OF all of the new ‘hate’ based laws being developed in Scotland, the most dangerous and destructive of them all is now being discussed by the Independent Working Group on Misogyny.

Not only is this group looking at making certain crimes, like assault, into a sex-based hate crime but it is also looking at the possibility of making misogynistic behaviour, in and of itself, into a crime. In other words, the Scottish Parliament is looking at making sexism a crime.

While accepting that there is no strict definition of misogyny, the group is working with the idea that, “Misogyny is a way of thinking that upholds the primary status of men and a sense of male entitlement, while subordinating women and limiting their power and freedom”.

Misogyny thus includes conduct that relates to, “a range of abusive and controlling behaviours including harassment and bullying”, something that “can be conscious or unconscious”, that both men and women “can be socialised to accept”.

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Unlike other “hate crimes” or “hateful” behaviour, like racist behaviour, for example, this focus on misogyny is of the greatest significance because it relates to everyday behaviour of almost the entire population – relationships between the sexes.

If misogyny becomes a stand-alone crime, how we talk to the opposite sex, develop intimate relationships, how we interact in public and private, and even how girls and boys learn to relate to one another could all become framed through law and policing. The scope for criminalising intimacy itself is extraordinary.

The "independent” working group is made up of six women and one man, Professor John Devaney. Devaney, like most of the other panel members specialises in matters relating to “gender based violence”. Emma Ritch, for example, is executive director of Engender and is “engaged by all things feminist”. While Dr Chloe Kennedy, who runs the Scottish Feminist Judgments Project, “is part of a global series that aims to imagine how important legal cases might have been decided differently if the judge had adopted a feminist perspective”.

If the balanced nature of this independent panel is questionable, the experts who have been consulted thus far are almost entirely drawn from a particular feminist perspective.

Kate Manne, is author of Down Girl: The logic of Misogyny, a book described as, “Deeply relevant to the #Metoo movement”; her next book is entitled, How Male Privilege Hurts Women.

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Liz Kelly, a professor of sexualised violence, is author of The Hidden Gender of Law, where she argues that, “there is no clear distinction between consensual sex and rape”, rather, relations between men and women should be understood as “a continuum of pressure, threat, coercion and force”.

Showing the potential to not only criminalise relationships between men and women but also for this misogynistic focus to enter our schools, another expert, Fiona Vera-Gray explains that her interests include, “feminist methodologies and ways of disseminating research beyond the academy, including through the development of lesson plans for young people”.

Discussing unpleasant or unwanted behaviour of boys towards girls, Vera-Gray notes that unwanted comments by children are “commonly dismissed as trivial” or as “relatively harmless” and “too subjective to be legalised against”. This “activist, researcher, and campaigner” has other plans for the criminalisation of boys.

If the cards of this “independent” group appear to be stacked, this is because the unapologetic remit for its activities are based on “applying a gendered analytical lens” to the question of misogyny.

Consequently, the voices of even extreme feminists who see sex and rape as the same thing or view every male-female interaction through a misanthropic mindset of “toxic masculinity” are embraced, while critical voices, thus far at least, are nowhere to be seen.

These experts do not represent the Scottish people, but they could have a devastating impact on our lives and relationships. But time is on our side, and we should all be contacting our MSPs and thinking about how to start a campaign to stop this hate filled perspective that risks recreating a new type of chaperone society.

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