Misogyny as a Hate Crime

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered misogyny as a hate crime.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, in a debate on an issue that has been hotly discussed over the past couple of days. This debate is particularly timely, given that tomorrow is International Women’s Day. I pay tribute to the excellent work undertaken by the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence and the Women and Equalities Committee, which have taken on important and often contentious issues to enhance the lives of all women up and down the country. Often, they have been supported by charities and think tanks such as the Fawcett Society, Women’s Aid and End Violence Against Women, which have contributed broader thoughts on policy relating to women. I thank them all for their work in this field.

All forms of abuse are committed disproportionately against women and girls, and the perpetrators are usually men. Violence against women and girls is part of what is stopping women achieving equality. Some 22% of girls aged seven to 12 have experienced jokes of a sexual nature from boys, and nearly three quarters of all 16 to 18-year-old boys and girls say they hear sexual name-calling, including terms such as “slut” and “slag” used towards girls at school, daily or a few times a week. In 2016, there were 2 million female victims of domestic violence. About 85,000 women a year are raped, but only half those cases are reported. The Government recognise that more needs to be done to tackle violence towards women and girls, and it is welcome that they are consulting in advance of the Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill. I hope this debate will be considered carefully as part of that consultation.

The debate is about securing an extension to the existing hate crime definitions and sentencing better to prevent violence against women, support early intervention against lower-level incidents and give women greater confidence in reporting the actions that, too often, have become the wallpaper of their lives. That is most certainly the case: 85% of women aged between 18 and 24 report that they have been on the receiving end of unwanted attention.

The APPG on domestic violence found that there is a clear link between low-level incidents of harassment towards women and more serious forms of violence and sexual crime. That is why I want the Government formally to extend the five strands of centrally monitored hate crime to include misogyny and provide for appropriate reflective sentencing. That would mean that incidents of street harassment, online abuse or other negative acts or behaviour directed towards a woman simply because she was a woman could be formally logged and monitored.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I apologise to the hon. Lady and to you, Sir David, for not being able to stay to the end of the debate. I have to meet some constituents who are visiting, but I would have liked to contribute. The hon. Lady is talking about misogyny. Can we take it as read that she thinks that misandry ought to be a hate crime, too? If she does not, will she explain why she thinks there should be one rule for one and another rule for the other?

[Melanie Onn]

I am terribly sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not going to stay for the entirety of the debate. He regularly contributes to debates on this topic, but rarely stays around for the responses. If he wants to raise the issue of misandry, he is perfectly able to do so. To date, he has not. He has every opportunity, as everybody in the House does, to pursue that. It does not form part of my suggestions today, which are focused on misogyny. There is a power imbalance in society that disproportionately affects women negatively, so I think misogyny should be an exclusive strand of hate crime.

By setting the definition in statute, the Government would put down a marker to say that culturally endemic negative attitudes towards women are not acceptable. The recording of the crime would give a clearer picture of the scale of the issue, assist the police in taking action and intervening, and give women greater confidence that their concerns would be taken seriously. In evidence to the APPG on domestic violence, Women’s Aid said:

“Hate crime law was designed to combat crimes that deny equal respect and dignity to people who are seen as other…That violence is a consequence of sex inequality…That inequality undermines the ability of targeted people to feel safe and secure in society.”

The increasing rates of violence, sexual violence, harassment and disproportionate online abuse towards women show that women are routinely seen as “other”. If we are genuinely to tackle the violence, we must address the root cause—inequality. That certainly seems to be what Baroness Williams of Trafford was hinting at when she said:

“The Government recognise that it is critical to look beyond criminal justice measures and also to focus on what we can do to prevent abuse and violence in the first place.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 November 2017; Vol. 787, c. 481.]

That is the challenge that five police forces around the country—most notably Nottinghamshire police—have set out to address. Their experience of piloting misogyny as a recordable hate crime has led to an increase in reporting.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

I have been reading the press reports about this debate with some interest. In Nottinghamshire in 2014, Paddy Tipping presided over the first force to introduce such a crime. As a Nottinghamshire MP, I want to reassure hon. Members that in Nottinghamshire the world has not caved in—far from it. When misogyny and hate crime were included in the force victim satisfaction survey, 94% of victims said they felt reassured and confident in the police. In short, this has been a success.

[Melanie Onn]

It is welcome to hear that it has been a success. The police more widely do not seem to object to the extension of the definition of hate crime. The police are looking to the Government to support them in that action and to ensure that appropriate sentencing facilities are available to support any action they might take.

Contrary to media hype, there was not a surge of reports complaining of wolf-whistling, but arrests have been made for public order offences and actual bodily harm incidents that were classed as misogynist. That certainly reflects the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), who claims that the initiative has been a success. There are specially trained officers in place in a city that has two universities, and the change has made positive difference to women, who feel better able to report unwanted attention and receive appropriate support where necessary.

