Extreme misogyny will be classed as terrorism !

Sites like mumsnet will be shut down and the reaction will be WoMeN WaNtEd ThIs WoMeN dEsErVe ThIs and it will be seen as women's problem and not taken seriously. You just end up with different sides played of against each other.

I would welcome more attention paid to the links between e.g. DV and terrorism and maybe taking existing crimes more seriously. I actually think if the UK police can see a link between e.g. child sex grooming and extremist ideologies that threated UK security, they are more likely to take the former more seriously.

ALso - it is puzzling that if a man kills a lot of people because he thinks they are infidels thats terrorism. But if he kills a lot of women/girls because they are roasties/whores etc it isn't.

Have to say I have a bad feeling about this (Starmer is chomping at the bit to bring in authoritarian laws).

Using women as an excuse to limit free speech will not go well for women, sites like mumsnet could be shut down or forced to shut down this part if they include men in the definition of women.
And MRAs, though there are millions of holes in their toxic arguments, they still have a rights. I believe the answer to toxic speech is countering them with more speech

It's thought policing.
Of 'extreme' views. But who gets to decide what is extreme?

I vote no one, and we stick with making actions illegal not views.

Off the top of my head (and with a bit of brain fog so I might not be 100% clear in my explanation):

Yup, sadly I’ve realised that modern bureaucratic politicians believe (like Genderists and other SJWs) that words create reality so banning words they don’t approve of will fix things that are wrong in the world. I would prefer to ban actions rather than thoughts because (being a sex-realist) I’ve been on the receiving end of thought policing and shunning (and I’ve seen multiple nasty cancellations). I wouldn’t wish this treatment on my worst enemy and I don’t believe it’s an effective means of dealing with important social issues that need addressing. It’s made me value freedom of speech even more than I did in years past.

I don’t want people like Tate influencing other men to treat women badly, and to think of us as lesser than men, but with all the laws created to police speech, ideology, and political views in the last two decades there has also been mission creep. The legislation has served to allow the police to use the law to punish people for their views and speech rather than encouraged the police to investigate people who are terrorists or terrorist supporters. The police prefer to go for easy targets, hence we’ve seen sex-realist women being interviewed and kept in cells overnight because the police disagreed with their political views but we’re not seeing the police targeting men who download CSAM, or men flashing in public places, with the same amount of vigour.

I don’t know what the answer is but I don’t trust increasing bureaucracy to be the right solution. I think that improving investigation and charging of crimes against women and children using existing legislation would be more effective as a deterrent and I think doing as much as possible to kill off pornography would also be more useful.

SlothToes

That's good advice and I will contact my MP.

But you are assuming that the Govt have not already made up their minds and will actually listen. You are discounting the possibility that Cooper et al want to add men to the class of women. That they see it as a good thing. This is what I have had in the past from my MP. My local Labour Party just think I'm too stupid or too selfish to understand how necessary it is to recognise MCW as women. They are nice, but have a case of tin ear on this subject.

Scottish Labour are dead set on including men in the definition of women for their misogyny law.

What we saw at the Olympics was the IOC doubling down, muddying the waters, skirting the issue and saying things that you would only know to be untrue if you were one of us. Mainstream media following the IOC's narrative and refusing to ask the important questions. Misinformation all over social media.
Did the govt have anything to say about this? Are they defending FPfW against a foreign state?

Of course, I could be wrong. But history suggests otherwise. So until I see the detail of what is being planned, I will not celebrate or congratulate.

I assume this is done to try to address the Incel movement and dangerous idiots like Andrew Tate who radicalise men and try to stop teenagers getting sucked into this, especially though social media.

I think it is a welcome step.

Of course we need to see how this is implemented.

I'm more thinking, we live with misogyny every day, I've no idea what they define 'extreme' as. Will it be the quick cop a feel? The lifting a woman out of the way of the freezer as the man wanted to be in there, the upskirting, the casual sexual assault, the wolf whistle.

Whatever it ends up meaning, will we recognise it as extreme? Will we really take it to court knowing the ridicule we'll suffer?
Is it going to be an extension <<<wrong word but meh>>>> of law, of the process, like murder is wrong and off you go to your court case, but you did the murder for hateful reasons, let's add on some jail time for that.

Will women go to court for this?
Will there be different definitions depending on if a woman or a man is doing the misogyny? I bet there will be.

Sigh, I'd like to be so happy about this, I just cant.

I’ll just once again encourage anyone with views on this proposed new law, whatever your views are- to put your concerns in a short polite email to your MP. Any cohort of new MPs and any new government need steering by lobbying in the right direction. They’re starting to do it now and but will need guidance based on constituents’ views and experiences. Just write to them.

If enough of us do it, then it will force the question back to TRAs to make the case in public, in the media and most relevantly in Parliament, for why men should be able to misuse legislation that is specifically designed to support women against misogyny.

As we have seen, every time you expose these TRA arguments to public scrutiny, they just crumble apart. The simple act of asking questions creates yet another golden opportunity for the general public to say WTF and to see the injustice. More and more women will then join with their own stories of men appropriating what is not theirs.

