Stocksy
Hey, remember all those times you walked down the street without worry that someone would make some gross, inappropriate comment to you as you passed by? Oh wait, that's right—that has never, ever happened. Yes, it's one of the most distressing aspects of being a women: the constant threat of street harassment. Worldwide, women share this unfortunate commonality and experience cat-calling and whistling (among other things) simply when they're going about their day. But now, in effort to end this type of sexist abuse—and make the world a little bit more pleasant for the women living in it—a county in England has just classified street harassment as a hate crime.
Earlier this week, police in Nottinghamshire announced their plans to make the county safer for women by categorizing cat-calling, wolf-whistling, and other misogynistic incidents as criminal offenses, the BBC reports. The department has clearly identified this type of abuse, defining it 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." And like perpetrators of other hate crimes, violators will be subject to investigation and possible jail time.
According to a March 2016 survey completed by the marketing and research firm YouGov (in a partnership with the organization End Violence Against Women), 85 percent of women in the U.K. between the ages of 18 and 24 experience unwanted sexual attention in public spaces. Forty-five percent reported experiencing unwanted sexual touching. Nottinghamshire county is the first in Britain to make a public effort to combat this persistent problem and define public sexual abuse as a hate crime.
"What women face, often on a daily basis, is absolutely unacceptable and can be extremely distressing," said Chief Constable Sue Fish. "Nottinghamshire Police is committed to taking misogynistic hate crime seriously and encourages anyone who is affected by it to contact us without hesitation."
Here's hoping other counties, and countries (like—ahem—the U.S.), follow their lead.
More from Glamour:
Source: http://www.glamour.com/story/this-british-county-just-made-cat-calling-an-official-hate-crime
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