“Misogyny” will now be labeled as a “hate crime” in the U.K. as the British government has now asked police to record claims of harassment against women if “the victim perceives” that they were targeted because of their gender.
According to CNN, Parliament will now “ask police forces to identify and record any crimes of violence against the person, including stalking and harassment, as well as sexual offenses where the victim perceives it to have been motivated by a hostility based on their sex." The change is reportedly being done on an “experimental basis” to see if it actually affects anything.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a far-left progressive who’s waged war against everything from perceived sexism to companies that supposedly (or inadvertently) shame fat people, tweeted praise for the move, calling it a “HUGE victory.”
“Misogyny will now be recorded as a hate crime - a HUGE victory for everyone involved in this cross-party campaign. It’s time for every Londoner to call out sexist & misogynistic attitudes wherever they are found – in the workplace, school, on the streets or public transport,” he wrote.
NEW: Misogyny will now be recorded as a hate crime - a HUGE victory for everyone involved in this cross-party campaign. It’s time for every Londoner to call out sexist & misogynistic attitudes wherever they are found – in the workplace, school, on the streets or public transport.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) March 17, 2021
In a marked distinction, Khan seems to be taking this new measure several steps further than the new policy, which calls out "crimes of violence." Instead, the London mayor targets "sexist & misogynistic attitudes," which could include just about anything depending on how it's received.
But, as with so many “woke” policies, even those who voted for the new policy admit it’s unlikely to have any real effect, given that it doesn’t actually change the law to impose new punishments or guarantee justice. It also makes little sense, given that British police are already allowed to categorize sex-based crimes, including harassment or stalking, as “hate crimes” under the law as it was already written. At best, the new rule might help the government collect data on how many women are targeted on the basis of sex – maybe.
But while the actual effectiveness of this latest virtue-signal remains to be seen, efforts among some members of Parliament to wage war against men is pretty evident. Jennifer Helen Jones, a baroness/Green Party politician/member of the British House of Lords, recently proposed a 6 p.m. curfew for all men, saying it would “make women a lot safer, and discrimination of all kinds would be lessened.”
Both Jones’ ridiculous suggestion and the new rule making misogyny a “hate crime” follow the disappearance and presumed murder of a 33-year-old U.K. woman named Sarah Everard, whose remains were found after she disappeared one night while walking home after visiting with a friend. While authorities have yet to determine exactly how she died, it’s believed that she was killed by a police officer.
Of course, given that kidnapping and murdering someone is already a crime of just about the highest degree possible and is perpetrated by someone who's clearly not concerned about people or the law, it's not clear how labeling "misogyny" a "hate crime" will help future victims like Everard, instead forcing good men to walk on eggshells for fear of being labeled a criminal by any woman who "perceives" them the wrong way.