Martin Wimpole - Sex or gender - Part 2
We are looking at whether hatred based on sex or gender or old age – whether they should be added. Obviously this is very challenging, there is a very wide variety of views what type characteristics should be included. The research and the initial consultation response gave us 3 main criteria to assess whether to add a characteristic:
- Demonstrable need – the overall number of cases in number and intensity or targeting of that group
- Seriousness - forms of violence and additional harm – does this group experience over and above other members of the community, is there fear and anxiety
- Damage to society more widely - whether the method of hate crime laws is the best way to identify a unintended negative consequence
Sex or Gender? We assessed evidence of Demonstrable Need. Women experience domestic and sexual abuse and online abuse. Men more likely to be perpetrator statistically speaking. Additional Harm - targeting women based on sex or gender, the female sex should be used. There were other views this that this would be counter-productive and in law we strive for equality of treatment across men or women. Strong views sex/gender would be apply as the terminology is sex in EA so we asked further questions…
Q&A
Q Why do you want to confuse sex and gender – sex is female of any age, gender is completely separate, you must resists this nonsense. Gender more like xenophobia.
A We recognise strong views in both sides.
Q If sex is chosen as the wording – if sex will this include intersex?
A This characteristic is where chromosomes are not male or female, we have asked if they should be given explicit protection as a separate category, like the approach in Scotland on hate crime (variations of sex characteristics) or under the inclusion for sex and we are looking to find more responses to that.
Q If gender is chosen will this include transgender as broader category?
A We have proposed a …. We consider what would be the way, the group that would be the category under which hatred to towards someone who is trans under criminal law. If hatred is caused towards them or if a person was, on the basis of presenting as male or female it could be as gender, however we do not want to lose the ability to record or understand…we do not want to lose the category or trans.
(garbled answer, not just my note taking - I invite further clarity from others who might have attended and heard the response to that question.)
So we do not want to confuse sex or gender – is it not the same – this is a really difficult question. In the paper we use ‘assigned at birth’ as the biological aspect of individual anatomy, chromosomes, hormone and interactions. Gender may not match their sex they are assign at birth and is social behaviours of masculine and feminine. This is a very contested area, what it means by sex and gender, but in simplified terms sex is biological characteristics, male/female and gender is a term used to describe social constructions.
Q Will business need to be handling misogynistic hate crime?
A There is no specific obligation on businesses for reporting, it is like any other crime.
Q If sex/domestic abuse is carved out of hate crime what kind of offences would be included?
A All other criminal offences remain, most likely would be public order, harassment, online abuse and also assault can occur under domestic abuse.
(not sure if this was a Q or a quote from Wimpole - again I invite further notes)
Men and boys can be victims of domestic abuse too and genital mutilation….(missed a bit – bloody phone rang) only protects women and makes men second class, we will be taking on very carefully minority of victims, particularly stereotypes and myths that act as an inhibiter.
(missed a bit again – doorbell!)
Q Why would you include sexual offences and domestic abuse when you have identified concerns around victims
A This is not the case the broader point was not opportunity to provide symbolic power about these offences, not the case that all sexual offences become a hate crime it would require additional proof, crime would need to be aggravated and this may not be possible due to evidential concerns. We do not want to create unhelpful hierarchies explicitly misogyny. This is a complicated question, I am not sure we done it justice here, it is covered in the papers and welcome further views.
Martin hands back over to Penny to continue - moves onto ageism.
I hope that's a bit useful, sorry I was distracted towards the end, I left it at the point they discussed age as I had to do the school run.