Look at what’s being seen now with the Olympics, how that has started a national debate about protecting women’s sports.
Just keep at it. Everybody knows what a woman is really. This is how we wiill start to reverse institutional capture.

I saw this today and wholeheartedly welcome it @Omlettes.

I await the first conviction. With any luck it'll be one of my exes.

I am very suspicious of the tendency to class more and more things under headings like "terrorism". It generally seems to be a way for states to avoid normal boundaries in the law that keep them from overstepping their authority.

But also - it does zero to get at the root of whatever the problem is.

I don't see this as being in any way effective either. If people are committing acts so significant they could be classes as terrorism they are already illegal.

I am not mourning the loss of mother-in-law jokes.

I will watch and wait about this, but as pp said, there are already laws that are ignored or not applied consistently. And so many sexual assault/rape trials where the perpetrator gets off or gets such a light sentence that it is meaningless - i would like to see those sentences and the judges/magistrates applying them being sanctioned, harshly. As pp said: that is vile misogyny if plain sight.

RIP mother in law jokes.

I'm cautiously optimistic on one level about Prevent taking incel culture seriously enough for it to be classified under its extremism remit. My last Prevent training was under a year ago and I had a respectful discussion with the officer who held the session, raising my concerns about the steep rise in misogyny I've observed in young men. Misogyny was not included in the presentation materials and he was receptive to my reasons why it should be.

I'm not talking about foolish sexist ideas here, I'm talking absolute seething hatred of women and girls manifesting as resentment, sexual assault, stalking, viewing violent pornography and femicide. When this crosses over into how boys interact with female staff and girls, it becomes very problematic in terms of how those young men can access education. My emphasis is on keeping women and girls safe from violent young men, while attempting to educate the misguided and groomed young men away from (obviously) Tate et al.

Is more legislation the way to go, given how cack-handed this new government is in the implementation of existing laws? Probably not, but being finally able to report / label obvious misogyny in the same way as racist and homophobic incidents are reported internally, with the same consequences, is possibly a step forward. However, getting a decent definition of misogyny from the party that can't define women isn't a hopeful start, is it?

Regardless of the intent (and coming from Labour I have no illusions) we know this will only be enforced to benefit those men who claim to be women.

Page 53, 4.56, as a reference, ref 89. (Not quoted wrt GC views.)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63e26968d3bf7f17385a3421/IndependentReviewwofPrevent.pdf#page56

lawcom.gov.uk/reforms-to-protect-disabled-and-lgbt-victims-criminalise-extremist-misogynist-incel-hate-material-and-safeguard-free-speech/

This was it.

It's quoted in the 2023 review of Prevent, in relation to "incel culture."

As with everything Labour. It’s going to be a case of let’s see

That's the thing, isn't it? Even if bad or unlawful decisions to prosecute are corrected eventually, the process is the punishment. The process can be used oppressively.

Interestingly there was a review of prevent a year or so ago and it specifically linked to a report on the issue of feminists being able to express gender critical views.

But that hasn't trickled down to the coal / chalk face

Completely this

The law is only as good as how it is applied and enforced.

See implementation of 'stonewall law' and how women who do not have money and the willingness to go to court do not have protections they legally have in actual law.

Terrorism laws have form for being used in ways far removed from their original intention because they've been badly written, ill defined and far too broad in scope.

Quite, Red I recall a previous terrorism law brought in during the Blair era that was all the above and resulted in Councils going after people for putting the wrong thing in their bins under that law.

The balance behind these ideas is to prioritise debate and critical thinking (in teaching staff and pupils) so that children can openly discuss ideas without fear of retribution and persecution which in turn can lead to more radicalism.

We have laws. The issue, IMO, is that the police decide which laws they will enforce, who they will identify as victim/perpetrator according to their personal beliefs/ideology/opinion. Ditto the judiciary/CPS. So we have men abusing and assaulting women with impunity and women being locked up for taking a photograph of a sticker, for example.
Shop lifting, car theft, burglary, money laundering, tax evasion, drug dealing. All out of control.
The number of rapes and sexual assaults in the NHS and in schools is huge. A recent article in the BMJ on this topic was absolutely shocking, but nothing further has been published or discussed.
Enforcing the existing laws equally without discrimination would be a good start.

Every time I hear people saying misogyny powers shouldn’t be in place because ‘this will benefit men’ I think well, the present situation isn’t exactly benefiting women is it?
What if it only benefits men in practice? The misogynists in the police, the legal system, education and sport aren't going to magically disappear or change their minds.

It would be great to have a discussion and air our concerns about the definition of women and girls in law. But what if the stance is no debate? Baroness Kennedy, of Scottish Labour is adamant about the inclusion of men who claim to be women in their proposed misogyny law. We are right to be cautious.

There is a history of TAs using legislation which is ostensibly for the benefit or protection of women as a Trojan Horse to remove our rights to definition and non-discrimination. The issue I have is not sharing protection with men - I would be happy for the definition of misogyny to include acts directed at women & girls AND at men/boys the perpetrator believed to be women in the case of non-face-to-face interactions. What I don't want to see is any legislation or guidelines used to cement the idea that a man is a woman. That could be the covert aim.