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.

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.

If you look at the rates of social class transitions, you'll find being rich or poor is not much less of an unchangeable identity than gender... But that's not the point, you keep saying you don't get the reasons why this law should be asymmetrical, so I'm trying to explain by analogy. The answer is equality is a bad foundation for lawmaking, equity is a better one.

Your hypotheticals and examples are very bad for someone who says elsewhere that

Of course men can still be prosecuted for murder either way; surely you didn’t think that’s what I was saying?

I'll answer a better analogy : in a world where 80% of [insert any act of violence] is committed against women, should [insert any act of violence] against men still be prosecuted? Yes. Now, assuming a lawmaker believes that the harshness of punishments deters from crimes*, should that lawmaker make the punishment harsher for [insert any act of violence] committed against women? Also yes, that's what's happening here. That's the definition of an aggravating circumstance such as a motive of hate: a reason for worsening the punishment. It's still murder, only worse to account for the asymmetry.

*If you don't assume that, then the reasons for punishing anything more or less are mostly symbolic anyways, so by making an asymmetric law you're only acknowledging symbolically that there's an asymmetrical problem, but it's mostly just posturing.

Could you elaborate on why you believe this is not a valid line of questioning?

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.