Ultimately, I hope that if we set our laws appropriately, there will be a reduced need for police intervention, because behaviour and culture will evolve to fit the new standard. Dame Lara Cox, who chaired the Fawcett Society sex discrimination law review, said:

“Laws are instruments in changing attitudes, setting the bar for expectations of treatment and behaviour”.

She made the point that our laws are not stagnant and that they must reflect the reality of today’s society.

The reality, as borne out by campaigns such as #EverydaySexism, #goodnightout, #girlsagainst and, more recently, #MeToo, as well as, internationally, #StopStreetHarassment, is that today’s society is awash with misogynistic acts such as groping, sexual comments, upskirting, revenge porn, sexual remarks, leering and stalking. As the nature of harassment changes, so must the laws that govern it, and too many incidents do not meet the criteria for assault, discrimination or public order offences.

The fact that I have had the temerity to call for this debate—this exploration of ideas—has provoked a backlash of vile fury. I have been told that I am in some way a man-hater, that I have no sense of humour and that I should most certainly learn to take a compliment. Because I am not a snowflake, as has been suggested, that has not dissuaded me from continuing to discuss these ideas, but it highlights why women and girls are so often put off from directly challenging behaviour at the time the incidents occur. They are put off from even reporting them, given that the potential response is so aggressive.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend has introduced the debate, not least because I am a strong defender of the reputation of men. Sexual harassment is not a given—people can choose not to do it—so it is really important in debates that we do not disrespect men by somehow suggesting that they are incapable of controlling their behaviour. I am pleased that she is setting out a way in which we can differentiate between the men who understand the 21st century and those who do not.

[Melanie Onn]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point that is hard to disagree with. Some responses that I have received over the last few days have not shown men in their best light, which is incredibly unfortunate, because all the men in my life accept that any actions or behaviours that put women in an uncomfortable position or make them feel unsafe or not secure in their environment are not acceptable. The defence of some of that behaviour has been quite surprising.

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Lady give way again, just briefly?

[Melanie Onn]

I feel compelled to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say.

[Philip Davies]

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Lady’s flow, but she just said something that made me think of something I had not expected to come to. Does she therefore think what her colleague, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), said about my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey) should be a crime?

[Melanie Onn]

Unless the hon. Gentleman is more specific, I cannot respond to that.

[Philip Davies]

At a political rally, the right hon. Gentleman repeated someone’s remark that my right hon. Friend should be lynched. Clearly, that made my right hon. Friend and other people feel very uncomfortable. Given what the hon. Lady is saying, does she think that should be a crime?

[Melanie Onn]

If the individual to whom the comments were directed felt that they wished to report that, it would fall within the scope of today’s discussion. Those sorts of comment are unnecessarily aggressive and there is no place for them, certainly not in the nature of political debate and discourse, but that has been explored extensively and more directly with the individuals concerned, who explained themselves as they wished to.

In the last few days, I have been told stories that have made me so sad, because after decades of talking about equality, we seem so far away from it when it comes to girls and women being targeted because of their gender. Twelve and 13 year-old girls in their school uniform can still be leered at and suggestive comments and actions made towards them. These are children, yet some people still consider that an appropriate course of action. Women in their 20s walking past pubs are routinely heckled and their appearance is audibly commented on. None of those so obviously charming men take the step of directly addressing the women. Why would they not want to talk to them? Because that would humanise the objects passing by who they seek to objectify in such an unfriendly and intimidating way?

If the statistics are anything to go by, nearly every woman will have a story of deliberately being made to feel uncomfortable or intimidated, or of being touched or the object of someone’s unwanted attentions, at the very least, and 90% of women in the UK experience street harassment before they are 17. Because of that, 71% of women have done something to guard themselves against the threat of harassment, such as changing their route to work or avoiding parks. It is dreadful that women have to mould their lives around avoiding threatening situations. If street harassment, abuse and continued sex discrimination have no place in our society, let us have laws that fully and properly reflect that. Let us set a bar for expected behaviour and proactively take steps to reduce violence and sexual crime against women.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Women (Victoria Atkins)]

I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) for calling the debate, particularly as tomorrow we celebrate International Women’s Day, when I hope the House will have a long, thorough debate on the issues facing women—not just in this country, but across the world. One thing that, sadly, too few women across the world have is the right to participate in democratic processes. Today, we have seen how valuable the democratic processes of our country are. I hope very much that Back Benchers and those of us on the Front Benches do everything we can to safeguard the principles of democracy in this great country. [Interruption.] It appears that I am in stereo as well.

