To think mysogeny should not be made a hate crime?

[Olympiathequeen]

Of course mysogeny is rife (sadly), but women make up 50% of the population so we are hardly a minority, like disabled, BME or religious minorities.

There are plenty of laws to protect women against men’s aggression and plenty of laws to protect both sexes against discrimination.

I can’t even see what practical application this has and would tie up valuable police time.

And how can we have equality if 50% of the population are pitted against the other 50%? Surely we can’t have a situation where a man is charged with mysogeny for putting vile stuff on the internet, yet a woman could say the same about him and not be prosecuted?

We’re in danger of alienating reasonable, decent men by having a law which would cast them as the villeins and of giving entitled men more reasons to abuse women.

On the other hand I think there should be something to prevent the type of abuse Diane Abbott and other female politicians suffered but this doesn’t need to be female centred but applicable to men and women.

I’m happy to be convinced otherwise if the arguments are good.

Pp said 'sexual assault is rarely about sex, isn't it?'

I don't think you could draft a law on that sort of unproven assertion. Motivation is not generally taken into account in the courts. Robin Hood was still a thief under the law.

It's difficult enough with the hate crime categories that already exist. I vaguely remember a dispute between 2 neighbours where one claimed it was a hate crime because the other had called her 'an Australian bitch'. Both women. Don't know how it turned out.

It's a big step from acknowledging that misogyny exists, and that is disputable as a general state of affairs, to making it a crime. There's no point in a law that is unenforceable. As Germaine Greer said, what we need is a review of the law over sexual assault, and stricter sentences if applicable.

assassinated I’m not saying that. You are. It is much clearer in law to assign ‘hate crime’ to racist or homophobic crimes than misogyny.

It’s still not the easiest as a gay man can be attacked just to steal his smartphone. Is that a hate crime or a theft/assault? A woman may be sexually assaulted because the man wants to dominate someone smaller and weaker than himself, rather than a hatred of women. Is he going to admit in court his assault plus an additional charge of misogyny and incur a heavier sentence? How would you prove his guilt?

I think it’s such a grey area it’s virtually unworkable.

More sensible to strengthen current laws and educate children to embrace equality

Hate crime legislation can be used for the majority when applicable. There have been a few assaults and murders of White people that have ended up covered as such due to them having been attacked specifically for being White.

Having misogyny a hate crime would mean that the incidences would be officially recorded and registered as such. It would mean that we would have more data which would help get more research and funding at a time when refuges and women's centres are closing. In Nottingham where misogyny is recorded, the numbers were found to be similar to other hate crimes. Most of it was covered by other legislation - as is true for other hate crimes - but it gave police more tools and now Nottingham has a better picture of what's going on in the city. It's given organizations within Nottingham help.

Also, having hate crime legislation for gender identity but not sex makes absolutely no sense. Having been attacked for being a masculine female person under different identity labels, having one be a hate crime and the other not is just weird. The reason for attacking me was the same - I was a female who did not comply with that person's idea of female.

There are grey areas in a lot of laws, including the current hate crime legislation. It's for the prosecution to prove and those involved to decide like with most cases.

Including misogyny would strengthen current legislation as would ensuring legislation recognized when multiple areas were being covered. Right now it's more difficult to deal with hate crimes against lesbians or disabled women when what happens can be twisted as being misogyny which is often part but not the whole picture. That loop needs to be closed.

While education is great, by itself it doesn't do much and often takes a while even when it doesn't backfire. Teaching people to play nice without enforcement in the environment just leads to people who know the right words to make excuses. I've heard 10-year-olds boys attempt to use buzzwords to try to excuse sexual harassment and threats. All typical kids. They already know how to use a girl's body against her and how to make it seem like her fault. Just doing more of what we're doing now to "embrace equality" isn't going to get us there.

As you say. We don’t need legislation to record crime relating to the gender of the person, it can be done if the will is there. But what is the point of recording this information if nothing is done about it? It doesn’t need a crime of ‘misogyny’ to make the changes needed to reduce the perception that women are inferior or to reduce male entitlement.

Why waste money and time on a difficult to prove crime when that can be better used maintaining refuges for women and educating the whole population?

If I doubted some women can also be misogynistic then some of the comments here have made me rethink that. I was married for 12 years to a manipulative abusive man who clearly hated any woman who didn’t conform to his stereotypical ‘good wife’. One of his mantras was that if I didn’t share his point of view I was fair game for abuse because I wasn’t entitled to a different one. Some people here should think on this and respect other people’s views.

We need our children to respect each other no matter what their gender.

You are confusing sex and gender.

I am not confusing sex with gender. We are discussing mysogeny which can only relate to one sex/gender.

Sex/gender?

Sex and gender are not interchangeable terms.

Having misogyny a hate crime would mean that the incidences would be officially recorded and registered as such. It would mean that we would have more data which would help get more research and funding at a time when refuges and women's centres are closing. In Nottingham where misogyny is recorded, the numbers were found to be similar to other hate crimes. Most of it was covered by other legislation - as is true for other hate crimes - but it gave police more tools and now Nottingham has a better picture of what's going on in the city. It's given organizations within Nottingham help.

