ABSTRACT
In 2016, Nottinghamshire Police became the first police force to recognise misogyny as a category of hate crime following a women-led, grassroots campaign from Nottingham Women’s Centre and Nottingham Citizens. Interwoven with the voices of the women at its heart, this chapter shares Nottinghamshire’s story. It explores what the policy means in practice: its impact on the ways in which our society is governed and shaped as well as its impact on the women who exist within its spaces. In exploring the story of this work in Nottinghamshire, this chapter argues for the centring of women’s voices in policy-making and community-building discourse and practice. It concludes that the ‘misogyny as hate crime’ policy framework must be seen as a call to action for ‘feminist praxis’. Rather than an end in itself, it must be a continuing conversation on how feminist activism, policy making and academia centre, understand and respond to women’s experiences of violence and intrusion to positively transform women’s everyday lives.