I am also feeling a little bit rebellious. Pretty much for the first time on Sunday, I went on a march—I am not a frequent participant: the March4Women. We were joined by up to 10,000 supporters, and we took over the streets, perhaps in a way that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) would have liked. It was an incredible experience to feel that energy and positivity, but sadly some of the women and men on the march also felt anger about some of the issues we have been discussing today. Against that backdrop, I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby on securing this debate, and other hon. Members on participating. I hope that this will lead to a continuation of such debates over the year—this year of all years.

The hon. Lady used one phrase that very much stuck in my mind: she described the abuse faced by girls and women in the street or workplace as “the wallpaper of their lives”. I hope that we will get to a stage—sooner, rather than later—when that is no longer the case. The Government are clear that any crimes that target women, whether sexual offences, domestic abuse, or any other forms of abuse, are completely unacceptable and out of step with where we are as a society in 2018.

Since 2010 the Government have done more than ever to tackle these crimes, pledging £100 million over four years to support our ending violence against women and girls strategy, and committing to publish a landmark draft domestic abuse Bill. I hope that Members will use their networks to ensure a good response to the consultation when it is launched, and I am sure some of these issues will be raised during it. We play a leading role in the world in our response to violence against women and girls. We have introduced new offences for coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. We have banned revenge porn, and only last month the Sentencing Council announced increased sentences for domestic abuse, in recognition of the seriousness of such crimes.

Sadly, we know that women and girls face harassment and abuse all too often, and understandably people are calling for action. This involves not just women and girls, but men as well: I feel obliged to remind Members, in the heat of this issue and debate, that most men behave with decency, propriety and respect towards women. However, they are not the men we are worrying about in this debate, and today we want to focus on those who fall outside the majority and treat women in a disrespectful or abusive way.

[Melanie Onn]

I entirely support what the Minister is saying, and I feel strongly that men have a critical role in setting a positive example for young men who are growing up. I went running with my son, and someone in a van decided to beep as they drove past and shout something out of the window. My son was confused by that, and wanted to know what it was all about. I did not know where to start—I do not want to introduce the idea that such things are a common form of behaviour. The Minister is right in what she says, and I applaud her for setting it out so clearly.

[Victoria Atkins]

Indeed, and sometimes men can be the best feminists of all. My little boy is growing up thinking that of course women are Members of Parliament, and of course they are Prime Ministers, because that is what he understands at the moment. The value of men in this debate is important and we all have supportive male colleagues. If we are honest, none of us—or very few of us—could do the amazing job of representing our constituencies in the House of Commons without support networks. Those networks could be male, female or whatever, but we need people behind us—our family and friends—to support us in this role. Men have a vital role in this debate.

Let me turn to current hate crime provisions; if I may, I will be quite detailed in my response on the law because we must take this issue step by step. Currently, specific hate crime provisions, including aggravated and incitement offences, and aggravated sentence uplift, are for offences that target race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender identity. Hate crimes are motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person on the basis of one or more of those five strands. It is a fundamental aspect of the legislation that those motivations can be proven to demonstrate the hate element, including where that leads to sentences being increased.

At the moment we have no clear evidence to show the extent to which the range of crimes committed against women and girls are specifically motivated by misogyny, which is defined as

“the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.”

The police pilots that have been mentioned in this debate are of great interest to the Government. As the hon. Member for Great Grimsby said, there are pilot areas across the country, including in Nottinghamshire, where it has been led by Sue Fish, the former chief constable of Nottinghamshire police. That approach has been used to help give women confidence to come forward to the police to report incidents, and to raise the priority of investigations and enhance support offered to women and girls. There has been positive early feedback from women and girls, and those who support them, which is why the National Police Chiefs’ Council is gathering more data on those local initiatives. We will ask the police to feed back on the results of any pilots such as that in Nottinghamshire in recording misogyny as a hate crime.

However, we must be careful about creating laws that would inadvertently conflict with principles of equality. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is no longer in his place, but he raised a point about misandry. Under the Equalities Act 2010, certainly in the workplace we must balance the issue of equality. For example, our laws on religious hate crime provide equal protection for people of all faiths and of none. Equality of protection is a crucial element of ensuring public support for hate crime legislation. In other words, if we were to have hate crime in relation to gender, we would have to think carefully about whether that would apply to the entire population or just to half of it.

[Melanie Onn]

Rather than considering the barriers, I strongly request that the route to overcoming potential obstacles requires the intent of securing misogyny as an extension to the categorisations as its ultimate aim. Although issues may present themselves, I am sure the Minister has flexed her intellectual muscles on more complex issues than this, and I hope she will apply similar rigour to achieving something that fundamentally could be really positive for our society.

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. I am setting out these points because one’s instinctive reaction might be, “Yeah, let’s go for it”. But we must be mindful of unintended and inadvertent consequences. I wonder whether hate crime legislation is definitively the best way to treat these crimes. Women are not a minority, and I would be hesitant to put us forward as one.

