Helena Kennedy on Scottish misogyny proposed new law

[butnobodytoldme]

Today, Radio 4, Womans Hour, regarding a plan she thinks may be approved by Scottish parliament. Sounds good, to protect women in public places (even if it won't make up for endangering women by permitting men to access them in women-only spaces.)

I didn't hear the interview but Helena Kennedy has been no friend to women in this and I doubt that anything she suggests will be acceptable to GC ears.

She has very actively supported transgender rights and is a favourite of the Scottish government.

twitter.com/YPinfo101/status/1401127335341047813

from 37 minutes.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00154pj

to protect women in public places

How does she know whom to protect?

Significant that she was booked for a Friday which is Anita Rani's day.

Emma Barnett might have asked some of these very good questions and exposed the gaping logic holes.

So disappointed in Kennedy and Chakrabarti. Given their stated values of liberalism, I would have expected them to defend both the principle that a person can transition and can think they are a woman/man even when they are not, and that a person can believe (and state) that transition doesn't change sex. It's shocking the road they have chosen to go down.

@tabbycatstripy

So disappointed in Kennedy and Chakrabarti. Given their stated values of liberalism, I would have expected them to defend both the principle that a person can transition and can think they are a woman/man even when they are not, and that a person can believe (and state) that transition doesn't change sex. It's shocking the road they have chosen to go down.

Both of them have form.

Neither is a friend to their sex.

Absolutely not, no. But it's more their dodgy conception of liberalism that bothers me.

This has been set up from the start to ensure that any legal powers around misogyny will largely be used to control the speech and intimidate female people from having boundaries against male people.

'Misogyny' will have a whole new meaning in three.... two.... one...

@tabbycatstripy

So disappointed in Kennedy and Chakrabarti. Given their stated values of liberalism, I would have expected them to defend both the principle that a person can transition and can think they are a woman/man even when they are not, and that a person can believe (and state) that transition doesn't change sex. It's shocking the road they have chosen to go down.

Yep. This whole mess has been enlightening in some very disappointing ways. Many institutions and organisations and people have shown themselves up as the shallow, opportunist fools they must always have been.

Yes, we should welcome those who finally see what's been going on and now want a golden bridge back; but there are some I will not trust again. Even if they were only foolish rather than actually motivated by misogyny people that lacking in insight should not be given the power they have. Organisations like Liberty and Amnesty need disbanded, imo.

'Yes, we should welcome those who finally see what's been going on and now want a golden bridge back; but there are some I will not trust again.'

The honest effect of this whole thing has been that I'll never trust a police officer, QC, solicitor, charitable person, politician or doctor ever again. So many oddballs, so little time.

This is legal insanity.

I've been so disappointed that the author of Eve Was Framed is going along with this ideological misogynistic claptrap.

What and who the fuck is HK afraid of - the grandchildren? She must know she's gliding with legal and ethical incoherency.

Can anyone explain how the concept of misogyny could be (so misinterpreted as to be able to be) used to prosecute females for something they say or do regarding males?

When the other side are so enthusiastic for misogyny to be a hate crimes, my spidey senses tell me this must be a bad thing for females - but I can't figure out how they would implement it so as to justify going after females for speaking up for womens' rights. Perhaps I'm too wedded to reality or lacking in imagination.

Surely if someone thinks TWAW, then criticism of one woman by another woman isn't misogyny, any more than criticism of a white person by another white person is racism.

And to someone who doesn't think TWAW, then criticism of a male by a female would be punching up or misandry or feminism or whatever.

I can't see a way to reach a verdict of 'misogyny' unless (a) you believe the victim is a woman/female and (b) the perp is a man/male.

'I can't see a way to reach a verdict of 'misogyny' unless (a) you believe the victim is a woman/female and (b) the perp is a man/male.'

Misogyny can be any hatred or prejudice against women. It doesn't have to be a man's view. So a woman who 'hates' a 'transwoman' would - under this formulation - be guilty of misogyny because 'TWAW'. It wouldn't matter (although it should) that she doesn't perceive him to be female. He perceives himself to be female.

But who on earth would ever have accused a woman of misogyny, prior to this attempt? Internalised misogyny, maybe. But how does anyone get past the racism analogy? If a white man says he hates white people, is that racism? Does it even make sense for him to say it? If a white man criticises one individual white person for having a 'white' attitude, is that racism or wokeness?

Well, yes, I'm no fan of the woman, so was surprised to hear the item, towards the end of the programme. That's why I flagged it up. I think it would be exactly what any of us would want to see copied in the rest of UK.

She had been set a task, but on seeing the evidence, extended the brief to, essentially, tackle public-space hatred of women as seriously as public-space hatred of a race group.

