To think that violence against women is a hate crime?

[Wandawomble]

AIBU - it’s not a hate crime
YAIBU - it is a hate crime

I think so many of us are upset by the constant news of women being assaulted, raped and murdered - and the horrific statistics about the majority of young women in the UK having been sexually harassed. (Guardian link below)

I am a BAME woman and I experience misogyny in the same way that I experience racism, if anything the misogyny is worse. I do not feel safe walking home late, I have had multiple attacks on my physical body by men because of my sex and multiple attacks of my body because I am brown.
It is no different except with being a diminutive female - I have been more easily overpowered and the sexual assaults have been much much worse. So how is this not a hate crime?

I was pulled into a strangers car on the way to school once and assaulted because of my female body. Can you imagine how I feel about my daughter walking to school? I do not understand how any person can not see this as hate towards women. It is certainly not love.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/10/almost-all-young-women-in-the-uk-have-been-sexually-harassed-survey-finds

WHO says 1 in 3 women globally experience domestic violence. www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women

Even if it was a hate crime, there's still the diminished responsibility defense as apparently testosterone impairs decision making.

I have reached the point that I feel all this analysis and outrage is a waste of time. You can't force men to care. I am coming to the second wave feminist viewpoint that we need women-only communes as a solution for those who have had enough.

I don't agree with the premise of hate crimes to begin with.

But... if bills are being passed to have hate crime laws for protected characteristics, then it is wrong to exclude sex from that list.

@Whatcouldshehavebeen

I see it more as aggression? A mother presumably reared them, so I don't understand how so many can be so violent. I've been the victim of criminal behaviour from men several times. I think that boys are reared differently to girls. They also have different hormones, different levels of strength and height. A power thing too maybe? Boys are not being reared to be nice.

A mother presumably reared them? So it's their fault if their son's turn in to rapists? Nothing to do with the rape culture that surrounds us all on a daily basis and actively encouraged by men? Do men have no agency of their own that they can't not rape someone unless their mother raised them 'right'? Do they not understand the law? Or perhaps they understand the law a little too well and know that the law doesn't give a shit about the safety of women and that rape convictions are appalling low and that women are blamed for their own assaults.

@ItscoldinAlaska
This is exactly it and I think we as girls are raised by society to be support humans and to be afraid of not having male support and protection. Certainly growing up as a minority, my mother had very foxed ideas ingrained in her by her culture that ranged from giving my dad the best piece of meat at dinner to telling her daughters that it would be better if we got married because otherwise, society would ostracise us. She also never reported my dad for domestic violence because she told us you have to stand with your husband in all things.

Many of us want a loving relationship with a man. We have male friends who we think are decent people. I have a partner who I think is a decent person. It is hard to reconcile that there are 300 men on my Facebook that over the years I have worked with and been friends with and that some of those men are probably watching violent porn where women are gangbanged into submission or other types of porn where the woman is not being treated well and they get hard from it. It is hard to reconcile that women are being battered raped and murdered every day by men who are invisible. Who are these men.

It's awful isn't it. Feels utterly hopeless sometimes. What will it take for men to stand up to this? I just don't know. They don't care. Why don't they care? They have mothers. They have daughters.

foxed? fixed.

@Moomin12345

Even if it was a hate crime, there's still the diminished responsibility defense as apparently testosterone impairs decision making.

I can see that the argument could be made but if men have diminished responsibility because of the androgen levels why are we letting them occupy positions of power and responsibility? Perhaps they really ought to be muzzled and leashed?

What is the difference between calling a woman a slut and calling a BAME woman a Paki Slut?

Because as someone who receives both slurs I can tell you it's the same.

I'd say each individual's experience is different, because as a black woman I'd see that I've been insulted twice by being called a black slut...as it's both my gender and race being targeted.

I can understand why crimes against women are not hate crimes. Even though the victims of violent crime are primarily women. When men are specifically targeted in crimes, the argument could also be made for that to be a hate crime too.

There was a serial male rapist convicted last year....he only targeted men. There have been other crimes Joanhe Dennehy only killed men. These and many others could be called hate crimes and it would be very difficult to distinguish what is a hate crime and what isn't.

We'd end up with every violent crime being a labelled a hate crime if commited by someone of the opposite gender.

Age is a protected characteristic. That doesn't automatically make a crime against an old person a hate crime. It means they've been targeted because of their vulnerability by a cowardly criminal.

A possible comparison is why isn't needing glasses as a visual aid to improve your sight regarded a disability, in the same way using a hearing aid to improve hearing a disability.

Quite simply because too many people use glasses/contact lenses for it to be so and half the population would fall into that category.

Half the population are women and to regard every violent crime against women as a hate crime wouldn’t be practical and it would make it almost meaningless IMO.

I can bring my son up to respect women. However I lose control when he is with his mates and they are circulating porn or photos of girls. I can tell him to walk away and I can tell him that loving sex isn’t like porn. But I’m fighting a losing battle - even grown men don’t call out their mates. How often do we hear “what goes on stag nights stays on stag nights”? Until we have a honest discussion about the dangers of violent porn and some women stop protecting men on this we can’t move forward.

Yes and worse.

It should be as we're an oppressed group. Anyone want to start a petition?

Half the population are women and to regard every violent crime against women as a hate crime wouldn’t be practical and it would make it almost meaningless IMO.

But not every crime against women would be a hate crime, just like not all crimes against black or gay people are automatically racist or homophobic.

in any case, a woman can be the most dedicated feminist on the planet - there is still a limit to what she can do when her son is swimming in the tidal wave of misogyny and patriarchy that is our society.

I agree. But we (husband and I; child-rearing is a two-person job) intend to have a damned good try.

