I’M still at the beginning of writing a book entitled The Criminalisation of Everything. One of the problems is that new laws or demands for new laws hit the news on what seems like a daily basis. It’s genuinely hard to keep up.
For example, before the paint had dried on the Scottish Hate Crime Act, a new committee looking at ways to outlaw misogyny was set up in Holyrood. But before this latest criminalising committee has had a chance to extend the policing of everyday life in Scotland, in England, Home Secretary Priti Patel appears to have stolen their thunder by announcing a possible new crackdown on wolf-whistling.
It is unclear if wolf-whistling has suddenly increased or if there is a new epidemic of misogynistic attitudes and behaviour. What has unquestionably increased is the number of feminists who now use the term “toxic masculinity” and who are calling for more laws and police protection of women from more and more things.
READ MORE: Stuart Waiton: Now being sexist could become a crime in Scotland
The term “toxic masculinity” was invented in the late 1980s but was barely used until around 2013 when there was an explosion in its use. Also, in 2007, concerned about the rise of feminists who push for ever more laws, policing and the imprisonment of offending men, Elizabeth Bernstein created the term “carceral feminism”.
One of Bernstein’s concerns was that feminists, who previously had pushed for more freedom for women or who looked at problems that women faced as social problems, were now simply calling for more men to be locked up.
Bernstein is an American sociologist, but a similar trend of feminists demanding more laws and who use the term “toxic masculinity” can also be observed here.
Looking at the shift in feminist thought in the UK, one would think that attitudes in society towards women are getting worse by the year. However, if anything, the opposite would appear to be the case.
For example, the British Social Attitude survey has noted that whereas in 1987, 48 percent of the public agreed that “a man’s job is to earn money, a woman’s job is to look after the home and family”, by 2017 only eight percent agreed with this. In other words, what could be seen as a more sexist or at least stereotyped and limited view of women has essentially collapsed.
I would suggest that sexist attitudes in society have significantly declined over the last three decades and, consequently, it is unlikely that women today are experiencing an epidemic of wolf-whistling men as they walk the streets.
What appears to have gotten worse is not the behaviour of men but the outlook of modern feminists, many of whom think of men and male behaviour through the prism of toxicity.
READ MORE: Stuart Waiton: Do we need 'experts' to police the most intimate aspects of our lives
In other words, it is not men that have become more degraded, but the imagination of carceral feminists who see threatening and dangerous men wherever they look.
As well as leading to the criminalisation of behaviour, like wolf-whistling, that previously was seen as insignificant, this approach risks elevating the anxiety of young women about men and, in the process, infantilising them.
Unfortunately, when we look at which women sit on the committees pushing for these new laws, we find that it is almost always feminists, and more particularly, it is almost always carceral feminists.
Rarely, if ever, do we find feminists like Camille Paglia or Christina Hoff Sommers, who ridicule what they call “victim feminists” and who call for an end to their “obsessed, moralistic” and “puritanical” approach to public life.
For years, Paglia has railed against victim feminists who she sees as wanting a “risk-free state-controlled world”. She believes that most ordinary women do not want the patronising protections being proscribed. However, she also is concerned that modern feminists are helping to create a toxic image of men and encouraging a climate within which young women increasingly come to expect a chaperoned existence.
She has a point.
Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel