sentence to a life sentence, and the suggested change is to add femicide to this list. So yes, it necessarily increases the sentence.
I am not asking why genders are different and violence is not equal (this should be obvious to anyone listening to the women’s rights movement in the last 30 years). My argument has nothing to do with the relative frequency of crimes against different genders. I’m asking why a murder motivated by hate for someone’s gender would not be treated the same in any case, as it is with most identity-based hate crime laws. Do you think that because one identity group has more crime of a certain type done against them, they should be treated differently in each individual case about that crime?
Yes, and when somebody murders a woman because they’re a woman, now there’s a charge where the relevant jurors can take into account state of mind etc.
That’s why I used the wording I did. They both potentially carry life sentences. It should go without saying that femicide is a type of murder with a portion of the culpability “baked into it”.
The reason is because the genders aren’t the same. If there was (functionally) anyone being murdered because they were a man, then the law would also cover men. It’s curious you mention “other identity-based hate crime laws”, because Italy happens to not have categories for homosexual people like other jurisdictions might - for example.
Yes, I believe that gender-based crime is a different crime and it should be treated as such. Ideally there would be a category for the infinite potential culpabilities for murder, but that’s not realistic. I think femicide is realistic because the crime is relatively common.