GuiltyPleasure
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Misogyny Is Now a Hate Crime in This English County
If a woman receives sexual harassment on the street, it can now be reported to the police as a hate crime in the county of Nottinghamshire, in central England.
The police will investigate reports of street harassment, unwanted sexual advances, verbal abuse, wolf-whistling and taking photographs without consent.
The force decided to label misogyny a hate crime after encouragement from Nottingham Women’s Center. They describe it as: “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman, and includes behavior targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman.”
“What women face, often on a daily basis, is absolutely unacceptable and can be extremely distressing,” said Chief Constable Sue Fish. “Nottinghamshire Police is committed to taking misogynistic hate crime seriously and encourages anyone who is affected by it to contact us without hesitation.”
Selected officers and staff members of the police force began misogyny hate crime training three months ago, and they should complete it by the end of July.
Violence And Intimidation
Melanie Jeffs, center manager at Nottingham Women’s Centre, said: “We’re pleased to see Nottinghamshire Police recognize the breadth of violence and intimidation that women experience on a daily basis in our communities.”
She added: “Recording this as a hate crime will give us a detailed picture of how often, when and where it is happening. It has been very difficult to build that picture before but we will now get detailed data to analyze. Showing that the police take it seriously will also give people the confidence to come forward and report offenses.”
The impetus for this decision began in 2014, when police officials attended the launch of a hate crime research project commissioned by a local community group. The following year, Nottinghamshire Police and the Nottingham Women’s Center hosted the Nottinghamshire Safer for Women Conference, featuring testimony from “victims of misogynistic hate crime.”
Ironically, a female BBC reporter covering this conference was harassed by a man as she reported from outside the event.
If you are female, you have inevitably been subjected to sexual harassment on the street. Whether it’s in the form of inappropriate comments, being told you’re beautiful, or catcalling, it’s all unwanted attention from men who apparently have some deep-seated need to prove they are more powerful than women.
Recently, I was walking down a busy street in my hometown when a man reached out and grabbed my breast as he passed me. I was so shocked, I didn’t say anything; when I turned to address him, I saw that he had continued walking, as if nothing had happened.
No, it’s not a compliment to receive unwanted sexual attention. Does any man (it is mostly men) think that a woman walking alone wants to be sexually judged by a total stranger? This is not flattery; it is hostile behavior.
And it is behavior that happens often, as the viral video that showed a woman secretly filming herself being catcalled 108 times as she walked through New York reveals.
Hate Crimes
The British definition of a hate crime is: “any criminal offense which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.”
British police currently record five hate crime types: religion, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity. Individual police forces can also include their own definition of a hate crime with several recently adding sub cultures.
While this is a first for England, some European countries do recognize misogyny as a hate crime.
Last year, Portugal made verbal sexual abuse a crime. And in 2014, Belgium criminalized certain kinds of sexual harassment, making it a crime to “make a gesture or statement that is clearly intended to express contempt for one or more people of a different gender on the basis of their gender or to make them appear inferior or reduce them to their sexual dimension in a way that constitutes a serious attack on their dignity.”
Congratulations to the Nottinghamshire police force for being the first in England to label misogyny a hate crime.
If a woman receives sexual harassment on the street, it can now be reported to the police as a hate crime in the county of Nottinghamshire, in central England.
The police will investigate reports of street harassment, unwanted sexual advances, verbal abuse, wolf-whistling and taking photographs without consent.
The force decided to label misogyny a hate crime after encouragement from Nottingham Women’s Center. They describe it as: “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman, and includes behavior targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman.”
“What women face, often on a daily basis, is absolutely unacceptable and can be extremely distressing,” said Chief Constable Sue Fish. “Nottinghamshire Police is committed to taking misogynistic hate crime seriously and encourages anyone who is affected by it to contact us without hesitation.”
Selected officers and staff members of the police force began misogyny hate crime training three months ago, and they should complete it by the end of July.
Violence And Intimidation
Melanie Jeffs, center manager at Nottingham Women’s Centre, said: “We’re pleased to see Nottinghamshire Police recognize the breadth of violence and intimidation that women experience on a daily basis in our communities.”
She added: “Recording this as a hate crime will give us a detailed picture of how often, when and where it is happening. It has been very difficult to build that picture before but we will now get detailed data to analyze. Showing that the police take it seriously will also give people the confidence to come forward and report offenses.”
The impetus for this decision began in 2014, when police officials attended the launch of a hate crime research project commissioned by a local community group. The following year, Nottinghamshire Police and the Nottingham Women’s Center hosted the Nottinghamshire Safer for Women Conference, featuring testimony from “victims of misogynistic hate crime.”
Ironically, a female BBC reporter covering this conference was harassed by a man as she reported from outside the event.
If you are female, you have inevitably been subjected to sexual harassment on the street. Whether it’s in the form of inappropriate comments, being told you’re beautiful, or catcalling, it’s all unwanted attention from men who apparently have some deep-seated need to prove they are more powerful than women.
Recently, I was walking down a busy street in my hometown when a man reached out and grabbed my breast as he passed me. I was so shocked, I didn’t say anything; when I turned to address him, I saw that he had continued walking, as if nothing had happened.
No, it’s not a compliment to receive unwanted sexual attention. Does any man (it is mostly men) think that a woman walking alone wants to be sexually judged by a total stranger? This is not flattery; it is hostile behavior.
And it is behavior that happens often, as the viral video that showed a woman secretly filming herself being catcalled 108 times as she walked through New York reveals.
Hate Crimes
The British definition of a hate crime is: “any criminal offense which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.”
British police currently record five hate crime types: religion, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity. Individual police forces can also include their own definition of a hate crime with several recently adding sub cultures.
While this is a first for England, some European countries do recognize misogyny as a hate crime.
Last year, Portugal made verbal sexual abuse a crime. And in 2014, Belgium criminalized certain kinds of sexual harassment, making it a crime to “make a gesture or statement that is clearly intended to express contempt for one or more people of a different gender on the basis of their gender or to make them appear inferior or reduce them to their sexual dimension in a way that constitutes a serious attack on their dignity.”
Congratulations to the Nottinghamshire police force for being the first in England to label misogyny a hate crime.
