As of today, in Italy, the killing of a woman is considered more serious than the killing of a man

Senator Giulia Bongiorno speaks during the debate on the femicide bill. Credits: ANSA

Unanimously approved in Italy, the bill introducing the crime of femicide. The senators gave their first-reading approval to the measure, which now moves to the Chamber of Deputies. The bill establishes femicide as a new, autonomous crime, punishable by life imprisonment when the murder is committed for reasons of discrimination, control, possession, domination, rejection, or hatred specifically and exclusively toward a woman.

The law introduces a serious legal asymmetry: it recognizes a specific criminal offense only if the victim is female. In doing so, the legal system moves away from the universality of criminal law, which should punish the act, not the identity of the person involved. The same action, killing a partner out of jealousy or a need for control, would be punished more severely if the victim is a woman, and not if the victim is a man. This results in a form of reverse discrimination.

In the opposite case, for example, a woman killing a man in the context of a breakup or as an extreme attempt to assert relational control, no specific crime is foreseen. Or rather, there is: it's "simple" murder.

In this way, the law legitimizes a disparity based on the biological identity of the victim, rather than on the severity of the act committed.

Shifting the axis of culpability onto the biological sex of the victim risks fueling a vindictive and misanthropic logic rather than correcting the dynamics of violence.

True justice cannot be based on asymmetry: it is not achieved by favoring one category in response to the oppression it has suffered.
Every citizen must be equally protected, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or relationship status. That is why the bill is a legal aberration.

A law that considers the killing of a woman more serious than the killing of a man implies that female life holds greater value under criminal law and this is an ethically questionable and legally outrageous message.
The autonomous offense of femicide, as currently conceived, legitimizes a hierarchy of victims that contradicts the very foundations of the rule of law.

https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/politica/2025/07/23/si-al-reato-di-femminicidio-ora-la-pena-e-lergastolo_45f081fe-4f2b-4c22-89d9-07138a819c4b.html