Perhaps I am a little more robust in the way that I would like this abuse and harassment to be treated. Within equalities legislation, it is being a minority covered by the five strands that causes something to fall under hate crime legislation. [Interruption.] I see that the hon. Member for Walthamstow is perched on her seat.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am so glad that the hon. Lady clarified that. I was not for a moment suggesting that women themselves must be more robust in the way they deal with such things. That is not my intention. I am saying that we as a society should be more robust.

It comes down to attitudes—something that has been raised a great deal in the debate. I am treading carefully at the moment with respect to equalities legislation because, as far as inserting anything into the current hate crime provisions is concerned, there are legal wrangles that we have to consider. We want to ensure that any changes that we make in the law to reflect the abuse in question would not have any impact on the five protected strands—of religion, and so on.

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the Minister for being generous in taking interventions. Does her concern about including misogyny in the legislative framework call into question the existing extensions, and what police forces are doing?

[Victoria Atkins]

No. At the moment we do not have any clear evidence and, as I have said, we welcome the evidence from the pilot projects. However, the practical legislative steps are what we must put our mind to—as we are doing. I am flagging them up as issues that we shall have to settle one way or another.

For example, there are high rates of under-reporting of the existing five strands of hate crime. We would not want to remove the focus from them, because we want to encourage more people to report that they have been abused racially or because of their religion. Perhaps the best way I can sum up our position is to say that the Government are listening.

There have been calls from both sides of the Chamber for a change in attitudes. When I practised at the criminal Bar, I used to say that by the time things have got to court the harm has been done, and it would be much better if they did not happen in the first place. We all need to challenge the attitudes that normalise or excuse the abuse and harassment of women. We have had examples today of the abuse that colleagues have, sadly, faced in their professional lives. I commend their calling out those instances of abuse. Perhaps I may say that I constantly admire the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for the beautiful necklaces that she always wears, and I do not understand why anyone would feel they had reason to make any criticism about that.

The Government Equalities Office is taking forward a programme of work to identify and challenge harmful social norms, ensuring that men and boys are included in the conversation as well as women. We need to ensure that all children grow up understanding that we should all be treated with respect, and not abused on the basis of gender, race or religion, and so on. Working with the Advertising Association, we have provided teachers and parents with resources to improve primary school children’s resilience with respect to harmful gender stereotypes. In addition, following on from the successful “This is abuse” campaign—and it was successful in teaching people about what constitutes an abusive relationship and what should be normal and acceptable in a loving relationship—the Home Office and the Government Equalities Office have provided £3 million in the past year to develop and run a new “Disrespect NoBody” campaign, to tackle abuse within teenage relationships and encourage teens to rethink their views on violence, controlling behaviour and the meaning of consent in relationships.

Modern life can impinge on those matters as well, in the form of sexting and so on. We are also engaging with young people on questions of respect and equality to prevent such behaviour in the first place. That is why we have committed to making relationships education mandatory in all primary schools, and relationships and sex education mandatory in all primary schools from September next year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the Minister for her very detailed and considered response. I genuinely urge her to take the points I have made seriously; they were made in good faith. I was determined to ensure that this debate would not be trivialised or minimised, and I tried as much as possible not to make it about us, because the issues that affect so many women in all our constituencies on a regular basis—from a very young age, which gives me such cause for concern—are important and should be at the forefront of our thoughts at all times.

This is a really important issue. It might start at the level of street harassment, but too often it ends up in much more serious offences. I have just been looking at my Twitter feed—perhaps I should come off it—and it is now filled with comments asking if I have nothing better to do and whether there are not more pressing issues facing my constituents that I should be tackling. In my constituency we have an excessively high rate of domestic violence, and there are children in primary and secondary school who accept that violence in a relationship is somehow normal and to be expected. If, by challenging the acceptability of those attitudes, I can do anything to nip in the bud the extension of low-level abuse leading to more serious harassment, I will consider my time and Parliament’s time very well spent. If that makes women come forward to report more incidents, it is certainly the right thing to do.

I want to come back on the Minister’s point about the numerical minority of women. I suggest that the power imbalance in society leaves women in a minority position, whether that be in terms of equal pay, membership of company boards or our experience of harassment and abuse, which the statistics bear out. We are always put in a minority position, even if our numbers do not indicate that we should be.

On the points about existing legislation, so often the thresholds are not met and the police do not feel confident about taking forward cases. That leaves women feeling that they should not report, because the crimes are not deemed to be serious enough and insufficient action is taken as a result. It is clear to me from the testimony in the contributions that we have heard today that we must do all that we can to try to tackle the culture and attitude that seem so pervasive in society today. Until we do that, we will not start to see the positive impact that the Minister is working so valiantly towards achieving when it comes to much more serious crimes, such as domestic violence and rape. I thank her very much for her consideration and thank everyone for their contributions, which are very much appreciated.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered misogyny as a hate crime.