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.
TL;DR: Italy finally adds a classification to a type of hate crime and defines certain circumstances required in order to help reduce/remove frivolous arguments and appeals from the defense.
AFAIU, it isn’t a blanket law and requires a specific intent to kill a woman based on her sex. It just so happens that it’s more common within relationships than out and not all deaths would fit into the definition.
There are many other hate crimes. This is just defining one of the many that are unfortunately needed, as it is and has been a prevalent issue within their country.
It’s sad that it’s been so bad there that they needed a law for this. Good on them for passing it. Now they need to do the work on changing the culture of weak men to remove this behavior. Unfortunately, this is also a worldwide issue that needs to be healed.
This post has helped me root out all the shitty piece of shit incels to block on Lemmy. Thank you for this.
I’m reading a lot of responses here that seem to rhyme with the “White lives matter!” responses to the BLM movement.
As was the case then, what seems to be getting missed by those saying this is the context. Italy has a major issue with domestic violence, including spousal murder. From the sound of it, it’s usually women who are the victims. Thus, a new law to target wife abusers specifically.
There may be some merit to debating whether this is an effective move or not, I’m not up on my research there; but let’s not deny that they see a need, and are attempting to address it.
You have selected regicide! If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, please press 1.
Cool, now Italy stop recognizing the copout that is allowing the framing of spousal murders as crimes of passion for the purpose of reducing the sentence, its complete bullshit.
Its like giving a drunk driver a curative discharge, its like, umm no, fuck off
Since when have stronger punishments deterred crimes?
Uhh… what about this mindset - “glad this menace to society isn’t getting released after 5 years”
There needs to be more accountability for law enforcement for this too have any real effect. Studies show up to 40% of law enforcement self identify as domestic abusers. So why would they investigate themselves?
That is a wild statistic! Is that study just in Italy or?
That is a wild statistic!
It’s a demonstrably inaccurate number. The study was vague enough that yelling at a partner was included, and much more damning they included the officer even if they were the victim in the situation. It literally paints the victims as domestic abusers!
“40% of law enforcement self identify as domestic abusers” is demonstrably false and is not something that should be repeated.
Thank you for clarifying, it seemed crazy high. I know the stereotypes but still.
The comment was UP TO 40%. Various studies range from 2 to 40%. But since they are SELF REPORTING, the number is likely higher.
Look through the various studies, but all still show higher rates than the general public. And if law enforcement are the domestic abusers, how can they be tasked with investigating themselves?
The comment was UP TO 40%.
And that comment is incorrect. Unless we are going with Comcast’s ‘up to 1000mbps’ numbers.
Various studies range from 2 to 40%.
No, they don’t range to 40%, and I detailed why. Don’t repeat 40%, it’s demonstrably false.
Yeah, the real number from that study was ~28% self admitted, which is still extremely bad
as far as I know that stat is for the united States, but pigs are pigs
Law enforcement in the USA is specific. It’s not the same in every country. Can’t speak for Italy though.
Yea… I’m with the incels that don’t really understand the point. If murder was already a crime that would be punished by life in prison, narrowing the specificity of who was murdered doesn’t change much of anything.
“Cool, if it makes you happy I guess 👍”
It includes stronger measures against gender-based crimes including stalking and revenge porn
Read?
My comment is very clearly specifically in reference to the term “femicide” and the official recognition of it within Italian law. It’s murder. If a woman kills another woman, it is not a femicide, that’s just a murder… the penalty is the same in the end… right??? Overall, it seems a relatively unnecessary level of specificity.
Neither stalking nor revenge porn should count as gender-based violence. It is gender violence if it’s strictly based on because of someone’s gender with no other motivation.
Yea… I’m with the incels
If you ever find yourself uttering this sentence you really wanna rethink your stance
I am with Hitler on treating animals better. So what? If you care where a stance comes from rather than what it stands for, you are an ignoramus.
Hitler didn’t originate animal kindness though
He supported it. And there probably isn’t just one originator for most stances. Multiple people can form the same ideas.
weird hill but ok.
Like, If I support animal rights I’d just say “I support animal rights” I won’t say “I’m with hitler on animal rights”
If you ever find yourself uttering this sentence you really wanna rethink your stance
I am making fun of your hill ;D Seems it is super effective :D
nah, I’m good.
