It wasn’t shocking news. The long-running campaign to make misogyny a hate crime, led by feminist activists and spearheaded in parliament by the Labour MP Stella Creasy, had never been treated enthusiastically by many in the Conservative party (case in point: Boris Johnson, who made his opposition to the idea clear while prime minister). But the government’s confirmation this week that it will not be making misogyny a hate crime still prompted dismay and condemnation from some quarters.

“This heartbreaking announcement speaks volumes about this government’s attitude to violence and women and girls,” said Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for equalities. “This Conservative government is failing every woman who has to live in fear of the violence which has misogynistic hatred at its root.” 

The government’s announcement could easily be interpreted as a sign that it fundamentally doesn’t understand or care about the role misogyny plays in gender-based violence, harassment and abuse. But in confirming its stance on this issue, the government is following recommendations made by the Law Commission, the independent body that advocates for legal reform in England and Wales. In December 2021, the commission published a report recommending that neither sex nor gender should be “added as a protected characteristic for the purposes of aggravated offences and enhanced sentencing”. In other words, it did not believe that misogyny should be made a hate crime.

In a statement this week, Sarah Dines, the safeguarding minister, said that the government agrees with the Law Commission (which is led by legal experts including judges and barristers and prides itself on being non-political). “Accordingly, the government does not intend to bring forward legislation to add sex or gender as a protected characteristic in hate crime law,” Dines said. 

You might expect Creasy, who has called for misogyny to be made a hate crime for years, to feel furious or defeated by this news. But when Stylist speaks to her, she’s neither angry nor downcast. While she was “deeply disappointed” by the Law Commission report, she argues that her campaign is close to achieving its goals – just through different means. A bill that would criminalise sexual harassment in public spaces is currently making its way through parliament, with the backing of the government. This legislation “says that if you harass somebody on the basis of their perceived sex or gender, you’ll get a tougher sentence”, says Creasy – which is “exactly” what making misogyny a hate crime would do.

Making misogyny a hate crime would also have required police forces to record whether victims felt crimes had been motivated by hostility towards women. Before this month, 11 police forces in England and Wales treated misogyny as a hate crime and tracked this data. Some chief constables say the practice allows them to gather a detailed picture of where the harassment and abuse of women is taking place, helping them identify hotspots where women are particularly vulnerable. 

But earlier this month, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, instructed all police forces in England and Wales to start recording where sexual offences and violent crimes – including stalking and harassment – are “deemed to be motivated by hostility” towards the victim’s sex or perceived sex. Creasy says this change means that another key goal of her misogyny hate crime campaign has been achieved.

“We’ve got the actual outcome that we wanted, which is the police now have to record that data,” she says. “[That] means we can now hold them to account for what they’re doing about those patterns of crime.” As well as helping to tackle offences, Creasy believes that forcing police to identify patterns in crimes against women “helps deal with police culture. It challenges the police to recognise how misogyny is driving crime, and so be better at addressing it.”

The debate around making misogyny a hate crime was always complex, and not because of male TV presenters fretting that their fellow men would soon be arrested for wolf-whistling. (For what it’s worth, this was never at risk of happening: changes to hate crime legislation would not have criminalised actions that weren’t already illegal.) As Creasy acknowledges, recent years have seen a seemingly endless flood of scandals surrounding police misogyny and violence against women perpetrated by officers. The UK’s largest police force has been found to be institutionally sexist, racist and homophobic, and there is plentiful evidence that these issues are widespread across British policing. Against this backdrop, some argue that banning more behaviours and entrusting police with additional powers – whether through making misogyny a hate crime or criminalising street harassment – should not be a priority.

Other experts believe these steps, while symbolically significant, just won’t make a tangible difference to people’s lives. “In a context of a crumbling criminal justice system, making misogyny a hate crime wouldn’t necessarily [have led] to successful prosecutions,” Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, tells Stylist. “We’re already failing to prosecute domestic abuse and sexual violence, despite increasing reports to the police. So can we really expect making misogyny a hate crime to mean women access criminal justice for issues like the public sexual harassment this proposal intended to tackle?”

Focusing solely on criminal justice solutions to violence against women and girls also fails to prevent harassment and abuse, Simon says, “because it does not get to the root of the issue: men’s attitudes and the inequality that underpins them”. (The Law Commission itself has acknowledged that “there is no empirical evidence that higher sentences are capable of deterring offenders”.) If we are to end and prevent this abuse, Simon continues, “the government needs to take seriously and adequately invest in prevention work such as public attitude campaigns” – like the one demanded in Stylist’s campaign #AFearlessFuture – “and quality relationships and sex education in schools.”

But Creasy is looking forward to seeing the public sexual harassment bill proceed through parliament and hopes the news that misogyny will not be made a hate crime will not deter women from reporting harassment to police.

“[Don’t think] there’s no point in reporting, because absolutely there is now,” she says. Her goal is “to get women reporting” misogynistic crime – “and to hold police forces to account who don’t do anything about it.”

Images: Getty