Parliament will discuss e-petition: Legislate crimes motivated by misogyny are hate crimes, fund support & training

[IwantToRetire]

The e-petition Legislate crimes motivated by misogyny are hate crimes, fund support & training (746640) is being debated in Westminster Hall on 7 September 2026. The petition calls on the government to “tackle anti-feminist hate groups that target and radicalise young people online” and that “recognising misogyny as a hate crime could protect victims, deter offenders, and send a clear message that gender-based hostility is unacceptable.”

The petition ran for six months and closed on 2 June 2026. It received 114,927 signatures.

Government response

The government published a response to the petition, given on 11 March 2026. The summary stated:

The Government has tabled an amendment at Lords Report Stage of the Crime and Policing Bill to extend the aggravated offences in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-11073/

I seem to remember it was tabled because (short form) "zomg, there's so much crap motivated by misogyny, the police would be swamped".

And its close corollary: "It's just what we do! It's normal! Where are we supposed to draw the line?!!"

Crimes against women. The only hate crimes ignored not because people say they don't exist, but because they do.

I think it was something like that, but also a lot of "socialist" feminists said it was hard enough to get rape convictions so the last think rape survivors need is an added layer of proving misogyny.

Ditto women survivors of domestic violence.

Which was really dispiriting that women who claimed to speak for other women would say something like this.

When for instance, in the instance of an act of violence by a group of white men against a POC, which was clearly motivated by racism, they would absolutely demand that those who did the attacking not only got convicted for their violence, but for their racism.

If women who say they are feminists are so down beat about never being able to get a conviction for misogyny why are the bothering to be feminists?

I've got a simple solution to the police claim that they can't cope with misogyny being a hate crime because it's too much work - drop one of the other hate crimes! Rotate it round - one year misogyny is legal, next year disability hate crimes is legal (and misogyny illegal), year after it's homophobia being legal. If racism being legal sounds horrific but misogyny being legal is ok to parliament, police & society then...WTF society are we living in???

It won't change much.

Is domestic violence, a husband hitting a wife, a hate crime? You could argue that it is, but you could argue it simply partner on partner crime. Similar with rape. Sexual assault.

Also I just can't see the label of 'sexist' having the same weight as 'racist'. Hopefully changing the law will change that over time, but currently no one will care.

It should be done for fairness and awareness but it won't really effect anything.

Wasn't there a consultation on this a while ago? It decided against inclusion in hate crime categories for this kind of reason. Personally I think hate crimes should but be scaled back. Specific offences of street harassment are more useful.
Hate crimes carry increased sentences. We already have severe sentences for rape I'm not sure calling it a hate crime makes any difference.

Found a link

https://share.google/Pf6pP2lA6OQ3q1qdO
The Law Commission has recommended that “sex or gender” should not be added to the protected characteristics for aggravated offences and enhanced sentencing as it would be ineffective at protecting women and girls and in some cases, counterproductive.For example, if applied in the context of rape and domestic abuse it could make it more difficult to secure prosecutions and create unhelpful hierarchies of victims. However, if these contexts are excluded, it would make sex or gender very much the poor relation of hate crime characteristics, applicable only in certain, limited contexts.However, the Commission has made a number of recommendations to provide greater protection:

Extending the offence of stirring up hatred to cover stirring up hatred on the grounds of sex or gender. This would help to tackle the growing threat of extremist misogynist “incel” ideology, and its potential to lead to serious criminal offending.
A government review of the need for a specific offence to tackle public sexual harassment, which would likely be more effective than adding sex or gender to hate crime laws.

I think it's worth doing I'm just not optimistic that it will change anything. Currently there is this weird precedent that sexism somehow isn't as bad as other 'hate' crimes (whatever that means') so I think just for that reason it should be on the list. I can only think of a few things that are unambiguously misogynistic.

The horrible shooting in America at a university where the men were told to leave so that the monster could kill just the women. Honour killings. The guy that targeted girls schools with threatening emails.

What about slapping someone on the bum? Is that a sexist hate crime? It could be done to a man so it is just sexual harassment? Surely that's enough?

Does 'TERF' count? Does 'Bitch' count?? Does it matter that these are counted as legally sexist hate crimes if no other crime has been commited and nothing is done about it?

Yes but as others, and I also said, it isn't about only being able to prove domestic violence as somehow linked to a hate crime.

It is, or should be, the same as any other crime where someone is convicted of violence, and where proven the addition of an aggravated crime.

This happens for homophobic crimes, when shown to be motivated by that.

Why is it that when it is about women being treated equally they are never considered worth that extra value being placed on the impact of what happened to them.

The official explanation of why not is totally at odds with how the law currently works.

Basically women aren't worth the trouble.