Why isn't rape a hate crime?

[grimbletart]

Just that really.
I was reading about the reported increase in hate crimes involving race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgenderism.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34515763

To be a rapist you really have to hate or despise women or you couldn't inflict such pain and humiliation on them.

I'm sure plenty of posters will come along and say I'm impractical, wrong, daft or whatever, but to me, as well as issues such as control, entitlement etc. rape really is a crime of hate.

So why not?

My preference would be to focus on effective prosecution of all rape with punitive sentencing.

A sort of "you committed rape? well here's your starter for 10 - and she (or indeed he) was 14 , move up a level; and you beat her (or him) up move up another level. And so on in the same way assault is aggravated by severity.

I appreciate this would also result in cases being treated as of being of varying degrees of awfulness but I don't however see what meaningful distinction is being made by the 2 examples below.

Does this connect up with the self identified rapist who thinks all women are slags who have it coming versus self identified practitioner of coercive sex who "loves women", just thinks "this one was a bitch who wouldn't put out when I'd bought her a drink."

00100001 re it doesn't target a particular group of people well it does, it targets people with vaginas... that is a category of people. A big category but still a category. And I do think that men who rape women do it because on some level they hate women and the affect it creates in the female population is the same as the fear of other hate crimes.

...and earlier....re If Hate Crime is crime against a person because ofa hatred a particular thing about a person (e.g sex, religion, ethnicity etc) - then rape against women, is rape. It is a crime. Yes. It is terrible Yes. But is only a Hate Crime when the reason for the rape is because victim is a woman. BUT of course the rape of a woman by a rapist is because she is a woman. You've just proved my point.

Miranda Re I know of an instance of rape by a man who was popular with women, good fun etc. He raped because he could, because he wanted to. He didn't care about his victim's feelings; maybe he convinced himself she wanted it really; but he didn't hate her. How can you possibly know if this man hated women or not, the fact he was charming and people liked him proved nothing. People often like manipulating people, because they are manipulated by them!

Lweji control? Control to do something that the other person will find awful and appalling and terrifying, how is that not hate? How could someone do that unless they felt some degree of hate? They might be some rapes that do not fit this pattern, but I think most do. Control is how they are committed. A person can pay a prostitute to have sex with them and they can then be in control. There is more than control going on. Many women who are raped know the person who rapes them, yes, I am sure there is the desire to control them, but why.... because they like them, love them, respect them... I would guess not!

Buddy re your words after *
So really, it depends on how you define 'hate' ...*

I totally agree with you.

thedacingbear Re *Eg. take a situation where someone decided to give an asian person a kicking, with a view to getting jollies out of it, and that they had selected their victim on the basis that she considered them inferior and their feelings worthless (essentially a racist attitude). I wouldn't have any difficulty with categorising that as a hate crime.

So how would that be different from the actions of a rapist with a casual disregard/contempt for women generally?*

thedacingbear - So why do you think the rapist selected the woman to rape?

A question, in English law and Scots law, rape is defined as a gendered crime, right?

Not in Scotland. Rape is the penetration by person A's penis without the consent of person B of person B's vagina, anus or mouth. Vagina and penis include surgically constructed ones.

So not gendered for either victim or perpetrator but person A being tecowner of a functioning penis will in most cases be a biologically born man although clearly it catches a transwoman if she is still so equipped.

"Persons" who don't have penises can't commit rape although they can commit sexual assault by penetration using other body parts or things and can commit sexual assault.

A person with a vagina who managed to have sex with a person who has a penis against that person's will commits sexual assault.

Just because men can also be raped does not stop the rape of women being a hate crime! Black people can be beten up and it can be a hate crime, so can Asian or Chinese people or ginger people etc. The fact crimes happen to other people does not stop it being so.

00100001...It can be, if for example you rape someone because they're Buddhist. So being a woman and a victim isn't enough! I think Buffy has explained it so well.... the mentality of patriarchal society is what perpetuates the view that women don't deserve he same respect and care as men, the fact that all this violence spills over and men can also be the victims of sexual crimes doesn't mean it is not hate that is at the centre of it.

slugs "trolls who threaten women with rape as a punishment for expressing feminist views online"

Sorry, I took that to mean a feminist.

italian I mean, rape, in itself, does not target a particular group of people. Because anyone can be raped.

I never said rape of women was not a hate crime.

I said rape is not a hate crime.

Thanks. Lass. In my state, a penis is not required to be a perpetrator, and the crime is called sexual battery, so men, women, and transgendered people can be perpetrators as well as victims.

“Sexual battery” means oral, anal, or vaginal penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or vaginal penetration of another by any other object; however, sexual battery does not include an act done for a bona fide medical purpose.

Lass - coming back to this rather late. Sorry, due to posting rather laboriously on my phone and a fast moving discussion I've made a bad job of keeping two separate strands of thinking clear.

One was in answer to the general moral issue of whether it would be possible to commit rape without to some extent hating your victim - because if you had the slightest capacity for empathy and understanding of the effect it had on your victim, you couldn't do it otherwise. And I was interested in how that tied up with an article Biffy linked to today where rapists wh were prepared to self identify as rapists did indeed sem to hate women as a category, while rapists who conceptualised what they did as"forceful sex", while hhaving a pretty low opinion of women (tendency to objectify etc) didn't seem to feel the same level of visceral hatred. Kind of like the difference between a full on white supremacist and someone who simply bins job applications from people with identifiably BME names without even realising what they were doing. Racism but not racial hatred, if you see what I mean.

But by the time I'd posted this the discussion had moved on to the legal status of "hate crime" which I also found fascinating. I probably then tried to post on both my strands of thought at once (while cooking tea) and simply succeeded in confusing the hell out of everyone.

