Misogyny is to be outlawed. Excellent. Now, what does it mean?

Mar 19, 2021 by

by Archbishop Cranmer:

Misogyny is to be incorporated into ‘hate crime’ legislation, which is very good news for women. No longer will they have to endure physical violence, emotional abuse or psychological manipulation at the hands (and from the minds) of men. Nor will they have to put with being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted.

Hang on.

Sorry, all those things are already against the law.

Start again.

Misogyny is to be incorporated into ‘hate crime’ legislation, which is very good news for women. No longer will they have to endure… well, what, exactly, at the hands (and from the minds) of men?

The Domestic Abuse Bill, which is currently wending its way through Parliament, coincides with the murder of Sarah Everard and the police crackdown on the vigil in her name which was organised to highlight violence against women (indeed, not just violence, but the everyday experience of women nervously walking down the street with keys clasped tightly in their fists). This Bill is seen as an opportunity to outlaw misogyny once and for all, and so an amendment was proposed to do so.

The problem is that Sarah Everard was murdered not by a misogynist, but an evil psychopath. The murderer may, of course, have been a misogynist as well, but one rather suspects this attack was not really motivated by “the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls”, or else he (and we assume it is a ‘he’) would have murdered quite a few women and girls. But that doesn’t seem to matter: misogyny needs to be outlawed urgently, or else more women and girls like Sarah will be murdered. And so Parliament rushes something through, because it can, and it must.

It’s interesting how swiftly misogyny as a ‘hate crime’ segues into misogyny as an ‘attitude’, as Sadiq Khan’s tweet evidences. Does a wolf-whistle in the street constitute misogyny? Is it to be outlawed? It certainly suggests a certain attitude, and there are many women who believe it is linked to violence and rape. But not every wolf-whistle ends in rape, and not every woman is offended to be the object of one. Indeed, some may be quite flattered to receive the attention: one woman’s harassment is another’s blush of embarrassment. It is sexist, certainly. But is all female-directed sexism misogyny? Are the police really to be expected to record every wolf-whistle as a hate crime?

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