Male violence and harassment of women

[Fishnut]

The whole point is that you don't need a GRC to access safe spaces and that cis men, who are abusive, will do anything to exploit this and all to the detriment of anyone who stands in their way, including those who need help.

We currently do not need GRCs to access safe spaces. Show me evidence that this is allowing men to enter those spaces in order to abuse women and then we can have a discussion.

Well there's women's prison estate for a start.

Women's estate is the most vulnerable.

But I agree Fishnut this is side lining. And no one talked about the 'ladies' sign on the door.

Dangerous women being put into general populations because of a lack of funding and a government that believes crime can be solved by sticking as many people in prison as possible.

[lpm]

Yup that makes sense. Especially from what you have previously posted about the non-consensual nature of a lot of the manufacture of p.rnography

It's not just the illegal non-consensual and under-age material.

The p.rnography industry routinely shows men fictionalised depictions of illegal sexual assaults and sexual harassment. If anyone is genuinely concerned about the prevalence of indecent exposure then they should be concerned about videos depicting indecent exposure where the woman victim responds with delight at the sight of a penis. If you worry about street harassment, also worry about videos where men go up to women in the street and offer money for sex, with the woman acting out reluctance or pretending to walk away before eventually agreeing to sex. Recently someone on this forum made a joke about another common trope in p.rnography, that of a taxi driver exploiting a woman passenger for sex which she soon becomes eager for. How does that trope make women taking a taxi late at night feel?

In recent years p.rnography has been seen as "sex positive". Part of the new era of better sexual relationships, more adventurous sex lives and acceptance of "non-conventional" sexual activities. This might be true.

But p.rnography must also be seen as "assault positive". For violent men and harassing men, much of what they watch is a direct endorsement of what they want to do. It normalises their behaviour and makes them think all men are like them.

[purplehaze]

Yup that makes sense. Especially from what you have previously posted about the non-consensual nature of a lot of the manufacture of p.rnography

It's not just the illegal non-consensual and under-age material.

The p.rnography industry routinely shows men fictionalised depictions of illegal sexual assaults and sexual harassment. If anyone is genuinely concerned about the prevalence of indecent exposure then they should be concerned about videos depicting indecent exposure where the woman victim responds with delight at the sight of a penis. If you worry about street harassment, also worry about videos where men go up to women in the street and offer money for sex, with the woman acting out reluctance or pretending to walk away before eventually agreeing to sex. Recently someone on this forum made a joke about another common trope in p.rnography, that of a taxi driver exploiting a woman passenger for sex which she soon becomes eager for. How does that trope make women taking a taxi late at night feel?

In recent years p.rnography has been seen as "sex positive". Part of the new era of better sexual relationships, more adventurous sex lives and acceptance of "non-conventional" sexual activities. This might be true.

But p.rnography must also be seen as "assault positive". For violent men and harassing men, much of what they watch is a direct endorsement of what they want to do. It normalises their behaviour and makes them think all men are like them.

Plus the rise in 'Taxi' p.rn post John Worboys. Charmingly now known, via google, as Black Cab Rapist.

[gosling]

+1 to fishnut, nothing to add really.

And +1 from me too.

And a belated +1 from me. Fishnut, I was sad when you left the other place as your posts were always interesting/informative/eloquent. Very glad you're here.

[egbert26]

It's not just the illegal non-consensual and under-age material.

The p.rnography industry routinely shows men fictionalised depictions of illegal sexual assaults and sexual harassment. If anyone is genuinely concerned about the prevalence of indecent exposure then they should be concerned about videos depicting indecent exposure where the woman victim responds with delight at the sight of a penis. If you worry about street harassment, also worry about videos where men go up to women in the street and offer money for sex, with the woman acting out reluctance or pretending to walk away before eventually agreeing to sex. Recently someone on this forum made a joke about another common trope in p.rnography, that of a taxi driver exploiting a woman passenger for sex which she soon becomes eager for. How does that trope make women taking a taxi late at night feel?

In recent years p.rnography has been seen as "sex positive". Part of the new era of better sexual relationships, more adventurous sex lives and acceptance of "non-conventional" sexual activities. This might be true.

But p.rnography must also be seen as "assault positive". For violent men and harassing men, much of what they watch is a direct endorsement of what they want to do. It normalises their behaviour and makes them think all men are like them.