@AvocadoBathroom I can't tell you how much I appreciate that insight. Thank you.

As both mother of a son and a victim of child abuse (by a male, qu'el surprise) and gang rape, this resonates very painfully.

And to respond to the thread title, yes, misogynistic crime, sexual assault and rape absolutely should be labelled as what it is. Hate crime.

I don't know the answer here, but something is going wrong in how boys are being brought up. They're also so powerful physically, that they can do a lot of harm. It's a bit like a bite from a chihuahua compared to being mauled to death by a bull breed dog. If I get angry, I'm not much threat to anyone. If a man gets angry, he has the capacity to kill a woman in seconds. Rape has always gone on. Always. That shit, I don't fucking understand either.

It absolutely should be considered a hate crime.

I love how by just page 1, someone had blamed the mother (a woman) for the violence of a male child she raised.

BBC Radio Scotland posted on facebook this morning. They posed the question "Should we be warning women to stay safe or do men need to do more to make women feel safe".

@SandyY2K

What is the difference between calling a woman a slut and calling a BAME woman a Paki Slut?

Because as someone who receives both slurs I can tell you it's the same.

I'd say each individual's experience is different, because as a black woman I'd see that I've been insulted twice by being called a black slut...as it's both my gender and race being targeted.

I can understand why crimes against women are not hate crimes. Even though the victims of violent crime are primarily women. When men are specifically targeted in crimes, the argument could also be made for that to be a hate crime too.

There was a serial male rapist convicted last year....he only targeted men. There have been other crimes Joanhe Dennehy only killed men. These and many others could be called hate crimes and it would be very difficult to distinguish what is a hate crime and what isn't.

We'd end up with every violent crime being a labelled a hate crime if commited by someone of the opposite gender.

Age is a protected characteristic. That doesn't automatically make a crime against an old person a hate crime. It means they've been targeted because of their vulnerability by a cowardly criminal.

A possible comparison is why isn't needing glasses as a visual aid to improve your sight regarded a disability, in the same way using a hearing aid to improve hearing a disability.

Quite simply because too many people use glasses/contact lenses for it to be so and half the population would fall into that category.

Half the population are women and to regard every violent crime against women as a hate crime wouldn’t be practical and it would make it almost meaningless IMO.

But if you were beaten to death because of your colour that would be considered a hate crime.

If you are beaten to death and raped by a man who has been watching violent pornography beforehand (which is what happens in many cases) how is it different?

YANBU

And it’s too often not even treated as ANY crime, let alone a hate crime or anything else

I don't agree with the premise of hate crimes to begin with.

But... if bills are being passed to have hate crime laws for protected characteristics, then it is wrong to exclude sex from that list.

Exactly (although personally, I do agree with hate crimes as a concept). But whatever you think about hate crimes, I think that inconsistency impossible to reconcile.

It’s a hate crime to attack someone because they are gay or trans or black or Asian. It’s not a hate crime to attack someone because she is a woman. It’s a hate crime to attack someone who is now a woman but was born male because she is now a woman but was born male, but it’s not a hate crime to attack a woman because she was born a woman.

OK then what is the difference between

a) A cross dresser being beaten to death because they are wearing a wig and a dress and heels.

b) a woman being beaten to death and raped because she is walking home alone

c) a BAME person being beaten up because their skin is brown

I do not think you are being unreasonable at all, l think all women in England have suffered misogyny from men, but my feelings are BAME women may experience more misogyny/violence than than white women. I find that in this country men think they have a right to police and comment about what we wear without repercussions, and if you dare stand up for yourself you are seen as uppity, stuck up, can’t take a joke, can’t take a compliment, should be grateful for the attention 🙄
It’s a complex subject, but as females we are always policing how we behave to stay safe or not to offend people.

I don’t live with men or have sons, so am interested in why men don’t feel able to call out other men for their attitudes to women. If someone sees violent or aggressive behaviour eg on public transport, most people either try to ignore but will join in once someone, usually a woman takes action. What happens to men if they object to eg porn passing around, anti woman jokes. They can’t all be oblivious, and they must know men who do this stuff. So what do they gain? I think that violence to women is always a hate crime but it is so prevalent that there is no way that a patriarchal society will want to acknowledge quite how much. The Scottish Parliaments decision to exclude women was batshit crazy though.

@Karmakarmachameleon

exactly this so

What is the difference between

a) killing a man who says he is a woman

b) killing a woman

and why is one protected and the other not protected in the hate crime bill?

Karmak
It’s a hate crime to attack someone because they are gay or trans or black or Asian
We'll surely if any of the above are women the killer can say he fears/ hates/ has some other reason and killed them because they were a women - so neatly gets out of the more serious sentence.
Ditto for men of course. I mean if I killed a black person im not going to say that's why I killed them - the law is not a good one imv

@SandyY2K

It wouldn't be every violent crime, it would be every violent crime carried out due to the victim's sex. The same way that not every violent crime carried out against a black victim is a hate crime, only if it is motivated by racism.

Your comparisson to the rapist who targeted only men doesn't make sense to me either - if men raping men was classed as a hate crime then men would be comitting hate crimes against themselves. That's different to a man comitting violent crimes against women specifically because they are women, the attacker is from a privileged group and his victims are from an oppressed group i.e. a group that the ECHR and the HRA is supposed to protect.

Sex is already classed as a protected characteristic under the HRA, the same as race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. These protected characteristics have legal protections against hate crime, the fact that women don't just seems like a procedural anomaly to me.

Crimes against women motivated by misogyny should definitely be classed as hate crime. But that doesnt mean all crimes, not even all violent ones, in the same way that not all crimes against black people are carried out due to racism.