Pagina dettaglio corso numero uno

by Chiara Chisari, Research Fellow at the University of Bologna

On March 7, the Italian Council of ministers approved a bill to introduce femicide into the Italian Penal Code, defining it as a crime committed by “anyone who causes the death of a woman when the act is carried out as an act of discrimination or hatred toward the victim because she is a woman, or to suppress the exercise of her rights or freedoms, or, in any case, the expression of her personality.” According to the Council of ministers’ press release, this measure is part of a broader strategy to “respond to the need for protection against the alarming phenomenon of acts and manifestations of dominance and violence committed against women.”

Among the first reactions to the bill, some have emphasized the cultural significance of legally recognizing the specific nature of gender-based violence. For the first time, lawmakers would unequivocally establish that femicide is a distinct reality, separate from homicide, acknowledging that women are killed precisely because they are women by perpetrators who reject their freedom and self-determination. Certainly, the measure raises several legal concerns, and it may simply serve political interests. However, it marks a significant step forward in a context where gender-based violence is often dismissed as a private matter and where the term femicide is still labeled as unnecessary, excessive, or even unspeakable. In fact, by explicitly naming femicide, the bill provides a “framework of recognition” that helps to understand and address the phenomenon in all its specificities.

While the government’s initiative has the merit of recognizing the specific nature of a woman’s murder as a woman, concerns arise over the increasing reliance on criminal law to “respond to the need for protection against … acts and manifestations of dominance and violence committed against women.” Both academic literature and feminist and transfeminist movements advocating for gender equality emphasize that femicide is the explicit manifestation of highly imbalanced power relations, reinforced by a patriarchal and male-dominated culture that often leads those affected not to resist it. As a result, efforts to combat and prevent gender-based violence should go beyond simply punishing the violence experienced by the victim. They should take a transformative approach that addresses the structural and cultural factors that allow and legitimize such violence. This logic is reflected, for example, in the proposal to promote sex and relationship education in Italian schools—a proposal that, as is well known, has never been embraced in the national guidelines for all school levels.

It should not be surprising that repression is seen as the only solution to gender-based violence and discrimination. In his book Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (2007), Jonathan Simon argues that in the United States, crime has become the main tool through which the government exerts power and disciplines society. Other scholars have made similar observations regarding the European and Italian contexts, pointing out that criminalization, along with administrative-punitive measures, has become the preferred mechanism for managing social tensions (e.g., see here). Across the West, a “culture of control” is spreading—one that strips criminal issues of their context and promotes public policies focused on shielding individuals from the risk of victimization through punishment. Gender-based violence, too, risks being subjected to these dynamics. The introduction of femicide as a criminal offense and the gender policies promoted in Italy over the past few decades should be seen through this lens: the underlying idea seems to be that protecting women necessarily involves strengthening and empowering the penal system.

This approach, known as "punitive feminism," offers clear advantages in terms of political legitimacy: criminal intervention provides a sense of collective reassurance, positioning itself as both an expression of state authority and a quick-response tool to meet citizens’ expectations of protection. However, its effects are limited when it comes to the prevention of the issue, and it also carries the risk of reversing progress made in gender equality. There are several reasons for this, which we can only briefly touch on here.

First, investing in the criminal justice system implies viewing social reality from a horizontal perspective, where gender-based violence is no longer seen as a structural and cultural phenomenon rooted in the opposition between the oppressed and the oppressors. Rather, it is reduced to acts that harm the (primarily physical) integrity of a victim. Criminal law tends to overlook issues of oppression and exploitation, which are at the core of the hierarchical structure of patriarchal and male-dominated societies, focusing instead on the individual actions of those who perpetrate and experience violence. In doing so, it reinforces the notion that gender-based violence is a single, isolated event, rather than a shared experience within a community. At the same time, the emphasis on punishing offenders promotes a narrative in which women are seen only in relation to their aggressors, perpetuating a stereotypical view of women as victims who need protection and lack the capacity for self-determination.

From another perspective, the criminal justice system’s focus on the direct aspects of gender-based violence leads to the neglect of the need for cultural, educational, social, and economic interventions to address it—interventions that consider the intersectional nature of discrimination and its multiple manifestations, and that concern society as a whole, not just perpetrators and victims. In other words, the repressive approach downplays the context in which violence arises and is carried out, with potential consequences for the multidimensionality and inclusivity of strategies aimed at promoting gender equality.

In conclusion, we can only hope that the institutional acknowledgment of the specific nature of the murder of women because they are women will be followed by a recognition of the limits of criminal law as a tool to combat gender-based violence. This should lead to the promotion of initiatives that focus not only on the punishment of offenders and the vulnerability of victims, but also on the well-being of women and the creation of societies that are structurally and culturally egalitarian.

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The contents of this comment were also discussed by the author in an interview on Radio Popolare (Presto Presto - Interviste e analisi program, episode of March 24, 2025). To listen to the interview, click here (minute 29:38).