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm amazed how we pretend that romance films/books are a bad influence as so often the man gets the gal by stalking her, but p.rn gets a free pass. Similarly, we get all squeamish about the racist and sexist bits of old TV programmes, yet the fact that sexual harassment and assault p.rn gets millions of views is not a concern, presumably because people watch it alone so we can pretend it's not a problem. Benny Hill chasing women in bikinis is only problematic because he didn't get to bang them at the end of the clip. Or something.

I've had men tell me that 'female friendly' p.rn exists so that definitely proves that the p.rn industry is catching up with modern times. I ask them if their w.nk fodder could be considered 'female hostile'. *crickets* Maybe it should be offered as a category of p.rn sites to save valuable time on the bus.

[Grumble]

I've had men tell me that 'female friendly' p.rn exists so that definitely proves that the p.rn industry is catching up with modern times. I ask them if their w.nk fodder could be considered 'female hostile'. *crickets* Maybe it should be offered as a category of p.rn sites to save valuable time on the bus.

The existence of female friendly p.rn as a sub category only shows that women do want to watch some p.rn but much existing p.rn isn’t female friendly.

[Fishnut]

Boris Johnson rules out making misogyny a hate crime because it would overload the police.

...asked about the campaign for misogyny to be made a specific hate crime, he replied: “Rather than introducing new laws, what you need to do is enforce the existing laws.”

Mr Johnson added: “To be perfectly frank, if you simply widen the scope of what you ask the police to do, you’ll just increase the problem.

“What you need to do is get police to focus on the very real crimes,” he told BBC Breakfast, “the very real feeling of injustice and betrayal that many people feel.”

...

Most chief constables have backed making misogyny a hate crime in the courts, but Scotland Yard is seen by many as an obstruction to the change.

Campaigners argue it would encourage women to report public harassment because they could have more confidence that it would be treated seriously.

They believe it would also help to change the culture of police forces, amid widespread concern that women’s complaints are trivialised.

So, our Prime Minister recognises that misogyny an endemic problem, but rather than, you know, do something about that he downplays it saying it's not a "real crime" and confirms campaigners suspicions that women's complaints are trivialised.

I'm feeling safer already

[bagpuss]

Boris Johnson rules out making misogyny a hate crime because it would overload the police.

...asked about the campaign for misogyny to be made a specific hate crime, he replied: “Rather than introducing new laws, what you need to do is enforce the existing laws.”

Mr Johnson added: “To be perfectly frank, if you simply widen the scope of what you ask the police to do, you’ll just increase the problem.

“What you need to do is get police to focus on the very real crimes,” he told BBC Breakfast, “the very real feeling of injustice and betrayal that many people feel.”

...

Most chief constables have backed making misogyny a hate crime in the courts, but Scotland Yard is seen by many as an obstruction to the change.

Campaigners argue it would encourage women to report public harassment because they could have more confidence that it would be treated seriously.

They believe it would also help to change the culture of police forces, amid widespread concern that women’s complaints are trivialised.

So, our Prime Minister recognises that misogyny an endemic problem, but rather than, you know, do something about that he downplays it saying it's not a "real crime" and confirms campaigners suspicions that women's complaints are trivialised.

I'm feeling safer already

[my bold]

So women's sense of injustice and betrayal is not real? Is that what he's saying? I mean, I know I'm being ridiculous in attempting to make any kind of logical sense of any words that emit from Johnson's mouth, but that really does sound as if he's saying that crimes involving misogyny are not real crimes and that women's feelings aren't real.

f.ck me, I didn't think my opinion of Johnson could go any lower, but there it goes again, down another notch.

ETA: And he does realise that this is talking about things that are already crimes, but just aren't classified as hate crimes, doesn't he? Or am I hopelessly wrong about that?

[Bird on a Fire]

I read it as saying that the police should focus on improving conviction rates for sexual assaults, domestic violence, and other crimes against women, rather than adding another type of crime to the books with an equally execrable conviction rate.

But the implication that hate crimes are in some way less "real" is certainly troubling, and I don't see how making something a hate crime would be incompatible with improving conviction rates either.

He's really not as eloquent as people say when he has something difficult to talk about, rather than making silly jokes about the Romans.

[Fishnut]

... that really does sound as if he's saying that crimes involving misogyny are not real crimes and that women's feelings aren't real.

That's certainly how I read it. It may not have been what he intended to say but that's how it came across to me.