The one where I oppose sexist laws? Which stance?
If you have to say “I’m with the incels” you’re an incel.
“You don’t agree with me, therefore you must be bad”
I agree with doctors that vaccines save lives, so I’ll be taking that free medical degree now.
Spot on! That’s exactly how agreeing with people works!
When I agree with women, I turn into a woman! When I agree with doctors, I become a doctor!
And every asshole upvoting that trap
I don’t see how the femicide part makes any sense or difference. There were already the exact same punishments for killing of anyone, so isn’t this essentially copy pasting existing laws but with a specific group highlight? If that’s the case, it will do absolutely nothing.
The second part is fine, though I hope it’s meant for everyone and not just women. I don’t know about Italy specifically, but in many European countries if you fall victim to these crimes as a man, you’ll likely receive no help.
Would be great to see some more protections for everyone, as well as more serious punishments for violations against anyone. Making anything like this gender-specific will just fuel already problematic anti-other-gender sentiment.
inequity is real.
If each and every person should matter then It should be ok to recognize each and every person for what they are being targetted for. And I see this law as doing just that. It’s recognizing that a person may not be targetted for being an individual but a part of a group. And that is important. So That is taking their individualness into importance by recognizing the group they are being targetted by.
This should be allowed if you’re being legitimately concerned for EVERYONE’S safety here.
people who may be at their job as a sex worker. Or if they are simply female and that in itself could be weaponized against them.
They will face a violent discrimination just as another person fitting into a different group might. And it’s important to recognize that, make that a law, and keep them safe too. So if “Being targetted for”is a law , recognizing group profile is part of that.
inequity is real.
Right, in discriminatory laws.
Generalizing the law to crimes attacking anyone for their gender would also increase penalties for femicide without legal discrimination. Did you know there are other genders in the world?
Oh geez no not until you just told me in such a good faith way to have a discussion.
Then maybe start acting like it instead of missing the obvious?
If you aim for equality, making separate laws for separate genders is not the solution. This is anything but equality. Especially when there are already laws protecting the groups in question, as part of the entire nation. The problem here is completely different and requires different solutions.
To note: I’m not who you responded to.
making separate laws for separate genders is not the solution
Absolutely it is. If there is a measurable inequality towards a minority, you should enshrine the protection of that minority into law - which is one reasons why many countries specify anti-discrimination laws. This law regards the same.
The problem here is completely different
Which you have failed to specify. So… the problem is what, exactly? I don’t see one.
and requires different solutions.
Which you also failed to provide.
I’m getting a strong “but won’t anyone think of the men!” vibe from you.
- Women are not a minority.
- Anti-discrimation laws generally apply to everyone. Otherwise they’d themselves be discriminatory.
- Not specifying problems/solutions, since it’s quite a sensitive and complex topic. It’s way easier to rate an existing proposition than to come up with an alternative. Though obviously, a good start would be to respect and enforce laws that are already in place. E.g., all EU countries already have laws prohibiting all kinds of sexual harassment and assault. However, many cases are still ignored for a variety of reasons. In this specific instance, adding more laws would accomplish nothing.
- I know this isn’t literally what you meant, but I am in fact trying to think of the men, as well as women. When striving for equality, you want to consider all of the groups in question and not just one or two out of many. Feminism used to be about equal rights between men and women, but nowadays it’s usually about more rights for women and fewer for men. While it’s not actually feminism, it does present itself as such and many people consider it to be, so it’s still relevant to the discussion. This may ‘work’ for a short while, but long-term will do nothing but pin men and women against each other. As designed, since it’s in most politicians’ best interests to keep us divided. This is not the way.
I think a better law would be more generic in defining what defined group targeting.
Why only protect one group? How many other divisions will there be?
How balkanized will you make the law when ypu apply it to people?
Will more wealth entitle you to more protections?
It sounds lis you’re asking to have 4 more discussion on top of this one.
No. You missed the appeal to the absurd that was the basis of my reply.
If each and every person should matter then It should be ok to recognize each and every person for what they are being targetted for. And I see this law as doing just that.
Please note that, by all accounts I’ve seen, Italy’s femicide law does not cover any similar offense against men. It’s an elevated offense to try and reduce the disproportionate number of Italian women who are killed by intimate partners.
It sounds like we are agreeing here.
