In the UK, in the digital era, it will no longer be enough to treat violence against women as “simply” a criminal offense – this is likely to be elevated to the level of terrorism, and a threat to national security.
The terms extreme misogyny and violence against women are used interchangeably in reports about the initiative brought forward by the Labor government’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Cooper has ordered the country’s counter-extremism strategy to be reviewed in a way that would include violence against women, or “extreme misogyny,” into a list now mentioning things like Islamist, far-right, Northern Ireland-related extremism, animal rights, and environment, writes the UK press.
In explaining her plans, Cooper said that this measure was long needed, and blamed primarily the internet – as she put it, online radicalization of young people.
Specifically, this concerns “radicalized teenage boys” who are believed to be falling prey, en masse, to “misogynistic influencers.”
And although the Home Office does include “incel” as one of the types of extremism it keeps an eye on, “officials now fear that this category does not capture other forms of extreme misogyny,” writes the Telegraph.
The UK has something called Prevent – a program that the authorities say aims at early intervention to protect from terrorism, and it also “works in a similar way to programs designed to safeguard people from other harms, such as gangs, drug abuse, and physical and sexual abuse.”
But now apparently those “similar programs” covering ills other than terrorism will not suffice to tackle violence against women, and if Cooper’s plan is implemented, teachers, health workers, and local authorities will have to report their suspicions to Prevent under the terror category.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said earlier that violence against women and girls “should be treated as a national security threat,” the article states.
Cooper’s initiative comes as the UK has been rattled by large-scale protests and riots, the blame for which the new government chose to pin largely on communications on social media, and respond to by arresting hundreds of people, including for that activity.
Another of the home secretary’s ideas is to clamp down on those who “push harmful and hateful beliefs.” Among those is something that Cooper’s office calls “fixation on violence.”
At this point, it is unclear if this is a case of a politician feeling obligated to appear to be doing something in the wake of the unrest that exposed long-simmering problems in society – or if the “new approach to countering extremism” will produce practical measures.
