this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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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.

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[–] yesman@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

They're a protected class because they're singled out for violence because of their class. And it's a real world problem not a logic quiz. Misogyny and misandry are not equivalent in reality the way they are in the dictionary.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Does that make hate crime murder against men less worth prosecuting as such? Why shouldn't the legal definition be symmetrical?

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How many hate crime murders of men are there in Italy?

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 16 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (6 children)

Idk probably less and so the law against hate crimes for men would be used less than the one against them for women. Again, why would you not treat them the same in each individual case? If 80% of thievery was committed against women, would you not also prosecute the 20% committed against men just the same?

[–] ISuperabound@lemmy.world 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] ISuperabound@lemmy.world -3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] ISuperabound@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

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.

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[–] gbzm@piefed.social -3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Yes. Violence from the oppressed is not the same as violence from the opressor. In an unjust reality, law should strive for equity, not equality.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

I don't think my model of morality is compatible with yours.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world -3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Why shouldn’t the legal definition be symmetrical?

Because the legal system isn't symmetrical, that's not a thing, that's not how anything outside of fucking physics work. The system responds to what people are doing in the material world. If bank robberies start going up, they are going to adjust the law to make it more efficient to process and punish bank robbers.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

You're avoiding the question. I haven't seen you give a real reason why it shouldn't be symmetrical yet. I know that the motivation is greater to prosecute more common crimes, but ideally why would it not be symmetrical?

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world -2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Because the real world isn't symmetrical, there are millions of factors that impact trends, attitudes, cultures and so on. If you don't respond to issues appropriate to that scaling you will have spikes in problems. This is very basic, this isn't even sociology, it's just how everything works. If you don't enforce building codes in an area where more buildings are being made cheap, that area will have too many buildings that fall over, whereas areas where the building codes are being adhered to don't need the extra resources diverted to keeping a non-existent problem in check.

If you drink more milk than juice, you should buy more milk.

I am struggling to understand how this is a hard concept to grasp. Do you have an emotional or personal connection to this topic that is making it hard to see practicality in how our entire society is built?

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 0 points 8 hours ago

Do you have an emotional or personal connection to this topic that is making it hard to see practicality in how our entire society is built?

Not really, I just enjoy arguing against things that I don't think make sense and for things that do.

A user elsewhere in this thread has made me see the point that you're trying to make. I'm still not sure it makes sense to enshrine these differences in crime frequency towards different groups into law, but I do see the value in trying to tackle the problem from a gendered perspective in terms of trying to change the culture. So I am now split on whether the value of the law being better (symmetrical) outweighs the value of changing the culture by making a law targetted specifically for women.

[–] gbzm@piefed.social -2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

How about you tell us why the legal system should be symmetrical if the situation isn't? Why do the rich pay proportionally more tax than the poor? People are trying to make an unjust factual reality more just by acknowledging injustice is why.

[–] frog_brawler@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Why do the rich pay proportionally more tax than the poor?

You have this backwards. The poor pay proportionally more than the rich.

On a different note, I'd argue that the situation in question (murder) IS symmetrical.

[–] gbzm@piefed.social 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

yes, yes, I meant income tax specifically, proportionally to the aforementioned income.

Argue all you want though, factual reality is just there if you want to look at statistics, both for perpetrators and victims. If you meant like anyone can kill anyone, then money is also symmetrical in that anyone can get it and spend it in precisely the same way.

[–] frog_brawler@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

In terms of symmetry, I mean that specific to the outcome of murdering an individual. One death = one death. The end result of the act of murder is genderless.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Being rich is not an unchangeable identity nor a protected class; it is the result of one's actions, and actions, unlike identity, must be treated differently by the law.

The legal situation should be symmetrical because for any individual victim, the frequency of crime done to various identity groups does not matter.

Related example: Rape is more commonly done to women. But male victims of rape should still be protected against it.