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The article is vague. Where are the laws to protect anyone attacked because of their gender? Is that this law? If so, then great: it’s nondiscriminatory. If not, then it’s discriminatory: discriminatory laws are inherently unjust.
It’s as easy to make a discriminatory law nondiscriminatory by generalizing the language.
Laws that recognize life of one group of people as more valuable than other are the exact same logic that was used to defend slavery. Murder is murder. Recognizing one groups life as more valuable then others is wrong, no matter how much you want to dress that pig to look progressive.
It take a certain type of flaw in logic to assume that because a group is “getting” something, it means another group is losing something.
What if one group is getting something unproportionally more than the other.
That creates inequality, essentially meaning that the disadvantaged group is losing something. I.e. they get less that the other group.
So yeah, if you give one group much more than the other, they are losing something.
Recognizing group harassment is also benefitting individualism by recognizing that… inequity is real.
So are you guys getting less stalking, harassmentd, domestic violence and murder by your partner or are you just blowing smoke rings here
We’re no longer discussing stalking or harassment.
We are talking about equality between different groups and what it means.
They’re trying to use “logic” to justify giving one group more than the other.
And I’m using the same “logic” to argue the opposite.
Simple debate, nothing more.
This isn’t giving one group more than the other, it’s not like you can murder men now.
Any criticism of this law should be around the ineffectiveness of harsh punishments as a deterrent, not that it’s sexist
As if you could murder women before?
This isn’t giving one group more than the other, it’s not like you can murder men now.
And that’s not what I’m arguing about.
The other commenter said “giving more to one group doesn’t take away from another” and apparently you have to have flawed logic to think otherwise.
THAT’S what I’m arguing about. In case you didn’t bother reading the comments properly…
Your “logic” is no such thing. And stop pretending your scenarios exist isolate of context. Damned fool.
You know you won the argument when the other party starts insulting instead of presenting valid arguments.
Keep your options to yourself in serious debates please. It just muddles the truth.
People here seem weirdly confused about the term “feminicide”: it means homicide motivated by misogyny. It’s a subset of hate crimes.
They exist in all western societies I’m aware of, if you’re confused it’s probably only because you’re unused to thinking of women as a protected class and hate for women as aggravating circumstances, the way hate for any race of religion is in most legal systems.
Yes they’re 50% of the population, but also yes they’re disproportionately the targets of violence because misogyny exists. Yet they are rarely treated as such in many legal systems.
Genuinely thought it just meant killing a woman and was confused
It does get misused in that exact way sometimes. I’m from Mexico, these cases have been making big headlines here for a while now, some prosecutors are misclassifying cases as femicide to grab attention to their political careers.
Local one a couple of years ago where a dude ran over a woman. Local prosecutor was pushing for femicide, fortunately it was moved to manslaughter as it should have been from the start. Not everything constitutes a hate crime and cases like that (in my opinion at least) would make the distinction meaningless
Sometimes people run over others intentionally, so drag supports the recognition of vehicular murder, but yes, it’s usually manslaughter. A prior history between victim and accused or history of hateful conduct by the accused should be used as clues that a deeper investigation is required.
Women may not not be a mathematical minority, but they absolutely are a cultural/societal minoritiy.
Cultural minorities have nothing to do with the absolute number of members the group has, but how much political and social power and influence the group holds.
That’s why black africans during apartheid Africa would still be considered minorities, even though they made up the mathematical majority of inhabitants.
Shouldn’t it be gynocide? Since it’s clearly pulling from Latin. Activists should be forced to work with linguists for their words, or face the penalty of be hit with a 2x4.
Goddamn I wish the biggest contention about this story was the etymology.
gyne is Greek, femina is Latin.
Just let latin die already.
I think that penalty is a hate crime. But you’re correct.
It seems weird to consider half the people as “protected class”. But only one gender. Dunno why they didn’t just make hate crime the charge and make misogyny fall under that
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.
Does that make hate crime murder against men less worth prosecuting as such? Why shouldn’t the legal definition be symmetrical?
How many hate crime murders of men are there in Italy?
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?
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.
Because the situation is not symmetrical. Acknowledging that there is an oppressed side is not the same thing as denying the privileged one. Pretending murder will not be prosecuted in Italy if the victim is male is just you larping and not at all what enshrining feminicide in law means. It’s just aggravating circumstances. Murderers of males will be prosecuted for murder without the aggravating circumstances of misogyny as a motive because it wouldn’t make any sense. And misandry is not the societal problem that misogyny is, so it would be kind of insulting to make them a protected class.
