Cross party support to make misogyny a hate crime

[CassieMaddox]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c899nxwz3y3o

Reform and Conservatives not interested, natch.

But this is great news. Looks like it will happen, and about bloody time.

But these plans to ensure women "live free from abuse and denigration" have been criticised by the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) for potentially overwhelming officers and cutting into valuable crime-solving time.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/police-blast-plans-criminalise-misogyny-29431023#google_vignette

I don't think I've seen many quotes that illustrate quite how acceptable hatred of women is as well as this one.

I shouldn't really be surprised that you've ignored the content of the articles (I.e. the outcome of a two year scheme and the comments made by a Police Union) to purity spiral where the articles come from. It was reported in other sources as well but behind pay walls. Is it only acceptable if the Guardian reports it? I suppose that's why we see more and more posters saying 'I didn't know about that - it wasn't in the Guardian'

And it's a way for the Scottish Government to say 'look! We're tackling VAWG!' without actually doing anything which will actually tackle the problem. It's posturing.

Ha! If I'd ignored them, I wouldn't have quoted one, would I? The Scottish misogyny Bill is not relevant to this proposal.

It's not a "purity spiral" to point out the Express, Torygraph and GB news put the same political slant on their stories. In fact they often basically just print the same thing. And you linked the sources not me.

Regardless of source, personally I have no truck with "not enough resources to do this thing that benefits female victims". It's the patriarchy in action.

Well after listening to the Woman's Hour election debate all the candidates (except Reform) would have to arrest themselves because of the misogynistic crap they were spouting.

Look forward to seeing them in court!

Bit awkward for you that you don't seem to have considered the possibility of cross posting.

Regardless of source, personally I have no truck with "not enough resources to do this thing that benefits female victims". It's the patriarchy in action.

Yes. That's my point.

I don't think there's anything wrong with requesting better victim support as well but in my opinion the intent behind a crime, be it for racial or homophobic reasons, can mean it's worse.

Horrible suspicion this will only benefit men ie trans males.

And, the backlash from men "what about me?" would be terrible.

So apparently the police have no resources to deal with a tsunami of hatred against women.... But they want a shiny new piece of legislation..... That miraculously the police will be able to enforce despite being understaffed and under resourced 🤨🤨🤨

That's pretty standard for the police. Have you ever noticed them asking for fewer powers or saying "nope, we have enough already, we just need to enforce them"?

What an absolute waste of time. Rape is a crime and we can't even prosecute that.
https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-informed/the-decriminalisation-of-rape/

Men can literally murder women in the worst way possible and get a slap on the wrist.
https://www.kidderminstershuttle.co.uk/news/17226906.court-told-millionaire-john-broadhurst-killed-woman-violent-sex/

Start with raising the conviction rates for rape and domestic violence - not these silly performative gestures.

Be in no doubt that making 'misogyny' a crime is designed to downgrade and diminish MVAWG by promoting the notion that it's just words or emotions we are afraid of. On the tube, women are raped in full view of everyone yet the Mayor of London's posters focus on telling men not to 'stare' as it's sexual harassment. It's not staring or misogyny we're worried about. It's being raped and murdered.

Hating women who recognize that women are a sex AND misogyny to be a hate crime?
🤔

Just fuck off with all this nonsense.

@CassieMaddox 'I hope thenumber of women this positively affects, and the fact it might make men think twice about being misogynistic prices, will outweigh the negative impact of a TW crime victim being recorded in both categories.'

I think that very reasonable doubts are being expressed about whether this will benefit ANY women. I can see the danger of women being charged with misogyny for what is considered hate against TW but which most people consider fair comment and true reporting (for example could Maya Forstater be charged with Malicious Communications AND mysogeny (an augmented crime). If so it could shut women up (if that is the aim). Not seeing the benefits.

I think that making misogyny a Hate Crime will help get the increased sentences for DV and rape that we need. Special courts to clear the backlog of rape cases left by the outgoing Tory government will help too.

I disagree. It will add to the backlog by adding a lot more crimes to be investigated, processed and then reviewed by a jury.

This is being reported very inaccurately, even by the BBC.

No one is saying there should be a crime of "misogyny", nor should they. Crimes are a lot more specific than that. This is also why the recording of 'non hate crime incidents' by police is such a dodgy, overbearing practice.

No. This proposal is different to the Scottish one. It proposes adding misogyny as an aggravating factor to an existing crime. Its not going to increase the backlog at all. What it could do is cause the police to investigate reported crimes that they currently don't bother with. I think that's a good thing. VAWG needs to be taken more seriously.

More about it here
https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/blog/why-making-misogyny-a-hate-crime-matters

I'd forgotten the Conservative government promised to trial it....and then didn't.

That's not the point. Misogyny is currently not a crime. This would make it a crime. It should be a crime.

In logic worthy of Handmaid's Tale, the last time this was raised The Law Commission decided that 'making misogyny a hate crime may be: “more harmful than helpful, both to victims of violence against women and girls, and also to efforts to tackle hate crime more broadly” and that “…we have reached the view that hate crime recognition would not be an effective solution to the very real problem of violence, abuse and harassment of women and girls in England and Wales, and may in fact be counterproductive in some respects.” (Source Gov.UK)

So there we have it - making misogyny a hate crime won't help victims of misogyny. Hmm. This is born out anecdotally by the number of Terfs who are investigated by police for online 'hate crimes' against TAs for merely supporting women's rights, while TAs can threaten Terfs with rape, death etc with impunity, since it wouldn't help us little ladies if people took us seriously. The Law Commission says so.

Misogyny is more an outlook or a pattern of behaviour than a specific act. Crimes are generally specific acts, and offence provisions in statute law are very precise.
I doubt it would be clear to any lawyer just how such a law could function in practice. That's probably why (as noted above) no politician has said it will be a crime (as opposed to something that attaches to specific crimes.)

Incidentally, making death threats online certainly is a crime and the police certainly do investigate them.

That doesn't make sense. Police investigating more crimes, adding the burden of evidence required to prove an aggravating factor and then adding to the process of putting that crime and its aggravating factor in front of a jury and increasing the sentencing complexity for a judge.

I think that judges and the police are very used to identifying and dealing with aggravating factors for crimes.
Unclear why crime against women specifically should be an exception to this. We need to have some way to seriously deal with crimes against women e.g. online rape and death threats

@CassieMaddox 'Unclear why crime against women specifically should be an exception to this.'

Can you please define what you mean by women. I think that you are assuming this will not be used against GC critical women? That only women can accuse others of misogyny? That men (TRAs) cannot accuse women? That TW cannot accuse women who they consider Transphobic?

I totally agree that more protection of women against VAWG is a good thing. More opportunities to abuse JKR and other GC activists who are trying to tell the truth is on the other hand not needed.

I define woman as adult human female but as I'm nothing to do with the implementation of this law that is completely irrelevant.

People can still accuse each other of misogyny. The accusation or even being misogynistic isn't being made a crime in and of itself. This proposal will only apply if someone reports a crime, then misogyny can be used as an aggravating factor. Therefor it can only be used against gender critical women" if they are already being reported for committing a crime.

I would like to see an option that gets harassment and misogynistic abuse of women taken more seriously. Or that can be used by female MPs being subjected to rape and death threats online.

I don't think anyone is above the law, even gender critical women.

Fascinating that the default of many posters is to think that this is a coordinated attempt by "the left" to use the law to attack GC women, rather than a change in government being seen as an opportunity by the majority of parties to provide parity in how crimes against women are treated compared with other crimes motivated by prejudice.