She sounded perfectly reasonable, e.g. "Are you going to ban wolf-whistles?" No. The nuisance is minor. But it would not be minor where women are being systematically targetted day after day, as they try to enter their workplace, by gangs of men waiting to prey on them by making sexual remarks: That would be an example of offence.

That seemed a reasonable likeness to the offence of racism, as did her description of women being subjected to sustained verbal misogynistic abuse on public transport. If a similar attack would be an offence when carried out by someone hating another race group, it must be an offence when carried out by someone hating another sex.

I think it's racism when a white person hates a white person because they're white. I think it's sexism when women hate women, and specifically it's misogyny. It's not misogyny when women regard males as males, but this definition of misogyny as affecting transwomen - put as bluntly as that - will be regarded as such.

As a caveat, if a transwoman is genuinely perceived to be a woman and hated because she is a woman, that, too, would be misogyny. The problem is that I don't think this legislation will limit itself to situations where the accused person believes TWAW.

@SpinningTheSeedsOfLove

I've been so disappointed that the author of Eve Was Framed is going along with this ideological misogynistic claptrap.

What and who the fuck is HK afraid of - the grandchildren? She must know she's gliding with legal and ethical incoherency.

It's difficult to think of another woman who was held in such high esteem who has fallen so far. I know there are loads of TV personalities and entertainers, but HK was a feminist at the top of her profession, a pioneer.

Apparently she had an early trans client whose 'plight' touched her so deeply that she's unable to recognise the erasure of women. Instead of being remembered as a feminist icon who fought for her sex, she'll be remembered as a quisling who sold out women. We've run out of newspaper so I must find my copy of Eve was Framed and scrunch up its pages to light the log-burner.

'Apparently she had an early trans client whose 'plight' touched her so deeply that she's unable to recognise the erasure of women.'

Captured decades ago. Also mentored Keir Starmer, incidentally.

Misogyny is a target, because it is a female thing only experienced by females. So like female services, female words, female groups, it's a highly desirable thing to capture.

You will find plenty of activist stuff all over Twitter about the desire to make misogyny in effect mean preventing female people from saying things like that they want single sex spaces. It will be like the new and improved meaning of homophobia, which as a lesbian I've been accused of multiple times for saying things like a heterosexual male person should not define themselves as a lesbian as that is a homosexual female, and words matter and should not be appropriated from others for personal benefit.

'which as a lesbian I've been accused of multiple times for saying things like a heterosexual male person should not define themselves as a lesbian as that is a homosexual female.'

It's just outrageous that this has been happening to lesbian women. I read in another thread that Maya Forstater was 'trained' by an external provider that lesbian females needed to start calling themselves by another name because TWAW and if they are attracted to women (even if both women are males) then they are 'lesbians'.

I mean, same-sex attracted females could make up a new word for themselves, but then the activists would want that too.

Here is a paragraph about it from the programme notes on the website:

"This week a misogyny act for Scotland created exclusively for women has been recommended to the Scottish government by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC following a year of Chairing the Misogyny and Criminal Justice in Scotland Working Group."

Well, who knew she was working on this?

She explained during the programme that the offence isn't misogyny - 'we don't have thought crime' she said* - but the criminal behaviour that misogyny gives rise to.

The idea is that courts could give an extra element of punishment for the misogynistic nature of the criminal offence, which could be, say, assault or a public order offence of harassment.

• I say, 'Hah, don't we?'

She might be entirely genuine. I just don't trust a word she or the Scottish Government utters. They have done too much to disrupt the relationships between language, concept, and material reality. They have lost legitimacy.

Thanks.... smooth talk took me in, methinks.

Some people must not be trusted even to give honest information about what time it is

Looking back, SW were preparing ground a long long time ago.... Did they persuade Coronation St to create the character of dear sweet harmless lovable little Hayley ? Who wouldn't want to defend one of the nation's favourite women actresses, cast in the part of lovable Roy's adorable, plainly womanly, little wife?

A Hayley would be in both senses 'One in a million', no threat to a milk pudding, and the actress was in both senses 'One of the girls'.

Then, without much attention, I found l had become aware of an apparently plausible idea that some, (again, only one in a million,) had 'known they were trapped in the wrong body' since early childhood, and went through perpetual torment being forced to wear the wrong clothes and endure the incorrect puberty, all to be exhaustively surgically reversed (though unproblematically, and never with later regret) when they copied April Ashley. But one in a million. Not several in every classroom.

Regrettably, women will be ignored, therefore it needs Mathew Parris (SW supporter from the outset, in the days gay men had a tough time, AIDs was rife, and there was work to do) In recent years he backed away shocked, founding a different organisation for gay men, including lesbians, and whatever others are not hate-fuelled)

He, along with every other man who will speak, will be heard.