It’s rare for Italian lawmakers from across the political spectrum to agree on anything. But on Tuesday, the lower house of Parliament unanimously ratified a law introducing the crime of femicide into Italy’s criminal code, punishable by life in prison.
(title from entry in NYT’s The Morning newsletter)
Do the rates matter? Does covering everyone cost extra?
Law shouldn’t discriminate for sex or gender or race or a bunch of other things (yes there can be rare exceptions where the biological sex does matter, e.g. abortion, but can we read a whole paragraph without whaboutism?)
People go through a ton of effort to explain how it’s perfectly possible (and common) to write laws with sexist results even using neutral language.
And yet when we need to do the reverse, write laws that are meant to combat discrimination and and inequality without having to spell out and pick each specific group it’s meant to protect the same people go “nope, sorry, can’t be done”.
Edit: Think of the so-called “pink quotas” argument. Does it make a difference to write that you need at least 30% women, or to write that you need at least 30% of each sex? Practical results is exactly. the same, but one of the two is written neutrally, and I think there is value in that. Don’t you?
Dude — do you understand the etymology of homicide? It is a combination of homo (man) and caedere (to kill).
Fucks sake, I’m not arguing this with troglodytes — you are wrong.
Downvotes and doesn’t answer to the point.
Class.
I quite literally destroyed your argument.
Why weren’t you incels crying about homicide not being gender neutral? I’ll wait.
And the etymology of “nice” is that it used to mean “foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless”. Does that mean that saying, “Have a nice day” is to tell people to be foolish?
Of course not. Meanings evolve, and if everyone understands “homicide” as meaning “killing a human” (gender-neutrally), then that’s the wisest way to interpret it today, regardless of what it meant when it was first coined in Latin.
It’s a bit worse than that though.
The law in Italy literally defines homicide as the killing of a man. God knows how long it’s been on the books with that wording.
Of course that hasn’t stopped anyone from being prosecuted for that crime even with that wording, and that use is clearly understood to be synonymous with human, the same way that noone thinks that the word mankind excludes women. No lawyer, judge of citizen has any doubt with regards to that.
Nevertheless, in this day and age that wording does feels dated, even to me.
The incels are out in droves! You lot are about as bad as the .mlers.
Lol, wut?