The British government is considering wide-ranging reforms to hate crime legislation that could make misogyny—and misandry—illegal for the first time. But some women’s rights campaigners fear that defining prejudice against men as a specific hate crime could pave the way for men’s rights activists to abuse laws designed to protect the most vulnerable in our society from discrimination.
Under existing UK laws, so-called “protected characteristics” are currently covered by anti-hate-crime legislation. These characteristics currently include race, religion, sexual orientation, disabilities, and gender identity. Under a package of measures proposed by the Home Office, the government department responsible for crime and policing, prejudice against men and women alike could soon be categorized as a hate crime under UK law.
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British home secretary Sajid Javid pledged a tougher government approach to tackling hate crime as he announced the proposals. “Our refreshed action plan sets out how we will tackle the root causes of prejudice and racism, support hate crime victims and ensure offenders face the full force of the law,” he said in comments reported by the Guardian.
Some women’s rights campaigners are now fearful that categorizing misandry as a hate crime, alongside racism, Islamophobia, or transphobia, will set a dangerous precedent.
“The reality is, misandry does not have the history or impact of misogyny,” says Jessica Eaton of Victim Focus, an organisation that works with survivors of sexual violence. “There is no global oppressive hatred of men that subjugates them into a lesser role in society. There is no systematic oppression of men all over the world that leads to them being abused, bought, sold, mutilated, killed or aborted purely based on them being men and boys.”
Eaton emphasizes the vague parameters under which misandry is categorized. “It’s been defined recently as ‘hostility towards men,’” she says, “which is far too broad, and extremely subjective.”
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As a women’s rights campaigner, Eaton highlights that a common criticism of her activism from men’s rights activists is that she’s “anti-men.” If misandry was labeled a hate crime, her opponents could conceivably report her to police simply for for her advocacy of women’s rights.
“Women like me have already been accused of misandry for writing about victim blaming of women, for supporting women’s centres and even for speaking about gender roles harming men and contributing to male suicide rates. Every time I quote national statistics on sexual violence offenders being mainly men, I am accused of misandry—despite the fact that they are national, peer reviewed statistics.”
Eaton references a truth that any high-profile feminist knows well—that those who are anti-women’s rights often use “man-haters” as a common insult. “Whilst women who speak or write about these issues are labelled ‘man haters’ regularly, I rarely ever see men who speak or write about male violence and male sex offenders being called a misandrist.”
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Her fear is that claims of misandry could be used to silence women who talk about sexual violence or work with female abuse survivors. “Calls of ‘misandry’ could be used to shut down or accuse women who write about and speak about male violence, male abusers, and statistical facts about men being the majority offenders of domestic and sexual abuse.”
The Law Commission, an independent body that recommends legal reforms, will now look at the proposed measures to see if they are necessary across the UK.
In 2016, Nottinghamshire Police became the first force in the country to treat gender-based street harassment as a hate crime. “We’ve all agreed for a long time that it’s not okay for someone to shout homophobic or Islamophobic abuse at someone,” feminist campaigner Melanie Jeffs—who was instrumental in persuading Nottinghamshire Police to designate misogyny as a hate crime—told Broadly at the time. “So why is it okay to shout misogynistic abuse at a woman or behave towards her in a way that makes her feel threatened and impacts upon her ability to lead a normal life?”
