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.

Is there any evidence that making misogyny a hate crime would lead to fewer women being raped and murdered?

No. Legislation outlines which behaviours are unlawful and the penalties for being convicted. Its not a force field. More courts to tackle rape cases isn't going to stop women being raped. Making murder illegal doesn't stop murders. Having an injunction against your violent ex won't stop him.

Prevention relies on social change and is at the opposite end of the process. Who's going to define misogyny? The same system that operates the family courts, the same police that fine women for complaining too much about their stalker.

what is this feminism, where measures that protect women are being discounted out of hand because of the source?

This is women seeing many of our rights and protections, that our foremothers won for us, being taken from us or used against us by men. And because these men have been so successful at utilising or twisting these rights and protections to work in their favour, we have become more wary now of any legal change that will affect women’s lives because we want to be sure that the law will not be further used against us.

I know you are arguing to not let perfect be the enemy of good enough, but I feel that you haven’t fully taken into consideration the determination of various groups in society to detach women from anything that was created to benefit and protect us, and to even go as far as to usurp the very definition of woman. In that political and legislative climate, I think women are sensible to be cautious and even cynical about all proposed legislation.

It’s not how I prefer to be, please believe me, but it has been forced on me by men (and some women) who want to put their political and ideological desires above protecting and defending women’s rights.

The answer to the cynicism isn't to "do nothing" though and dismiss any idea to benefit women.
"The left" has considerably more women involved in drafting, reviewing and approving legislation than "the right". And this is a cross party proposal. If one party tried to use this as an opportunity to harm womens interests, the other parties would use that to make political capital. I just don't see where this "it's too hard" comes from. Imagine if women had said that about self ID in 2015.

I see your point but I genuinely don’t believe that the attitude is that things are too hard, I think rather that the attitude is frustration and anger that pro-women or GC voices can’t seem to get a seat at the table in order to raise objections or help to build in safeguards.

Governments seem to prefer input from NGOs rather than the public when it comes to framing legislation. And you’re correct in saying that the NGO sector is Lefty & female-dominated but I would point out that sector is largely middle-class, IDPol-espousing women who are anti-GC. Based on previous organisations’ responses to government consultations in the UK (& in the devolved administrations) I find it hard to believe that these women would ensure adequate protections and safeguards related to biological sex in drafting legalisation that criminalises misogyny.

I would dearly love to be wrong but, sadly, bitter experience is teaching me otherwise. I think that if you can’t be sure of your footing it’s best not to make a move and to wait until conditions improve before taking that important step.

Imagine if women had said that about self ID in 2015.

What do you mean? Women did say "there is no sensible way to do this that doesn't damage women" and got thoroughly ignored. While in Scotland the government's favourite women's organisations all said "lovely jubbly" and we very nearly got stuck with self-id. It's only because FWS argued it through the courts (which cost hundreds of thousandsof pounds out of women's pockets) and showed that self-id messed with UK equalities legislatiton that the UK govt stepped in and stopped it. (Well, mostly - Isla Bryson helped as well.)

If one party tried to use this as an opportunity to harm womens interests, the other parties would use that to make political capital.

No they wouldn't, that's not how political capital works. Making political capital is about how good things sound, not how good they are. Being anti-misogyny sounds good and whether the proposal actually harms women or not is secondary. As it is for you.

Of course governments prefer input from orgs than "the public". Because the public has a very diverse spectrum of views and its not possible to gather and represent them all. That's also why we have a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy.

that sector is largely middle-class, IDPol-espousing women who are anti-GC Right, so it's not actually about men being in charge then? It's about the "wrong kind of women", e.g. ones who don't agree with your politics.

I'd far rather a "non-GC woman" was involved in drafting anti-hate crime legislation than we had none and continued with a situation where misogyny is tolerated. Or it wad drafted by a GC man.

I find this so interesting. To me it's ideological purity to say you don't want "middle-class, IDPol-espousing women who are anti-GC" involved in legislating for women. Excluding certain types of women based on their politics is often a criticism made of "the left" yet increasingly its being used by GC feminists as a reason not to engage with various other womens groups.

This is Rape Crisis England & Wales statement in relation to extending hate crime legislation. They came out against adding sex or gender to the protected characteristics that fall under hate crime legislation

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/news/rcew-respond-to-law-commission-s-recommendations-around-hate-crime-legislation/

I'm in England. Self ID was proposed by Maria Miller and they U turned after lots of action by feminist groups.

Regarding political capital, it's also about making your opponents sound bad. In a cross government sense like this, your opponents cam be your rivals for votes. So if one of the parties makes a proposal that damages women, I'd expect their rivals to make hay with it. I still can't really see how that works in practice though as misogyny is not being made a crime in itself - it's an aggravating factor on top of an existing crime. Still hoping someone can give me an example.

You’ve misunderstood me:

• I agreed with your statement that Lefty women tend to dominate certain orgs that are involved in drafting legislation.
• I didn’t say I want to exclude certain types of woman, I pointed out that this currently female-dominated demographic of NGOs etc is not in favour of pursuing GC policies and that I would like to see GC women also getting a seat at the table and being part of the discussion.

At no point did I mention “the wrong kind of woman” - I don’t know why you misquoted me as saying that.

That's interesting and makes some very interesting points, but from quite a narrow field of view. I can see what they mean about rape. But I also can see for other crimes, like street harassment, the hate crime would be useful.

Maybe rapes could be exempt on the grounds its already a sex based crime so inherently misogynistic? 🤔

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be a quote. I used the quotation marks to try to indicate that I was paraphrasing....but can see where the confusion came in. Apologies.

