"Is it right to shoot the poor prostitute or a woman who is unfaithful to her husband, or a man who loves another man?"
About this Quote
Fallaci’s question is a tripwire: it sounds like moral inquiry, but it’s really a spotlight swung onto the machinery that decides whose life is disposable. By stacking “poor prostitute,” “unfaithful” wife, and “a man who loves another man” into the same grammatical basket, she exposes how easily “crime” becomes a costume draped over class, gender, and sexuality. The verb is the tell. “Shoot” doesn’t leave room for nuance or rehabilitation; it’s summary judgment, the language of states and militias and husbands who believe they’re owed control.
As a journalist, Fallaci understood that polite phrasing can be an accomplice. She chooses blunt categories that readers are trained to rank: the sex worker as public contamination, the unfaithful woman as domestic betrayal, the gay man as social threat. The intent is not to litigate each case, but to force the reader to feel the arbitrariness of that ranking system. Her syntax makes the prejudice do the work, then demands you justify it.
The context matters: Fallaci came of age amid war, authoritarianism, and the postwar policing of “morality” in Europe, and later wrote with a combative skepticism toward institutions that sanctify violence. This line reads like a courtroom cross-examination aimed at the cultural jury. If your answer is anything but “no,” you’ve just admitted that the real offense isn’t harm done to others, but deviation from a social script - and that you’re willing to let bullets enforce it.
As a journalist, Fallaci understood that polite phrasing can be an accomplice. She chooses blunt categories that readers are trained to rank: the sex worker as public contamination, the unfaithful woman as domestic betrayal, the gay man as social threat. The intent is not to litigate each case, but to force the reader to feel the arbitrariness of that ranking system. Her syntax makes the prejudice do the work, then demands you justify it.
The context matters: Fallaci came of age amid war, authoritarianism, and the postwar policing of “morality” in Europe, and later wrote with a combative skepticism toward institutions that sanctify violence. This line reads like a courtroom cross-examination aimed at the cultural jury. If your answer is anything but “no,” you’ve just admitted that the real offense isn’t harm done to others, but deviation from a social script - and that you’re willing to let bullets enforce it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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