You’re acting like a four year old whose disabled brother got a wheelchair and who wants one of his own, saying “it’s not fair”. It is.
Perhaps I was not clear. I am referring to the prosecution being “the same” in the sense that a gender-based motivation in the murder of a man would qualify it as a hate crime. Of course men can still be prosecuted for murder either way; surely you didn’t think that’s what I was saying?
And misandry is not the societal problem that misogyny is, so it would be kind of insulting to make them a protected class.
Not nearly on the same scale, no. But should it not be protected against at all? Femicide is certainly a more pressing matter to enshrine into law, but we might as well make it as comprehensive of a protection as we can/should while we’re doing this. As far as I know, most hate crime laws (at least in the US) actually are symmetrical in this way. If one of the identities being protected is more vulnerable to crime, the hate crime protection will be used to protect them more often. Seems logical to me.
You’re acting like a four year old whose disabled brother got a wheelchair and who wants one of his own, saying “it’s not fair”. It is.
Is there a need for insults here?
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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.
I don’t think my model of morality is compatible with yours.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
What would give you that idea? What is it with folks who think equality is ignoring an actual problem?
If the hate crime part of the law were symmetrical, not only would that still handle the problem of femicide like the current law does, it would also handle hate crimes against other genders. Not making it symmetrical ignores more problems.
The currentl law doesn’t appropriately “handle” the problem of femicide…or else it wouldn’t be an outsized problem.
Symmetry is the problem. The justice system anywhere isn’t “one size fits all” for murder. There are already categories for infanticide, assisted suicide, accidental death, indirect murder, etc. It would be very very nice if there was an appropriate category for the infinite motivations for murder…but that’s not realistic.
Femicide is a problem in Italy so they passed a law. If males being targeted was a problem…they’d pass that law. Making an appropriate category for an existing phenomenon doesn’t mean it “ignores” anything else, as you’re claiming.
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?
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.
Calling it a logic trick is just a cheap way to devalue a valid argument
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.
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.
If someone murdered a male due to their sex, would you treat that any differently than someone murdering a female due to their sex?
And what if the moon was made of cottage cheese? When then??? 🤔🤔🤔
Downvote me if you’re a cry baby man :)
Womp womp bad faith argument
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You know we can see when you edit messages lmao?
It’s good to be wrong sometimes, if you always avoid the consequences by trying to head off disagreement (downvotes) you are doing yourself and anyone you talk to in the future a disservice. Saving face means losing the truth.
Nothing more than sex based whataboutism.
It’s not whataboutism, it’s the very obvious logical followup question. The mistake you’re making is assuming by default that the question means they hate women or some such nonsense.
Reading other comments they’ve made, that person is definitely not a feminist. But alright I’ll give the painful answer to the whataboutism: yes.
Yes, in a society where misogyny is rampant one should consider misogyny differently than misandry. Same for racism. If you take a less extreme case than murder, a white person using a derogatory term for a black people will get canceled and labeled racist, at worse a black person using a derogatory term for white people will get laughed at, and people will assume any actual racial hate is a response to the systemic racism they’ve experienced. And most likely they’ll be right. Even if logically those are two sides of the same coin, if your coin is unbalanced applying every correction to both sides will never work.
The asymmeyrical social reality informs what people feel about hate, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t inform lawmakers decision in trying to correct this asymmetry.
Could you elaborate on why you believe this is not a valid line of questioning?
Check my profile. We’ve been discussing this for hours.
Sentenced to 4 hours of online gender discourse
It would seem weirder to me to have 100% of people be a protected class
I just assumed it was some smaller more specific groups. But I think it covers most people
I would assume the thinking is centered around wanting to draw specific attention to the issue. And to more clearly cite it as a unique thing for awareness purposes.
This. The goal is to send a message. Over half the women killed were murdered by intimate partners. Such a crime would already be punished by life imprisonment for Aggravated Homicide.
However femicide also includes refusal for emotional relationship, or resistance to limiting her freedom as motivators, as admissible motives for femicide.
https://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/20211564_mh0421097enn_pdf_0.pdf
So, essentially its targeted towards violent incels among other specifics now.
