Misogyny classified by police as a hate crime

Nottinghamshire Police has become the first force in the country to recognise misogyny as a hate crime, and will include everything from street harassment through to unwanted physical approaches.

The force defines misogynistic hate crime as "incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman, and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman". Examples such as unwanted sexual advances, physical assaults, verbal abuse or unwanted engagement, unwanted physical contact, the use of mobile devices to send unwanted or uninvited messages or take photographs without consent or permission.

The force said that domestic abuse will not be included in the scope of misogynistic hate crime as there are separate procedures already in place to deal with this.