Why hate crime legislation is not the right way to tackle sexism

Baroness Helena Kennedy advised against including misogyny in Scotland’s hate crime legislation as the ubiquity of sexist behaviour meant there would need to be entirely separate legislation (Picture: Isabel Infantes) | AFP via Getty Images

As someone who is quite proud of being ‘a woman of a certain age’ and has given up on declaring that I’m not middle class, these past few weeks have been both enraging and disappointing. Enraging because I had hoped and believed that, by this time, we would have made the sort of mindless, disrespectful behaviour towards women that has been recently alleged in the media a thing of the past.

As a (much) younger woman, I and my female peers were well used to running the gauntlet of sexist, so-called ‘banter’ in the workplace. There’s more than one incident that I look back on now and wish I had said more. Called it out.

Ironically many of us then consoled ourselves by believing that this was confined to ‘men of a certain age’, whom the sexual equality and respect zeitgeist of our era had passed by. Once our generation was running things everything would be different, we opined.

Disgusting abuses

Sadly, if even some of the allegations we have seen recently against various high-profile individuals turn out to be true, we were wrong. Our daughters, now adult, with minds of their own and a generational commitment to equality across the board, are facing similar disrespect from men of that same certain age and even in their own generation. Why?

Worse, the internet has provided sick minds with a way of seeking revenge for real or imagined hurt with intimate, often fake, images. In a recent Women and Equalities Select Committee session at Westminster, we heard evidence of disgusting abuses that recent and upcoming legislation aims to eradicate. But no sooner do we tackle one issue than another rears its ugly head.

It is time that we stopped trying to cut off this poisonous growth and started dealing with it at its roots. Just recently, the Scottish Parliament chose not to include misogyny in the list of aggravating factors that define hate crime.

Influential in that decision was a report from the Labour peer, Baroness Helena Kennedy, which pointed to the ubiquity of sexist behaviour and flaws in pinning down a single definition to create a criminal offence. Entirely separate legislation would be required.

Sexualised ‘banter’

She was, for me, completely right. At Westminster, there is a similar debate ongoing. Having once felt the hate crime route was best, I now find the counter argument compelling. It is not just the worst cases – physical and verbal attacks or domestic abuse – that are the end result of misogynistic behaviour. It is everywhere, every day in so many ways.

It is the boss who talks over the women with suggestions, only to then congratulate the male staff who repeat the same idea often only minutes later. Or the man who stands up to tower over and intimidate the woman whose ability or candour suddenly seems like a threat to his wrongly assumed and brazenly asserted superiority.

Or it is the sexualised banter designed, even subconsciously, to make women feel belittled or embarrassed. It is all unacceptable.

If we are to stop it, then we have to do it with a generation whose minds have yet to be infected by bigotry of any kind. Reaching and educating young people is what legislative minds should be focused on. Simple generational enlightenment has failed.

Christine Jardine is Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West