Awesome.
So the data I linked alleges that ~43% of female homicides in Italy are committed by a current or former spouse. While a global estimate says that 29% of all female homicides are committed by current/former spouse or a family member.
So while I think this thread brings the incels out of the wood works… it’s not really targeting incels.
Exactly. This should have been something that applies to all: ‘murdering someone due to their sex is now a hate crime’.
Having the law give more consideration to one sex over another, particularly with something like murder, is quite sexist.
Are you purposefully taking the exact same stance that maga is taking on DEI?
This would be true if there were commensurate rates of murder where the motivation is misandry. Otherwise you just like the veneer of equality to cover up the rot underneath.
So it’s only a hate crime if it happens to the gender that has a higher rate of being targeted?
This is typically how the legal system responds to increases in specific kinds of crimes, they adjust the system to more efficiently prosecute that crime.
If you have a better idea for how to combat disproportionate crime statistics without targeting that specific kind of crime, from a legal standpoint, I’m sure the world would love to hear it.
How does making it a hate crime to kill men because of their gender take away from it being a hate crime to kill women because of their gender?
Do you think killing a white person because of their race shouldn’t be a hate crime?
You’re viewing law and order as symmetrical, it’s not like that. Nothing is like that, broadly as a global civilization we respond to imbalanced factors in order to preserve balance the best we can.
If an neighborhood is using more power than other neighborhoods, the power grid will be adjusted to compensate.
If you drink more juice than milk and you don’t want to run out of juice, you adjust your buying habits to buy more juice.
While some people probably have killed white people for their race, the problem here isn’t symmetrical, more white people have killed people of color for their race in most places than the reverse because of a complex historical context. The law, and all of society broadly, implements laws or other systems to balance imbalances. Hate crimes have been typically perpetuated by one group versus another. Gender-related crimes VASTLY dominate in one direction than the other, and I’m still not hearing a better solution for this fact from the standpoint of law and order.
Does this idea make you feel bad? Seriously, I’m wondering why this is being challenged without an offer of a better idea or solution.
Yes
I bet you also think it’s impossible to be racist against white people.
If it happens for exact same reason I don’t see why one would be hate crime and the other not tbh
If perpetrators happen to be of one sex more often, then it means the rates of being charged with the relevant crime will be higher for that sex.
A crime must be treated equally, regardless of sex. The law treating one differently based on their sex is itself sexist. As I stated before, this should have been something that applies to all: ‘murdering someone due to their sex is now a hate crime’.
You’re assuming that the perpetrators will be male, the law doesn’t say that. Your argument is that if males are the perpetrators more often…then the law is sexist? By that logic most laws are “biased” against men.
You’re incorrect that the intent or text of the law is to add extra punishment. It’s just it’s a charging mechanism that carries the same sentence. It’s a law dealing with a real world problem and it makes it less likely for perpetrators to escape culpability. Folks act as if the crime of homicide has been somehow diminished, when it hasn’t.
It’s a law dealing with a real world problem and it makes it less likely for perpetrators to escape culpability.
That I don’t understand. How does this help to stop a murderer from escaping culpability? Maybe you mean it’s a question of intent and the recognition of femicide avoids someone pleading a lesser charge due to heightened emotional state, but still I don’t see how that isn’t covered by just recognizing gender based violence/killing as a hate crime.
To me this looks like a pointless law which doesn’t change anything much in a practical sense, to create the appearance of doing something about a problem which really requires a serious social and educational approach. I recognize that femicide is a real and gender specific problem, but the law shouldn’t be, because justice should always be even handed. I believe the reason this law is gender specific is because they are pretending it’s a solution to the problem, which it isn’t.
It’s as impractical as an infanticide law.
Yes, the system also should and is focusing on education.
How is it sexist? Both men and women are equally culpable for their actions under this law. It just takes into account intent which is difficult to prove in most cases. Nothing about the law takes the sex of the perpetrator into account.
Some people argue that intent shouldn’t be considered when sentencing people for their crimes.
I believe intent impacts a perpetrator’s potential rehabilitation (something a lot of countries put very little effort into when keeping people incarcerated) and should therefore affect sentencing.
If that’s how the other commenter feels I’d be happy to have a different conversation, but judging by his replies I don’t know if he’s arguing from there or not
How is it sexist?
