Despite calls from campaigners to make misogyny a hate crime in 2021 as part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Law Commission had then concluded that it may be “more harmful than helpful, both to victims of violence against women and girls, and also to efforts to tackle hate crime more broadly”.

Responding to the most recent news, Refuge’s Ikram Dahman told Stylist: “We welcome the news that the Government is for the first time considering including extreme misogyny within the counter-extremism strategy, putting it on a par with extreme racial and religious ideology and terrorism. Refuge has long campaigned for misogyny to be treated as a hate crime and for the devastating, dangerous and long-lasting impacts it has on women and girls to be taken seriously. We eagerly await the detail on how these plans will be rolled out but recognising misogyny at the root of violence against women and girls is key to both preventing and tackling these crimes.

“For many years there has been increased rhetoric around tackling violence against women and girls, but this needs to be accompanied by concrete actions. The government’s swiftness to act in response to the recent riots, demonstrates the state’s ability to tackle extremism. A genuine commitment to treating extreme misogyny in the same way must recognise the scale of the problem and allocate the funding, resources and training to match.”

Misogyny is set to be treated as extremism under a new government proposal