[bagpuss]

I read it as saying that the police should focus on improving conviction rates for sexual assaults, domestic violence, and other crimes against women, rather than adding another type of crime to the books with an equally execrable conviction rate.

But the implication that hate crimes are in some way less "real" is certainly troubling, and I don't see how making something a hate crime would be incompatible with improving conviction rates either.

He's really not as eloquent as people say when he has something difficult to talk about, rather than making silly jokes about the Romans.

I've never heard him being even remotely eloquent, except when he has a script to read from. He blusters, mumbles, talks in half sentences which don't string together in any coherent way and generally sounds like he has no idea what he's talking about.

[bagpuss]

... that really does sound as if he's saying that crimes involving misogyny are not real crimes and that women's feelings aren't real.

That's certainly how I read it. It may not have been what he intended to say but that's how it came across to me.

Yes, exactly. I would imagine that he intended to say roughly what BoAF said but what he actually said was something different. The thing is, I don't think that you would make that mistake and use those words if you really believed that crimes that would/should be classified as misogyny hate crimes are important. You'd use words like "even more serious" not "very real".

[mediocrity511]

It's interesting isn't it, I don't think I've ever seen a politician say some things shouldn't be crimes because the police would be overloaded. We know lots of crime, such as burglary, often doesn't get investigated and you just get a crime number for insurance purposes. But no one argues we should decriminalise burglary so as not to overload the police.

[Sciolus]

So they're not in the business of creating new laws and new crimes that will create more work for the police and justice system? What's this all about then?

[Woodchopper]

The issue isn’t about creating new crimes or not.

In the UK ‘hate crime’ is a category that can apply to any crime (eg racially abusive graffiti) if it is deemed to be motivated by hate directed at the following: Race, Religion, Disability, Sexual orientation or Transgender identity.

The effect of a crime being categorised as a hate crime is that courts can give harsher punishments and the police are supposed to focus more time and effort (including recording specific statistics so that performance can be assessed).

The legislation has been introduced piecemeal and the law commission is examining how it can be informed (including adding sex and gender). https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/hate-crime/

The hate crime category was intended to push the police and courts to focus upon crimes against specific vulnerable minority groups (eg gay bashing). The categories were never intended to be an exhaustive list of all crimes motivated by hate. So the rationale for not including misogyny was that including crimes directed against half the population would dilute the focus on the above categories.

I think that misogyny should be included, and that’s an argument for increasing police resources to ensure that the result isn’t lesser attention paid to existing hate crime categories.

[Fishnut]

So the rationale for not including misogyny was that including crimes directed against half the population would dilute the focus on the above categories.

I can understand that rationale to some extent.

I don't know think that making misogyny a hate crime is any sort of actual solution but what frustrates me is that Johnson has, with his comments, admitted that misogyny is a massive problem in this country - if it wasn't then making it a hate crime wouldn't be that big a deal - but has essentially shrugged his shoulders and said "but there's nothing we can do about it".

[Grumble]

So the rationale for not including misogyny was that including crimes directed against half the population would dilute the focus on the above categories.

I can understand that rationale to some extent.

I don't know think that making misogyny a hate crime is any sort of actual solution but what frustrates me is that Johnson has, with his comments, admitted that misogyny is a massive problem in this country - if it wasn't then making it a hate crime wouldn't be that big a deal - but has essentially shrugged his shoulders and said "but there's nothing we can do about it".

Banks can be too big to fail, crimes can be too big to handle, leadership can be too feeble to make a difference.

[snoozeofreason]

So the rationale for not including misogyny was that including crimes directed against half the population would dilute the focus on the above categories.

I can understand that rationale to some extent.

I don't know think that making misogyny a hate crime is any sort of actual solution but what frustrates me is that Johnson has, with his comments, admitted that misogyny is a massive problem in this country - if it wasn't then making it a hate crime wouldn't be that big a deal - but has essentially shrugged his shoulders and said "but there's nothing we can do about it".

It would probably help if media reporting of hate crime legislation was more accurate. Talk of "Making misogyny a hate crime," probably leads people to think that we are on the verge of creating thought crimes. As chops pointed out, "Hate crimes" are things that would be crimes anyway, whatever the motivation for them, but where the where there is the aggravating factor that the victim is targeted on the basis of one or more protected characteristics. If this were more carefully explained then I think it would be hard to object to the addition of gender to the list of protected characteristics. And if 50% of the population were potential targets of such hate crimes then that would seem to strengthen the case for making gender a protected characteristic, rather than weakening it (and FWIW it would be 100% of the population, not 50%, so far as I can see, because everyone has a gender).

