Cops in Nottinghamshire in the UK will from now on be treating crimes motivated by misogyny as hate crimes, as they well should be.
The change will mean that abuse or harassment that formerly might not have been considered to be a crime will fall under the umbrella of hate speech, making it easier and safer for women to report it.
Crimes will be recognised as misogynistic if they are “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 term won’t be expanded to include domestic violence because they reckon that’s a separate issue and they already have resources dedicated specifically to that area.
Nottinghamshire Police Chief Constable Sue Fish says they are working towards making the area safer for women:
“What women face, often on a daily basis, is absolutely unacceptable and can be extremely distressing.“Nottinghamshire Police is committed to taking misogynistic hate crime seriously and encourages anyone who is affected by it to contact us without hesitation.”
The force will have officers specially trained to provide support for victims and to help prevent incidents from occurring again.
This is a huge win for a society that tends to treat a culture of sexism like it doesn’t really exist.
Source: BBC.
Photo: Getty Images / Christopher Furlong.