Murdering someone due to their sex is not illegal under this law, if the victim is a male. Murdering a male due to their sex should be no less illegal.
Of course murdering someone due to their sex is illegal if the victim is male, it’s murder
It’s always illegal to murder someone it just sets the circumstance when a crime can also be considered a hate crime.
Then we wrap back around to the start. That would only be true if there were a commensurate killings based on misandry. You keep jumping back and forth between perpetrators and victims. The lawmakers saw an issue and created a law to target that issue. If you have evidence that they’re ignoring them feel free to show it, but nothing about this law is sexist on the face of it.
Better to invent a new word where the word parts don’t explain it and so they have to explain it every fucking time like that girl whose name is only and forever “Megan with two Rs”.
Femicide isn’t a new word.
You, of course, realize that we’re using an existing word in the English language to describe a different existing word in the Italian language?
I see no reason to make a special specific word as every category needs this…
They should just add modifiers to the category: Assault for instance can get aggravated and hate crime as adjuvants. Murder has manslaughter and degrees and could have hate crime modifiers.
This is a more fair and clear generalized solution of core concepts than entirely new specific categories.
The word just existed since 1652
So not very long at all /s, not that it shouldn’t be a word, but rather, why complicate the legal system needlessly when such systems rely on relativity, clarity, and consistency. Outside of that context we can have 10000 words for it.
The “confusion” seems intentional…or rather a symptom of the very problem the new class is attempting to address.
Many people seem to believe that a femicide charge is automatically a more serious charge than murder. It isn’t.
Many people believe that the law explicitly targets men. It doesn’t (No more than a “standard murder charge or an assault charge “target” men, they just commit murder and assault more often).
Many people believe that the very existence of a femicide charge diminishes the importance of a murder charge. It doesn’t, they carry the same sentence.
If homicide and femicide carry the same sentence, what is the point of all this?
The point is culpability. It’s the same reason there’s separate charges for infanticide, assistance a suicide, manslaughter, etc. It a class of charges so culpability, and therefore justice, can be more accurately meted.
Your note about disproportionate targets is misleading and inaccurate. Femicide is specifically about murders as far as I know. In the vast majority of countries, men are victims of murder more often than women (in Italy, men are victims about twice as often). They have higher rates of being assaulted/maimed at pretty much every age category in most western countries.
What you’re likely trying to gloss, is the oft repeated “victim of domestic violence” stats, which is a niche area of violence that gets used by feminist movements to ignore the arguably greater violence that men face on the regular. This sub-division is even more biased, given that men generally don’t report spousal abuse / are less likely to get injured to the point that they get hospitalized by it. Even after the victims of ‘violence’ includes pretty well all categories, in many western countries the ‘results’ are roughly even between genders – Canada for example is at about 48% of all violent offences being committed against men, and 52% against women. But again, not all those crimes are really equal – men are over represented in fatal / serious violent assaults causing injury far more often than women. They both experience violence at the same ‘general’ frequency, but men are more likely to be left maimed/dead.
Murder’s murder, in the eyes of many. It’s strange to provide additional protections for just one demographic, especially when that demographic is far less frequently the victim of murder.
Ah, but how often are they victims of murder because of their gender? Femicide isn’t just murdering a woman, the motivation counts.
Dedicating time and effort to focus on a special category of murder and implementing harsher punishments for perpetrators based on the demographic membership of the victim, feels counter to the equitable application of justice for a country at large.
Intentionally murdering a woman because she’s a woman, is in my view little different from murdering a person for any of the other reasons that get lumped together under things like ‘first degree’ and ‘second degree’ murders. This legislation change isn’t about making murder illegal – it’s always been illegal. It’s about making the punishment more significant if the victim is a woman and the prosecution can prove the murderer had any anti-woman comments/viewpoints.
There are examples of women killing men because they’re men – there are a few famous, and more less-famous, cases where escorts, for example, kill their johns because they’re easy targets. There are examples of minority groups killing majority groups because of clearly racist/hateful motives, that get excused because of the demographics of the perp and the victim. The legislation change noted, basically says killing people is bad, but killing women is somehow worse – ie. that the genders aren’t equally treated, and women are worth more / require more protection. To apply harsher punishments unevenly based on demographics is not what I’d consider a fair and impartial system – it’s one that’s been engineered to preference the protected group’s interests over the interests of the broader whole.
