What's more important, freedom of expression or women's rights?

[AWholeLottaNosy]

Personally I have no conflict about this. Anyone who attempts to influence or indoctrinate men into thinking it's ok to use sexual violence against women needs silencing and banning and I'm proud that recent online petitions have been effective in silencing misogynists who want to encourage other men to abuse us. However, there are people who would disagree...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/17/hashtag-hate-trap-censorship-freedom-expression-dapper-laughs-julien-blanc

I don't think you can actually have freedom of expression until women's rights are fully realized. Freedom of expression, freedom of speech are about exercising agency and thought and we can't really do that when women are stifled and silenced.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have freedom to have thoughts and discuss things but while those discussion are held public it is only the powerful and strong that get heard. We need to both protect those without the power and access to to use thier voice and also work to give them a voice.

This is absolutely not a free speech issue.

You cannot hide behind free speech principles when you are inciting others to commit violent crimes. That is not what free speech is there to protect.

You have the freedom to think whatever you like, you don't and shouldn't have the freedom to make large sums of money from teaching other losers men how to rape and emotionally abuse women. In the same way as you don't and shouldn't have the freedom to racially abuse people or incite people to terrorist acts.

With rights come responsibilities, if you can't be trusted to exercise your rights responsibly, then it reasonable for those rights to be restricted.

The problem with the argument that you shouldn't ban bigots as it will just go underground is that you can't argue against these people as their views are irrational and not based on facts or reason and so anything you say to them is just water off a duck's back. Any argument you come up with, they will disagree with. You can talk to a racist about the positive effects of immigration for example but they won't listen. You just have to look at the comments in either the Guardian or the Daily Mail to see the erroneous, straw man arguments people come up with. How to combat irrationality and prejudice though? That's a whole other question....

The law can act as a motivator to change society generally and improve life for lots of people.

For instance, the laws around what you can and can't say and do at work - for example racist language or sexist put-downs in the workplace are illegal and more to the point they are no longer acceptable.

Similarly shouting abuse at someone on the street because they are gay or Muslim is (probably?) illegal and more to the point is not considered socialy acceptable by the majority of people.

All of this is reflected in much of our media as well which informs peopls' thinking around "norms".

So while hardcore racists and homophobes for eg will not change their views, they know better than to air the more extreme ones in public and really upset/anger loads of non white / gay people, which is going to be better for those people in their daily lives. And the majority of "normal" people have moved from thinking that there's nothing wrong with a spot of racism / homophobia and look it's a main joke in loads of TV shows, to thinking no that's not on really.

Obviously nothing's perfect yet and there are still plenty of bigots out there but things are better than they were and improving I think. I hope that teh situation for sexist abuse etc will catch up soon

Oh and free speech my arse. Whenever you get a group, especially women, getting some more freedom afforded to them in society - eg freedom from having their arse grabbed so often or freedom from explicit "banter" in the workplace, you get mainly men going snoffair it's just a bit of fun what's her problem you're taking my freedoms away.

I'm all for liberal censorship.