Binary - that's why I added the bit in brackets about any woman who expressed an opinion in public - I was trying to get at the idea that it was clear that the man in question chose to rape as an act of revenge against women because he hated women as a group, not feminists in particular. I think we all know that expressing feminist views online attracts the ire of that kind of man, but so does simply being knowledgeable and in a public space, whether your area of expertise is ancient history or astronomy.

The rationale behind hate crimes is also linked to oppression, and prosecutions tend to be for crimes committed against members of historically oppressed classes, except, of course, when that class is women.

Well, precisely, Seneca. Nail on head!

Sorry Biffy Buffy. I am really completely crap at typing on my phone.

One was in answer to the general moral issue of whether it would be possible to commit rape without to some extent hating your victim - because if you had the slightest capacity for empathy and understanding of the effect it had on your victim, you couldn't do it otherwise

Lack of empathy is not the same as hatred. My worry about introducing this concept might result in downgrading some rapes. I mentioned the unlovely Ched Evans. I don't think it would be possible to prove he acted out of hate. I think his actions arise from an enormous sense of entitlement and a complete lack of empathy for or concern for his victim but is that hate should there be any scope for downgrade?

I agree with Seneca's point below.
I agree that violence against women is motivated primarily by misogyny, but I think as a political matter it is difficult in the context of how hate crime legislation is applied to make all sexual assaults against women hate crimes

Seneca also said The rationale behind hate crimes is also linked to oppression, and prosecutions tend to be for crimes committed against members of historically oppressed classes, except, of course, when that class is women

But where that analogy falls down I think is rape was (until very recently ) legally a crime which can only be committed against women so we are back to it being irrelevant whether it's a hate crime. It's a terrible crime full stop.

Getting back to the Scottish judicial system rape , murder and treason are the only crimes which, if I remember correctly, have to be tried in the High Court before a jury. In all other crime (except for a few which can't go lower than the Sheriff Court) the Crown has the choice of the District, Sheriff or High Court and whether or not there is a jury-more likely there isn't. I would want the existing law to be properly , forcefully and effectively applied to a crime which is in theory already in such a special catgeory rather than the lip service which frequently applies.

Buffy jokes frequently go whooshing over my head!

I'm pretty sure I agree with you on this, Lass - as I said I was musing aloud on whether Buffy's article shed light on Grimble' OP, and I think it does, in the way you've said (Ched Evans being a good example). And as you say, surely what we want is more effective prosecution of rape, regardless of what the rapist's motivations are.

I also totally agree that we don't want "degrees" of rape (which is a different matter from aggravating factors).

But Lurcio you say And as you say, surely what we want is more effective prosecution of rape, regardless of what the rapist's motivations are. Surely understanding why men rape would help and maybe if society has the courage to classify sexual violence against women, including rape, in the majority of cases as hate crimes, we would get further in understanding what motivates it. We would also send a clear signal to men that it was not to be tolerated.

The debate about men being raped is that I think there is possibly some correlation with the rape of women. In that the rape of men (as it is used in war - for example) is done for the same reasons it is committed against women, to control (someone mentioned control up thread, and I was dismissive of it but I think what I meant was it was part of a much bigger picture), to humiliate etc and has the potential to effectively 'reduce' men in the eyes of the attacker and in the eyes of other men and in the victims' own eyes to a status like that of women that are attacked. I think if this was not so then the subject of the rape of men, e.g. in prison, would not be something that is rarely spoken of or addressed.

It is not my desire as a feminist to fail to take into consideration the needs of men who are victims or to de-value them and I would say that the rape of men is also a hate crime but it comes from an area of patriarchy that sees most men as the champions on top and women as devalued and held back. The fact some men also fall into this group does not alter where the desire of other men to control comes from IMHO.

The news of the gang rape of young children in India makes me really want to ask can people not see hate in these crimes? A lack of empathy does not lead one to brutily harm another by itself. I do not see that defining some rapes and attacks on women as hate crimes would mean that other rapes should be treated as less serious. Some rapes will be of under age girls, will also involve other forms of harm, might involve stalking etc. The fact we take into consideration all these things (as a society) when dealing with the rapist or the victim does not mean that we do not take seriously all violent crime. Or at least that we should take it all seriously.

Also the effect on the female population is the same as say the effect of religious or racially motivated attacks or racial or religious groups, it is fear! To me the knowledge that men may be raped does not make me less fearful of rape!

When we say that racial or religious groups or trans groups can all be victims of hate crime but women cannot we are, of course, massively devaluing women. Men can also be victims of hate crimes.

Rather than defending a staus quo that is clearly not working for half the population we should wonder why we find it so hard to find and recognise the 'hate' in these appalling crimes.

Buffy, sorry the d is next to the f so I mis-named you, BUFFY FOREVER! Apologies.

What would be gain from making rape a hate crime? Rape already carries a maximum sentence of life.

Just reading on the CPS website that an aggravating factor is "offence motivated by prejudice", which I imagine means racism but I wonder if it could be used in other ways.

Mide re What would be gain from making rape a hate crime?*
-I think it would be more honest. It would show that rape is taken seriously.

• I am not sure what this Rape already carries a maximum sentence of life. means because in reality rapists do not go away for life.
• It might mean that hateful comments on line about raping women were investigated and taken more seriously, hateful images of women such as those that appear on Facebook, would be removed quicker

-T-shirts encouraging or excusing rape or abuse of women would be removed from sales more quickly

I would like to ask the reverse, what is the point of not acknowledging that rape and violence to women is often a hate crime.

Not put away for life....

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010433/More-150-rapists-freed-early-prison-went-rape-again.html

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/child-rapist-serving-five-life-3651426

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11649668/Serial-rapist-let-out-of-prison-on-day-release-rapes-again.html

I could go on but you get the picture.....