Lawyers say that the effectiveness of the proposal that equates “hatred and aversion to women” with racism depends on education and prevention; approved in the Senate, text goes to the Chamber
Equating misogyny with the crime of racism is not enough to solve the problem of violence against women, according to the assessment of experts heard by the Poder360. The Senate on March 24 o , that deals with the subject. The text defines misogyny as conduct that “externalize hatred or aversion to women”. With the new standard, crimes committed based on this definition now have the same legal treatment as crimes of racism, being non-bailable and imprescriptible.
The lawyer specializing in criminal sciences and partner at RCA Advogados, told the Can what “the proposal seeks to remove misogyny from the field of a mere individual offense and treat it as structural discrimination against a social group, in this case, women”.
According to the lawyer, “when conduct does not affect just a specific person, but reproduces hostility, inferiority and exclusion against an entire group, the legislator understands that the criminal response must be more severe”.
Cantelmo stated that equating does not mean equalizing the phenomena of misogyny and racism. According to him, they are “distinct discriminations, with histories and dynamics”.
“What the project does is a normative equivalence of criminal protection, that is, it recognizes that both can operate as serious forms of collective prejudice and, therefore, deserve similar legal treatment in certain aspects. This does not erase the differences between the phenomena; it only approximates the sanctioning regime due to the social gravity of the conduct”said the lawyer.
If the project is approved by the Chamber and sanctioned by the Executive, the act of insulting someone by offending their dignity or decorum due to misogyny will be punishable by 2 to 5 years, in addition to a fine. Practicing, inducing or inciting discrimination or prejudice against women will also become a criminal offense, with a penalty of 1 to 3 years. In the context of domestic and family violence, this penalty can double.
The president of the group of lawyers Júlia Baere, states, however, that the bill alone will not solve the problem of violence against women.
“No law, by itself, erases centuries of discriminatory culture, but this law is the preventive shield we were missing. Physical violence is almost always preceded by hate speech. By punishing misogyny at its source – in incitement and verbal and digital prejudice – we are trying to stop the escalation that leads to femicide”it says.
Baere says the law can also help protect women in the digital environment. “This gives the Judiciary a real tool to dismantle networks of hate and hold accountable influencers and groups that have turned aversion to women into content and profit.”it says.
CRITERIA
The approved project determines that the judge must consider as discriminatory any attitude that causes embarrassment, humiliation or undue exposure to women who would not be exempted from other groups.
The judge must consider it discriminatory “any attitude or treatment given to a person or minority groups that causes embarrassment, humiliation, shame, fear or undue exposure, and that would not usually be given to other groups due to color, ethnicity, religion, national origin or status as a woman”.
According to Cantelmo, “every decision in this sense demands a concrete analysis from the judge according to each case” and “this is the criminal procedural logic in force in Brazil”. The lawyer states, however, that “there is also a need to implement a criminal policy that promotes adequate filters before the case actually reaches the Judiciary”.
The lawyer states that these filters include analysis of context, social situation, language and criminal or non-criminal modus operandi. “This is all part of the police training [capacidade técnica para identificar atitudes suspeitas e comportamentos de risco no cotidiano] or the member of the Public Prosecutor’s Office who preliminarily holds the responsibility for forming the criminal opinion or not”it says.
federal councilor of (Brazilian Bar Association), states that different interpretations are already a reality in other criminal types. This is the case, for example, of (PL 5,582 of 2025), which creates the concept of “ultraviolent organization”. According to her, the term is “vague”.
“Just because a law is not precise does not mean it should not exist. It will be up to jurisprudence in a moderate, balanced way to fill these concepts with content”it says.
CRITICISM OF THE PROJECT
Right-wing deputies said on their social networks that the project. One of the arguments is that the text encourages “division and hatred between men and women”. According to Cantelmo, the point raised by congressmen seems “more rhetorical than technical”.
“The project does not criminalize the fact that someone is a man, it criminalizes discriminatory conduct based on hatred or contempt for women. In other words, the target of the rule is misogynistic behavior, not the sex of those who practice it. Saying that the punishment of misogyny promotes war between men and women is equivalent to saying that combating racism would encourage division between whites and blacks, which is not sustainable from a legal point of view”these.
According to the lawyer, “criminal law, here, is not choosing a side in a gender dispute, it is protecting a historically vulnerable group against discriminatory practices”.
Júlia Baere states that the project “it does not replace education and public policies, but it establishes a non-negotiable legal limit: hatred against women will no longer be tolerated by the Brazilian State”.
“It’s a fundamental piece of a larger puzzle”it says.
