Abstract

Critics of the notion of "moral panic" have long affirmed that it lacks any criteria of proportionality without which it is impossible to determine whether concern about a social problem is justified or not. We think that the anti-immigrant frenzy of 2006-2007 was completely out of proportion with the "threat" of strangers to Italian women, and that the hysteria about immigrants fuelled by evening news concealed the real issue emerging at that time: extreme violence against women perpetrated by partners or ex-partners.