Woman‐Hating: On Misogyny, Sexism, and Hate Speech

Abstract

Hate speech is one of the most important conceptual categories in anti‐oppression politics today; a great deal of energy and political will is devoted to identifying, characterizing, contesting, and (sometimes) penalizing hate speech. However, despite the increasing inclusion of gender identity as a socially salient trait, antipatriarchal politics has largely been absent within this body of scholarship. Figuring out how to properly situate patriarchy‐enforcing speech within the category of hate speech is therefore an important politico‐philosophical project. My aim in this article is twofold: first, I argue that sexist speech, though oppressive, is not hate speech. Second, I argue that misogynistic speech is hate speech, even when it is intradivisional (that is, when it targets only subsets of women). This is important because recognizing that the concept hate speech applies to certain forms of patriarchy‐enforcing speech is another step in clarifying what is wrong with the practice, and how bad it is in relation to other abuses. Consequently, this article provides a more nuanced account of the kinds of expressions that can and should count as instances of hate speech.

Emotionally Informed Hate Speech Detection: A Multi-target Perspective

“…Misogyny and sexism are closely related notions, and the way in which they are related has been the object of investigation in philosophical literature in the last years [ 78 , 110 ]. In order to take into account relatedness among those and other HS categories, we will consider, in the future, a strategy for putting fewer penalties for errors in predicting closely related topics.…”

Sexist Hate Speech and the International Human Rights Law: Towards Legal Recognition of the Phenomenon by the United Nations and the Council of Europe

“…Hence, any scholarly discussion on the phenomenon of sexist hate speech in international human rights law should be preceded by drawing the line between sexist hate speech and other statements addressed to women, which although oppressive and hurtful, do not amount to hate speech. This issue has been clearly voiced by Louise Richardson-Self who postulates to distinguish between "sexist speech" which is not hateful and "misogynistic speech" which amounts to hate speech [28]. Although both types of speech negatively target women because of their gender, they affect women in different ways.…”

Common sense or censorship: How algorithmic moderators and message type influence perceptions of online content deletion

“…The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI; 2016), for example, defines hate speech as the use of one or more particular forms of expression-namely, the advocacy, promotion or incitement of the denigration, hatred or vilification of a person or group of persons, as well any harassment, insult, negative stereotyping, stigmatization or threat of such person or persons and any justification of all these forms of expression. (p. 16) The definition excludes expressions that merely distress, hurt, or offend because hate speech is much more than mere dislike or bias and it tends to be discriminatory, abusive, and hostile in nature (Richardson-Self, 2018;SELMA, 2019). In contrast, US law does not outlaw hate speech, and courts have repeatedly ruled that it is constitutionally protected speech.…”