This is so interesting DN4, I didn’t know Nottingham did this. I honestly can’t see how anyone can argue this is a bad thing.

Still using the wrong spelling of misogyny, don't know that sex and gender are not the same thing ... back of the class, OP, back of the class

I don't think you understand what needs to be proved for a hate crime. It's not just a matter of the victim belonging to a minority group or a protected group. There has to be additional evidence that the crime was motivated by hate. So for example racist abuse being used whilst the crime is being carried out, evidence of the victims being targeted due to their race/sexuality/religion etc, evidence of racist/homophobic graffiti at the crime scene, etc etc.

So it would work just as well as the current law works for racist/homophobic/etc hate crime. It's not any more likely to have a grey area than the existing hate crime categories.

Cheap, misogynistic shot. Liney. My iPad keeps spelling it wrongly.
Probably because I’ve put it in wrongly initially, but it’s not a work I use in daily life.

Of course I know the difference between sex and gender.
But we are discussing the female sex here, so why introduce gender at this late stage?

You keep misspelling misogyny.

You confused and referred to gender.

Duh.

Surely it would be worded as sexism? So someone of either sex attacks someone of either sex specifically because of hatred of their sex, then sexism in an aggravating factor and sentence is increased? That's how it works with other hate crimes?

Obviously I'm not expecting an equal split in the stats. I'm sure someone will think of one woman who attacked a man for being male though, thus proving the million examples of men doing it to women wrong...

What is Nottingham's definition of misogyny when it is recorded as a hate crime? What sort of crimes have they recorded in that category?

It will be interesting assassin when this comes up for debate, if it ever gets that far. The debate should be interesting as well as the legal argument for determining the mens rea of the accused at the time of the offence.

I think far more ought to be done to tackle online abuse of women and men, online exploitation of boys and girls, and easy access to porn and gambling. Social media platforms can co strict algorithms to sell us all kinds of unnecessary crap, but they say they can’t locate abuse? Far more important than a nebulous ‘misogyny’ Bill with grey areas (sorry but I think there are) and very much a black and white issue.

Could you please give us an example of these grey areas of misogyny?

beyond. More crimes are committed against men by other men than against women. They are all crimes of equal importance.

It is a fact that bullies will abuse anyone weaker and more vulnerable than themselves, which is why children and women are often victims. It’s more about vulnerability than misogyny. Homeless men are victims of other men for just this reason.

I have sympathy for the underlying premis that misogyny is a hate crime and there is a big element of it in society, but the practical enforcement is my issue as well as the simple injustice of allowing one sex (female) to perpetrate something that in the male sex would be considered a crime.

Maybe collect date on misogynistic acts and put society right rather than bring about a very unwealdy law.

Pumper. I alreadŷ have.

So it’s male violence you have an issue with rather than misogyny? I’m just trying to see your point of view.

OP you're totally missing the point about the Yorkshire Ripper, his other crimes happened BECAUSE he hated women...

Do you mean you answered it here?

A woman may be sexually assaulted because the man wants to dominate someone smaller and weaker than himself, rather than a hatred of women. Is he going to admit in court his assault plus an additional charge of misogyny and incur a heavier sentence? How would you prove his guilt?

I think it’s such a grey area it’s virtually unworkable.

The Yorkshire ripper was criminally insane. He hated women (specifically sex workers). I think proving and convicting him of misogyny would be an utter waste of everyone’s time when he had a long list of murders and assaults. I seriously doubt whether a law against misogyny would have deterred him for one second.

Elderly women are more likely to be attacked in their homes than elderly men. There are more elderly women than elderly men. The elderly are more vulnerable, and more likely to be in their homes, than younger people of either sex. Some criminals only break into homes where they know elderly people live.

How would you prove that someone who has attacked an elderly woman in her own home, perhaps calling her an old bitch in the process, was committing a misogynistic hate crime?

Or we could do both dealing with social media and the law. The law would need to be changed to force social media to do that. It's a major struggle to get them to do much without legal requirements. That's part of why there is a resurgent of hate groups.

The data that is recorded is used. It used in sentencing, in looking for areas of risk that could use more resources put in, used in academic research to influence policy and so on. Not sure why you think the data isn't used...or why you think women aren't worth a little money and time. This data has helped put in resources that save lives. Many crimes are difficult to solve - should we give up all of those? on all hate crime legislation because it's hard? Social change is hard. If it wasn't it would have happened by now.

The legislation is required because that isn't being done now because they aren't made to and take the easy way out (there is also the big issue as to whether sex and/or gender is or should be recorded which is a whole other thing). It's working in Nottingham and North Yorkshire just fine, why would it be so hard to make it national? BBC article on how Nottingham defines it for the curious here is another more recent one here's a site on it in general that discussing North Yorkshire's policy.

Teaching kids to "respect" does nothing if they do not see it enforced in their communities. Education is not the cure-all for every one of societies ills, it's one stepping stone. Laws are another. Laws also show what our priorities are as a society - right now it says that dealing with hate based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity is worth that time and money.

Explain to me why me getting beaten when I identified as a trans man is worth more time and money than me getting hurt now that I'm just a masculine female? Why am I worth less and too much work to have someone attack me properly legally labeled and recorded for who I am now than I was then?