Unrelated hypothetical: Let's say 80% of thievery was committed against women. Should men not also be protected against this crime just because it happens more often to another group of people?

I suppose you could make the argument that "the situation" is still not symmetrical, because women face more hate in their daily lives. But I fail to see how this should apply to the crime of murder or the punishment for its motivation.

It's certainly true that femicide is a more important protection, as the majority of gender-motivated murder is committed against women (I have no proof for this, but it seems everyone here agrees on this). But that is not a good argument not to provide other genders with the same protections from hate-motivated murder in the form of longer sentences as well.

I have provided my argument, as asked. So again, I ask: Why in your opinion would it be worse to provide this protection to all genders?

[–] gbzm@piefed.social 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

If you look at the rates of social class transitions, you'll find being rich or poor is not much less of an unchangeable identity than gender... But that's not the point, you keep saying you don't get the reasons why this law should be asymmetrical, so I'm trying to explain by analogy. The answer is equality is a bad foundation for lawmaking, equity is a better one.

Your hypotheticals and examples are very bad for someone who says elsewhere that

Of course men can still be prosecuted for murder either way; surely you didn’t think that’s what I was saying?

I'll answer a better analogy : in a world where 80% of [insert any act of violence] is committed against women, should [insert any act of violence] against men still be prosecuted? Yes. Now, assuming a lawmaker believes that the harshness of punishments deters from crimes*, should that lawmaker make the punishment harsher for [insert any act of violence] committed against women? Also yes, that's what's happening here. That's the definition of an aggravating circumstance such as a motive of hate: a reason for worsening the punishment. It's still murder, only worse to account for the frequency asymmetry.

*If you don't assume that, then the reasons for punishing anything more or less are mostly symbolic anyways, so by making an asymmetric law you're only acknowledging symbolically that there's an asymmetrical problem, but it's mostly just posturing.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 0 points 8 hours ago

I appreciate you sticking with your arguments; this is the first one in the whole thread that's actually made sense to me. I'm not sure if it makes more sense as a goal to equalize the crimes between two groups than to lower the overall crime, but 1. It does still make sense and 2. Making the law symmetrical would draw less attention and probably result in less of a drop in net crime anyways, so... yeah, ok, I get your point now. Thanks.

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[–] RamRabbit@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (15 children)

If someone murdered a male due to their sex, would you treat that any differently than someone murdering a female due to their sex?

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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world -2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

And it’s a real world problem not a logic quiz.

Seriously.

I am massively disappointed with the number of dumb chuds on this site who are looking at this like a goddamn fucking logic trick and feeling some kind of personal offense to the fact that some men, somewhere, are committing a disproportional level of a specific kind of crime.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Calling it a logic trick is just a cheap way to devalue a valid argument

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I haven't seen a valid argument in this entire post, just a lot of people who think that the law should apply evenly in all situations.

But nothing works that way. Everything we do in all facets of society are responsive and proportional.

I'm not seeing how anyone is being harmed by making it easier to prosecute men who commit violence against women when it's a massively disproportionate problem. I'm not seeing a better alternative, I'm not seeing anything but a lot of guys in this post who are obviously hurt by this but can't explain why. Maybe add value to the argument by making an argument and explaining why it bothers you.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I’m not seeing how anyone is being harmed by making it easier to prosecute men who commit violence against women when it’s a massively disproportionate problem.

Nobody is being harmed. Codifying punishments for femicide into law is a good thing.

I’m not seeing a better alternative

Making the law cover all genders covers more situations, so it would be better. You could still advertise it for its primary purpose of helping women to try to change the culture and get many of the same benefits.

I’m not seeing anything but a lot of guys in this post who are obviously hurt by this but can’t explain why. Maybe add value to the argument by making an argument and explaining why it bothers you.

It bothers me because I think there is an alternative that makes more sense-- that's the whole reason I care here. You can assume whatever else you want about me or my feelings towards the matter, but these assumptions haven't been correct so far, so I doubt they will be accurate in the future either.