It does get misused in that exact way sometimes. I'm from Mexico, these cases have been making big headlines here for a while now, some prosecutors are misclassifying cases as femicide to grab attention to their political careers.

Local one a couple of years ago where a dude ran over a woman. Local prosecutor was pushing for femicide, fortunately it was moved to manslaughter as it should have been from the start. Not everything constitutes a hate crime and cases like that (in my opinion at least) would make the distinction meaningless

They're a protected class because they're singled out for violence because of their class. And it's a real world problem not a logic quiz. Misogyny and misandry are not equivalent in reality the way they are in the dictionary.

I would assume the thinking is centered around wanting to draw specific attention to the issue. And to more clearly cite it as a unique thing for awareness purposes.

Exactly. This should have been something that applies to all: 'murdering someone due to their sex is now a hate crime'.

Having the law give more consideration to one sex over another, particularly with something like murder, is quite sexist.