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Legal definiton of Online Misogyny and around the topic of Online Harassment
We shall begin with the UK and work collaboratively to document the legal status of misogyny across the globe
Harassment
This advice applies to England
Harassment is unwanted behaviour which you find offensive or which makes you feel intimidated or humiliated. It can happen on its own or alongside other forms of discrimination.
Unwanted behaviour could be:
- spoken or written words or abuse
- offensive emails, tweets or comments on social networking sites
- images and graffiti
- physical gestures
- facial expressions
- jokes
You don’t need to have previously objected to something for it to be unwanted. Check if harassment is unlawful discrimination
Harassment is unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 if it’s because of or connected to one of these things:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- race
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
The Equality Act calls these things protected characteristics. Harassment because of one of these characteristics is called harassment related to a protected characteristic.
Nottinghamshire Police made history in 2016 by becoming the first force in the country to recognise misogyny as a hate crime. The additional category applies to a range of incidents reported to the police, from street harassment through to physical intrusions on women’s space. This is defined as:
Incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman.
The new misogyny category acts as a flag or ‘qualifier’ on the incident log, rather than defining the incident itself. The offence is not changed – so for example, an incident of anti-social behaviour would become anti-social behaviour with a ‘misogyny hate crime qualifier’. It is important to understand that no new crimes are created as a result of this policy change – despite what you may have read in the media.
What is a hate crime?
Hate crime, as defined by the CPS and National Police Chiefs’ Council, is:
…any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by a hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.
Criminal offences can be categorised as hate crime. But police can also record an incident as a hate incident if the victim perceives that it was similarly motivated, regardless of whether it is a criminal offence or proceeds to prosecution.
Police are required to monitor the five strands of hate crime listed above but can add others to monitor. On this basis, Nottinghamshire Police now record incidents of misogyny. Greater Manchester has extended monitoring to include hostility towards alternative cultures and Merseyside to hostility to sex workers.
Currently the law treats hate crimes relating to the various protected characteristics differently. It makes provision for hate crime as a ground for enhanced sentencing in relation to race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity. It makes provision for certain offences such as assault to be prosecuted as an aggravated offence in relation to race or religion, with longer maximum sentences. It also provides for “stirring up hatred” offences in relation to race and religion.
The Law Commission examined and reported on hate crime offences in 2014. They supported the principle of applying aggravated offences to the current five characteristics and recommended that a further, fuller review be set up to examine hate crime offences, their rationale and effect as well as whether they should be extended to cover further grounds such as gender.3 This has not yet been commissioned by the Government.