The ‘feminicide’ law (Law 119/2014) is analysed in its criminal policy law scope and as a first (supposed) legislative step towards a comprehensive, articulated and funded intervention to prevent and combat gender-based violence against women. We criticise the choice of the Decree-Law and analyse the individual criminal content: rules that tighten the punitive treatment of authors; protection and protection, provided for ‘weak’ individuals and now extended to women, as well as early and reinforced protection. The latter are considered to be the most significant: the Questore’s warning of cases of ‘domestic violence’, the urgent removal of the family home ordered by the judicial police and the irrevocability of the stalking claim (in the most serious cases). The (criminal) measures envisaged are aimed at bringing to the fullest extent possible the shadow of male violence against women and putting an end to it; however, they can enter friction with women’s self-reliance, because they can compress the will of a woman who has suffered gender-based violence; his consent, opinion and, in summary, autonomy are expressed: they ignore or go beyond it, thereby curtailing the self-determination of women. An interventionist public line has prevailed, acted by means of penalty payments and priority has been given to the repressive institutional logic over women’s freedom: not with the woman, but also against herself.