Besides, men get killed 2-5x more frequently than women in many western countries – why are we trying to protect the gender that has far better overall results? This is sorta a gender equivalent to giving tax breaks to the rich – they already have it better than others, why give them even more privilege? Add more supports to the demographic that has terrible stats in this area.
I agree with you, I just think that it’s valid to increase the penalty for hate crimes over regular crimes. Of course this would apply to murdering a man because of his gender too.
The vast majority of the time Men are killed by other men. If there was an epidemic of women calling for violence, hatred and subjugation of men supported by podcasts and propaganda and it was resulting in a large increase in murder then we’d need to address that problem too.
Casually throwing feminism under the bus – a movement that focuses on women’s issues (to the overall societal benefit of everyone) – for focusing on women’s issues?
Huh. Is this socially acceptable now? I thought we were better than this.
Feminism has a place, but it is explicitly about promoting women’s interests – something which if allowed to continue unchecked, leads to significant disadvantages for men. It leads to the sorts of toxic masculinity backlashes that you see in the states, especially because moderates who question women’s privilege in advanced western economies start to support more extreme anti-woman positions, because there’s a perception that left wing feminist leaning ideologies work against their interests. And they’re right.
An egalitarian approach is better, once you’ve gotten to near parity. Most western countries have been at near parity for generations at this point.
Feminism has a place, but it is explicitly about promoting women’s interests – something which if allowed to continue unchecked, leads to significant disadvantages for men.
I think that’s a dangerous belief. I don’t see the difference between saying that and saying “Equality for black people has a place, but it is explicitly about promoting black interests – something which if left allowed to continue unchecked, leads to significant disadvantages to whites.”
Those two statements aren’t equivalent. Feminism is not just about equality (though that’s a huge part of it). If your second statement were something like “elevating black people has a place…”, they’d be equivalent. In that case, yeah, it could hypothetically go beyond equality into something unjust.
I don’t see anything wrong with that second note, translating the position into one about race instead of gender.
Equity-type programs often get started based off of aggregate differences in statistical data based on demographic slices, with good intentions. But I’ve yet to see any cases where they build in a process for removing equity support programs once a ‘goal’ is reached / more parity is visible in the data.
So as an example from Canada, equity employment programs were introduced in the mid/late 1980s to address the imbalance between men and women in the workforce. You can see how this played out in the public workforce data. In 1990, shortly after the leg came in, it was at about 54% men, 46% women. By 2000, it had flipped in favour of women, at 48% men, 52% women. By 2010, 45% men, 55% women – a greater imbalance than in the 1990s, the imbalance which had triggered supports to get put in place for women. That roughly 10% gap persisted through to 2020 at least. No legislation has been introduced to remove preferential hiring for women in the public sector, no legislation has come in to promote hiring men due to the shift in the gender imbalance.
On a racial basis, the same pattern can be seen in our post secondary education grants, bursaries and scholarships. Funding for these sorts of initiatives in Canada allows for them to screen for specific equity groups – what some term visible minorities. The roots of that being based on reasonable equity goals – ie. there’s a statistical gap in education levels for a minority group, so they allow people to target funding to minority groups. However, while these policies have been enforced, white men have become one of the least educated groups in Canada, with about 24% of white men attaining a degree, compared to 40% of asian guys (with the highest rate of attainment amongst chinese/korean guys, at ~60%). White men are still not considered an equity group, and so cannot have funding specifically targeted to them to try and address this equity issue. And we haven’t ‘removed’ the ‘disadvantaged’ minority groups from receiving systemic advantage, even though they are out performing the supposedly privileged majority group. The system quite literally has race-based controls working against white men, with a justification of correcting an imbalance that not only doesn’t exist in the data, but where the data shows white men as significantly worse off. The system is basically designed to kick them when they’re down.
I can highlight that education item a bit more using a personal example. A coworker of mine has a kid going to BCIT, one of our western province’s “leading” tech-type schools. They’re Canadian citizens, recent immigrants from eastern Europe, not wealthy by any stretch. They tried to get financial assistance for the kid through the school, but the advisor bluntly told him there were no grants/bursaries etc that he could apply for, since the kid was a white guy – all the available funding was targeted to different racial sub groups. He would have more charitable funding options available from the system we’ve setup here, had he been a third generation millionaire visible minority.
