this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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Extreme misogyny will be treated as a form of extremism under new government plans, the Home Office has said.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has ordered a review of the UK's counter-extremism strategy to determine how best to tackle threats posed by harmful ideologies.

The analysis will look at hatred of women as one of the ideological trends that the government says is gaining traction.

Ms Cooper said there has been a rise in extremism "both online and on our streets" that "frays the very fabric of our communities and our democracy".

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 3 months ago

Nice, at least the UK is *attempting* to counter the online misogynistic content by Tate and co.

[–] FlyingSquid 69 points 3 months ago (2 children)

As it should. Treating women like lesser than human leads to sexual assault.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

Finally let’s outlaw religion!

[–] Breezy 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Butcisnt that the indented purpose ?

Edit: But isn't.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago

The government is totally not going to abuse this

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wowowow, cool it with the islamophobia there

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 25 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

You would like to think the primary target for an anti-misogyny policy would be football hooligans and biker gangs.

But if you've got the MET police exclusively targeting Mosques, and rounding up anyone who fails that paper bag test as "high risk misogynists", that could be a problem.

I could also see this aggressively leveraged by the JK Rowling types to harass queer people.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

I could also see this aggressively leveraged by the JK Rowling types to harass queer people.

This is exactly what I was thinking, she and her ilk cry misogyny often while going after other women. Are they going to be held responsible under this policy? Or is this going to muddy the waters even more for "political points" while actually doing fuck all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

JK Rowling is two K's short of a klan.

I'd love to see these laws work against her and her followers. Terfs are just as misogynistic as Tater Tot, it just looks different.

"Oh no, we might be mistaken for trans, ban all trans women." - Terfs.

It's no different than homophonic men being afraid of being mistaken as gay. It's immature and pathetic.

I guess it's a matter of who is interpreting and applying the law though. Which sucks.

[–] dojan 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Good. Hating half the population is a pretty extreme take.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago

I know. How can you give one half a pass?

[–] Aceticon 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

This is Britain and what's going on here is almost certainly something altogether different than Fighting For Equality.

I remember some years ago in the UK when some Tory who happenned to be female spewed some almost Fascist shit in Twitter and then when she was criticized she claimed the criticism was all because of her gender.

Similarly over the years some of the New Labour members - from were this lady hails - who happened to be female have said horrible shit and then claimed the criticism of them was sexism.

There absolutelly is Misogyny in the UK (the so called "Benevolent" Sexism - the ridiculous idea that women are "fragile and emotional creatures who need to be protected", which implies they're "weak" and must be "guided" - is especially common), and Racism, and even Misandry (in different contexts than Misogyny, generally when the person with the most power happens to be female), and Class discrimination, and Wealth Discrimination: IMHO, the UK is one the worst countries in Europe when it comes to Equality in all axis ~~except the treatment of the LGBTA+ (and even there they're not the best, though maybe better than most).~~ [edit: from reading other posts, apparently even this has turned to shit since I left that country]

When a politician from the Hard Neoliberal faction within the "Not quite as Rightwing but certainly not Leftwing" Party of the duopoly of power in Britain (which, like the US, also has First Past The Post and associated evils) comes with something like this, especially one who has a history of abusing this kind of accusation in the past to deflect valid criticism of her own words (just like Zionists - who curiously this Party unwaveringly supports - use the accusation of "anti-semitism" to deflect valid criticism), be very very wary of the honesty, goodwill and fairness of this.

Want to see the real deal genuine fight for Gender Equality, look at places like Scandinavia and The Netherlands (and at the genuine Feminists of the older generations in the UK), not at the crooked Neolibs of the fakest most anti-Equality country in Europe.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

When a politician from the Hard Neoliberal faction within the "Not quite as Rightwing but certainly not Leftwing" Party of the duopoly of power in Britain (which, like the US, also has First Past The Post and associated evils) comes with something like this, especially one who has a history of abusing this kind of accusation in the past to deflect valid criticism of her own words (just like Zionists - who curiously this Party unwaveringly supports - use the accusation of "anti-semitism" to deflect valid criticism), be very very wary of the honesty, goodwill and fairness of this.

What an incredible ~~paragraph~~ sentence.

[–] Aceticon 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I am particularly proud of how many "for-reference comparisons with things Lemmy readers might be familiar with" I managed to shove into it.

I am however not proud of the level of "lightness and easy to follow" of the result.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

This 100% will end up being used for transphobic purposes.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Remember when center-left social-democratic parties were more likely to defend civil liberties, less likely to be authoritarian, than center-right conservative ones?

You know actually I am not sure this was ever the case in the UK (I am old enough to somewhat remember Tony Blair), but in theory it is how it should be and it makes me angry when it is not.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

I've never seen any major party give a shit about liberty. Both major parties in the UK and US are paternalistic in their thinking. They know best and nobody is allowed to disagree.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

JK Rowling sweats profusely

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, given the extremely transphobic rhetoric that's come out of Labour lately, this is almost certainly them throwing JK a huge bone. UK TERFs love to characterize any criticism of them as misogyny (especially when it comes from trans women, who they claim are angry male sexual predators). I have the horrible suspicion that this will do nothing to combat actual misogyny, while being used heavily to silence anyone standing up for trans rights.

[–] Hexbatch 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago
[–] UnderpantsWeevil 16 points 3 months ago

That's an open question. I could very easily see a Labor government claiming "misogyny is when queer people illegally use the restroom".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

She is, yes. But probably not in the ways that this will be used to target.

JK is TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist; this is the term they came up with to describe themselves, before retroactively deciding it was a slur when people used it to describe them). She thinks of herself as a feminist, but what she does in practice is misogyny.

First off, she spends a LOT of time attacking other women, primarily trans women, but also any woman who dares to say they're actually cool with trans women (so, most cis women). Very often these cis women will be accused of being secretly trans so that JK and her cult don't ever have to stop and question the whole "Wow, we sure spend a lot of time demonizing women" part of their "feminism".

Second, in order to justify her transphobia, she (like almost all TERFs) practices a brand of gender essentialism that runs directly counter to most modern feminist ideals. Basically, in order to create her impermeable wall between who is or is not a woman, she has to create increasingly constrained boxes around who and what women are allowed to be. Women have to have a vagina; fuck you if you're intersex but feel more comfortable as a woman. Women have to be capable of childbirth; fuck you if you're sterile. Women have to have periods; fuck if you're post-menopausal. And so on.

But equally importantly, in her fucked up world women have to look and act a certain way. The Imane Khan incident recently is a perfect example of this. Khan has the audacity to be a cis woman who is good at a combat sport while also being relatively tall and having strong features. Because she doesn't fit the perfect idealised weak submissive hourglass figure heart shaped ass anime face vision of womanhood that Rowling and her posse envision, they immediately declared that she was secretly a man, and demanded to have her well deserved victories thrown out. That is pure misogyny, plain and simple; attacking a woman for not looking and acting the way they think a woman should look and act.

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