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.
Yes, femicide is clearly a larger problem that has greater motivation to address it. But would it not be equally easy, and overall better, to address all categories of gender-motivated murder?
No it would not be “easier” to pass laws against categories that functionally dot exist, for example.
I said above that, in perfect world, all manners of culpability would be handled differently - but that’s not realistic. What’s realistic is passing a law against something that happens frequently.
You could pass a law simultaneously against all gender-based hate-motivated murder by just specifying any gender in the law. You don’t need to enumerate every category.
Again, making the law non-gender specific would be trying to protect a category that functionally doesn’t exist…and it would remove specific protections for the very people it’s trying to protect. It would actually do what some opponents are incorrectly speculating this law does to existing murder laws.
Are you advocating that we protect men from gender-based physical violence? Is this important to you? Your argument appears to be semantic and performative…rooted in a so-called “men rights” argument. The logical argument wouldn’t be to remove a law that’s needed, but rather add a law that specifically protects men…because women and men aren’t the same and they require unique approaches.
My approach, the humanist approach, would be: yes this is forward movement, and we can look at other categories that are also at risk. For example, if you were concerned about the safety of men you wouldn’t spin your tires on something that figuratively doesn’t happen and advocate for, say, additional laws to protect men from sexual violence (a category that is often ignored and woefully under-reported).
Does it matter whether the protections are specific to that gender? General protections would still apply to women.
My argument is not performative or based in a “men’s rights” movement, but yes, it is somewhat semantic. I think the law would be more “complete” and overall better if it protected all genders, and so that is what I am arguing for. Although codifying punishments for femicide is good, adding protections for all genders doesn’t remove any protections for women, it just extends them to everyone else. Giving someone something doesn’t have to take it away from someone else.
If you are right that men and women require unique approaches to gender-based protection though, then yes that would be a barrier to making the law gender-agnostic. What do you believe would need to apply differently to men vs women?
I think your humanist approach makes sense, but that doesn’t mean that improving the completeness of the laws is not also worth pursuing. I am concerned about the safety of men and do advocate for improved sexual assault laws; but in this case I am also concerned that the law appears incomplete. Maybe that’s why I’ve been arguing in here so much; my view of the problem does not align with how others are approaching it, and that creates a mismatch of assumptions.
Edit: To elaborate on what I mean by “complete”, I think that the law should always provide equality. Equity should be sought through other (primarily social) avenues. The purpose of the law is to be an impartial judge of what is acceptable, not just to solve the current issues in society. Of course those issues have the greatest motivation to create laws to solve, but the ideal (and, unfortunately, unreachable) form of the law solves not only these problems but many others as well. It should be a solid framework upon which we build, not a series of patches to address single issues.