Murder’s murder, in the eyes of many
You’re right! That’s why we should prosecute all traffic deaths as first degree murder. Someone drunkenly stumbles into the road, into your path, causing you to run them over and kill them? Mandatory minimum life sentence for you. After all, death is death, killing is killing. We don’t give a shit about people’s motives.
I doubt they are saying to discard all motives; specifically they said “murder is murder” so using cases that aren’t intentional (ie manslaughter, not murder) undermines your point. It’s more that there’s an upper limit or certain criteria where we stop caring what the person’s motives are, so where do we draw that line? I don’t pretend to know the answer, but it’s a question worth exploring even if you think you know the answer already.
There’s never been an upper limit on criteria in the eyes of the law, what an odd thing to say.
All adding a charge for femicide does is refine their legal system to they have another charging mechanism that might more appropriate assess culpability. They don’t actually have to use the charge, and the addition of the charge doesn’t diminish charges for other types of murder in any way.
ie there’s no outcry when somebody is charged with infanticide or assisting in a suicide, etc…because motivation matters when you’re charging a crime so the system can appropriate mete justice…femicide is no different. The fact that there’s an “outcry” is a symptom of the problem it’s trying to address.
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Too bad that this government also slashed the funds for shelters for women and forbade affective education in primary and middle school. Not to mention cops ignoring calls from women who’re being stalked or harassed and not intervening when a man remove his ankle monitor to circumvene a restrictive order.
“Femicide” so… murder? Yeah, hasnt “life” been the typical punishment for murder? (Life is usually 25years) .
Did they not already recognize murder of women should be treated like murder?
Victims of relationships violence (myself), stalking and harassment (myself), should have justice. Unfortunately, I dont hear much about the men who suffer from this type of violence.
Maybe I’m wrong but I’m interpreting this being in the vein of a crime being murder, but potentially also a hate crime. The motivation of a crime is part of its definition and affects sentencing especially in tertiary cases eg attempted murder, manslaughter etc.
There is a massive imbalance in violent crimes, in that nearly half of all women murdered are murdered by a spouse, partner or boyfriend or other kind of male acquaintance.
This doesn’t skew the other direction, so that’s why women victims are getting special consideration and why there are special laws being made to make it easier to prosecute this kind of crime in a different or more efficient way. (Like we have “hate crime” laws that allow for special forms of prosecution.) This isn’t supposed to solve all the problems, but it may help by making the consequences of a man killing his wife or girlfriend far less likely to be reduced by pleas of temporary insanity or the like or be dropped by the court for minor reasons.
This isn’t a special law to make it easier to prosecute. It adds femicide to the list of elements that can elevate the sentencing.
Edit: I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, I am broadly skeptical that harsher sentences will do anything to reduce crime. This needs to be paired with strong cultural changes if it’s to do anything.
Did you even read the header? It was more than just murder.
It includes stronger measures against gender-based crimes including stalking and revenge porn
But is it discriminatory or is anyone protected regardless of their gender?
It’s not just about murder. It’s about how men are the primary perpetrators of violence against women. As a woman, If I go out anywhere my #1 fear is a man. We are taught to never go outside alone at night, even in our own neighborhoods. We are taught not to trust strange men. We have to protect our drinks if we go out to socialize. Every position we find ourselves in we have to consider whether its safe or not. We can’t walk across a parking lot to our cars without worrying if a man will do something. Hell, we even have to consider if smiling at a man or not will trigger him. It sounds crazy and over the top but it’s the reality of being a woman. Constant awareness of everything and everyone around us. On average the weakest man is stronger than the average woman. It’s very easy to overpower us so we must be vigilant to never get into that position in the first place. It’s fucking exhausting having to think these things about every man we meet.
I’m sorry about what has happened to you, it’s wrong and you deserve justice. You shouldn’t be ignored just because you’re a man and it is perceived that you can’t be a victim in these cases. I don’t agree with that at all and I really feel for you. But you need to understand the things that happen to women every minute and that’s the point of what Italy is doing.
Ok so it looks like incels CAN’T read. Just as much as they can’t pick a username.
Its best if everyone knows that they’re dealing with a special guy. Its an advantage im not trying to hide.
