Some are stabbed, some are shot, some are strangled. But all the women killed by femicide in Italy have one thing in common: they knew their killers. More than 100 women were killed in 2023. The term ‘femicide’ – which is typically when a woman is killed by a current or former partner – became so topical an Italian encyclopedia named it as its word of the year in 2023. Italy might have a female prime minister, but she makes a point of not identifying herself as a feminist. The country only criminalized crimes of passion in 1981, and the judicial system still often gives lighter sentences to male killers if their wives were unfaithful. In a notorious case in 2020, 80-year-old Antonio Gozzini was cleared of bludgeoning to death his 62-year-old wife, Cristina Maioli with a rolling pin while she slept and then slicing her throat and cutting up her…
