The push for tougher laws to protect women gained urgency last month after a Buffalo man was charged with beheading his wife and a bartender was sexually assaulted by two men at a Long Island bar in the middle of the day.

"We believe that these vicious (violent) crimes against women, including rape, murder and the recent beheading of the woman in Buffalo, are because they are women," said Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington, D-Suffolk County, who is sponsoring the hate-crime legislation.

Eddington and women's rights activists, such as the National Organization for Women, last week urged the state Legislature to enact a law that would require law enforcement to make more use of the gender aspect of New York's hate-crimes law.

Convictions of hate crimes, which occur when victims are targeted for reasons such as their race, gender, religion or nationality, render harsher sentences than the same crimes committed for different reasons.

But though gender is a basis for a hate crime, violence against women is often not prosecuted that way, advocates said.

"We don't hate men as a group in our society, but there's hate towards gays, certain religions, certain ethnicities, and those groups are protected by hate-crime laws," Eddington said. "But when it happens to a woman, it's just called assault and battery."

Nationally, about 1.3 million women fall victim to physical assault at the hands of intimate partners each year, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Forty-three percent of the 157 female homicide victims in 2007 in New York were killed by an intimate partner, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services.

There were 67 hate-crime convictions in New York in 2008.

Jessica Vasquez, chief executive officer of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said issues of violent crimes against women and domestic violence need to be solved at an institutional level by requiring law enforcement to provide more attention and resources to victims.

"The real culprit is a global society that privileges men and devalues women," Vasquez said. "Boys and men are bombarded with messages that encourage dominance over women through mainstream venues" such as movies and video games.

Law enforcement officials said they are committed to preventing domestic violence and crimes against women.

Though they haven't reviewed the bill and evaluated its effectiveness, "New York's district attorneys have long made toughening the laws against domestic violence a top priority," said Dan Donovan, president of the state District Attorneys Association.

If passed, the bill would take effect 19 days after it is signed into law. It has no Senate sponsor.

Reach Heather Senison at hsenison@gmail.com.