Exactly what kind of behaviour could land men in court?
THE following are examples – from Baroness Kennedy’s report and the Scottish Government consultation – of actions, comments and situations that could constitute an offence under the proposed new laws:
MISOGYNISTIC HARASSMENT
■ Showing a table of women in a nightclub extreme pornography on a phone
■ Talking audibly about what should be done sexually to a woman or women
■ Telling a woman she is fat, ugly and sexually loathsome within the hearing of others
■ Making graphic sexual remarks to or about a woman stranger on the bus
■ Watching porn in a public place where it is clearly visible/audible
■ Gesticulating in a graphic sexual manner
Shouting sexually abusive remarks in the street about a woman’s body
■ Using abusive language to a woman who refuses to engage in being ‘chatted up’ at the bus stop
■ Rubbing up against a woman in a crowded place
THREATS, COMMENTS AND ACTIONS
■ ‘You need to be raped’
■ ‘Somebody should rape you’
■ Sending film clips of rapes, sexual assaults or disfiguring attacks
WHERE MISOGYNISTIC AGGRAVATION MIGHT APPLY
■ A road-rage offence against a woman driver where there is a high level of sexist abuse and where she locks herself into her car for safety
■ Groups of football fans/men on a stag night use threatening and abusive language on a train and when women complain they turn on the women, showering them with beer, and abusing them in deeply sexist aggressive terms
■ The author of an incel manifesto deliberately drives his car into a group of women about to enter a feminist meeting
■ A man throws a brick through the window of a female politician’s constituency office whilst screaming misogynistic language
■ Spraying graffiti on the house of a well-known writer deriding her feminism
■ Throwing paint on women demonstrating to ‘reclaim the night’ [campaigning for streets to be made safer for women]
WHAT WOULD NOT BE A LEGAL DEFENCE?
■ ‘It was just male banter’
■ ‘I was exercising my freedom of expression’
■ ‘I was brought up in a house where everyone had a filthy mouth. That’s how we talk. I meant no harm’