I would hope GC women would be at the table. It's going to be much harder for that to happen if the GC womens groups are boycotting "the left" on principle though.

Thanks for the apology and explanation - perhaps italics might work better for hypothetical examples as it would not give the impression of quotation 🤔 Text-based discussion is perforce an imprecise medium shorn of contextual clues such as body language and confusion arises at times.

I agree that boycotting is not always a helpful strategy and that politics is about the art of what’s practical. But, in the past, GC groups have either not been invited or (for example with the HoC Women & Equalities Committee) have been invited but then disparaged or ignored.

I would dearly like to see it otherwise and for the GC view to be part of the discussion (and, if I’m honest, part of any legislation).

OK I'll point out again that street harassment legislation is supported by the Tories.
The Tories share the same concerns as Rape Crisis and the Law Commission over misogyny as a hate crime.
Let's just stop creating hierarchies of victims.

Exempting the worst crimes of rape and sexual violence and domestic violence from the category of hate crime and aggravated offence makes nonsense of it all. Rape is only sex based according to the perpetrator. For example, should a teenage boy being raped be treated less seriously than a girl? Why?

@UtopiaPlanitia Me too. I think its really unhelpful the feminist infighting. Orgs like WPUK, WRN are seen as not GC enough. Orgs like the Fawcett Society are written off because they say TWAW. Orgs like LWS are too right wing and not really feminist so not trusted either. The net effect if which is, we can't achieve anything because there's no trust and no single "GC voice".

It's a huge shame after all the progress a few years back that it's splintered like that.

I do think the Labour Womens Declaration will be a force for good here.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean?
Rape is sex based because all rapists are men. Exempting it from hate crime legislation would be a way for male victims not to be treated differently to female ones

As for "hierarchies of victims" the current situation does exactly that. Women are subject of random abuse every day, just for being women. And we have no way of recognising that in the legal system. Women in the public eye get rape and death threats all the time, female MPs need security guards for their own protection, and many women are leaving public roles because of this. It doesn't make sense to me to turn around and say "don't want to make a hierarchy of victims". At the moment women are just completely invisible victims. I'm saying, make that discrimination visible.

It would take a millisecond for the first man who would be prosceuted for rape with an additional 'hate crime' element to say in court that it's not about hate, its about power and how much he loves women, no hate involved at all.

I would like to think this couldn’t happen but I’ve read multiple news stories (UK & Ireland) over the years in which men who committed gross indecency, child sexual abuse, and common assault have all claimed gender dysphoria in the witness box and been given suspended or lighter sentences because of it. I genuinely can’t understand why judges see the concept of gender-related distress as a way of justifying or explaining away horrific behaviour - these men were in full control of their faculties when they committed the crimes.

The way in which the legal system lets down women and children never fails to shock and distress me.

I want legislation that protects women and children and so also want judges to properly apply it.

It's about the principle that underlies the laws. Something even feminists care about, and moreso now as they have increasingly seen what happens when we support things that seem "feminist" without considering the underlying principles.

If "what about the men" is where you are intellectually there is no point trying to discuss it with you.

It's also worth remembering that we are legislating for the long term, and it should reflect principles. Laws based too closely on particular instances are often quite poorly crafted, either leaving things out, or not anticipating later effects.

Totally apart from more rare instances, the social setting can change, sometimes significantly. I don't actually have a hard time at all imagining someone straight being beaten up or harassed for that, in certain settings. I don't think I'd have thought it likely 20 years ago but the social contexr has changed a lot.

Over 20 or 30 or 50 years you can see big changes, and what's more, sometimes in very surprising ways. Why wouldn't you look at the supposed principle - crimes predicted on sex categories are especially heinous?

I think probably the reason some want that is because actually, what they really want is to, not discourage targeting certain types of divisions, but actually they are looking to set up new hierarchies. The's the nature of identity politics, not an abolition of conceptual hierarchies but creating a new set of them.

Can you give an example of a crime committed due to "hatred of men"?

I think toobig asked a good question- what is this feminism, where measures that protect women are being discounted out of hand because of the source?

No one has done that. Do you not actually read the posts?

Sure. A woman kills a man because she hates men. A woman destroys some man's property because she sees him as a symbol of male privilege.

It only has to happen once for that to be a hate crime, if we actually think that crimes due to sex categories are wrong.

Are you willing to say that things like this hasn't ever happened?

How we decide whether any particular individual crimes are examples of this is, of course, very fraught, in almost all instances, because proving people's motivations is very difficult.

Maybe rapes could be exempt on the grounds its already a sex based crime so inherently misogynistic? 🤔

Rape is not I repeat not a sex based crime from a victim perspective. Men can be raped. Currently the most prolific rapist in the UK exclusively raped men. It's a serious crime which should be treated seriously in every case.

If you have street harassment legislation that again addresses the problem, as did the upskirting law. The Tories have agreed this.

Legislation may be needed re social media with regard to threats but that applies to everyone. The Hate Crime aggravation stuff is a distraction, it would have to be proved and be outside the parameters of free speech and the right to offend.

Make the police do their jobs and hold them to account for bias. If they don't arrest offenders and CPS wont prosecute misogyny as a hate crime is useless.

Dont introduce more divisive ill thought out legislation. Look what a mess the GRA has visited on us.

Yes, the attempted murder of Andy Warhol by Valerie Solanis on behalf of SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men).

Been waiting for Val to pitch up on this thread! 😃