[jimbob]

Thread from the Times today - although Mentioned earlier here


https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/144 ... 88512?s=20

“It’s fair to say sex on duty was seen by some as being a perk of the job,” she says

“It left me feeling like I didn’t know who to talk to about it

Saying to the concerned man, ‘Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to her, just don’t do this at all’, made no difference”

On Woman's Hour today one of the guests was Susannah Fish, former Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police force. She said that even she would be reluctant to report any sexual assault on her to the police. She also spoke about how officers used to think that having sex with victims and witnesses of crimes was a perk of the job. She made it a crime but faced huge opposition trying to do it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000t47g

WHAT. THE. f.ck.???????

I know that in many US states they allow sex between officers and detainees as long as they claim it's consensual (totally ignoring the power differential). And of course, given that rape prosecution and conviction statistics are even worse than the UK, even if it's non-consensual it doesn't mean anything will be done.

But somehow in my rose-tinted-glass naivety I'd assumed that the UK would be somewhat better and recognise that sex between officers and members of the public who have occasion to interact with the police would be, if not against the rules, then at least actively frowned on and discouraged. Perk of the job FFS

[purplehaze]

The issue isn’t about creating new crimes or not.

In the UK ‘hate crime’ is a category that can apply to any crime (eg racially abusive graffiti) if it is deemed to be motivated by hate directed at the following: Race, Religion, Disability, Sexual orientation or Transgender identity.

The effect of a crime being categorised as a hate crime is that courts can give harsher punishments and the police are supposed to focus more time and effort (including recording specific statistics so that performance can be assessed).

The legislation has been introduced piecemeal and the law commission is examining how it can be informed (including adding sex and gender). https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/hate-crime/

The hate crime category was intended to push the police and courts to focus upon crimes against specific vulnerable minority groups (eg gay bashing). The categories were never intended to be an exhaustive list of all crimes motivated by hate. So the rationale for not including misogyny was that including crimes directed against half the population would dilute the focus on the above categories.

I think that misogyny should be included, and that’s an argument for increasing police resources to ensure that the result isn’t lesser attention paid to existing hate crime categories.

For the avoidance of doubt heterosexuality is included in Sexual orientation.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/h ... n-guidance

"The Public Order Act 1986 confirms that "hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation" means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to sexual orientation whether towards persons of the same sex, the opposite sex or both. This therefore covers hostility towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexual people."

Whether anyone has been prosecuted under the grounds of hatred towards a heterosexual woman, I'm sorry but I don't know. I agree that misogyny should be included for clarification purposes.

[Fishnut]

Priti Patel has announced an Inquiry following Sarah Everard's murder (pretty sure I saw something from Boris Johnson saying there wouldn't be one only a day or two ago but anyone expecting consistency from this government is going to be sorely disappointed).

Jo Maugham has a good thread about it. It seems the terms of reference are very much focused on Couzens, even though, as Maugham points out, he's a symptom not the cause, and he fears (quite rightly imo) that this focus will "sidetrack" the Inquiry from where its focus really needs to be which is on the "cultural problems underlying how the criminal justice system deals with violence against women and girls."

[Tessa K]

The Justice Secretary doesn't even know what misogyny means. Sigh.

https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1 ... 8077725698

[jimbob]

It's OK Dominic Raab has a firm grasp of the issues

https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1 ... 25698?s=20

James Felton
@JimMFelton
“Misogyny is absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman, or a woman against a man”

ETA: TessaK beat me to it

[Tessa K]

It's OK Dominic Raab has a firm grasp of the issues

https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1 ... 25698?s=20

James Felton
@JimMFelton
“Misogyny is absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman, or a woman against a man”

ETA: TessaK beat me to it

It bears repeating

[Fishnut]

From the BBC

A woman who was pictured being arrested at the Sarah Everard vigil has said "about 50" police officers have since contacted her via a dating app, leaving her "terrified"... She said that since the arrest, "about 50" police officers and security guards had approached her via the dating app. "They were all in uniform on their profiles or it said 'I'm a police officer'," she said.