The decision to record misogynistic incidents as a form of hate crime has sparked criticism from both men and women 
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Last month, Nottinghamshire police broadened their definition of ‘hate crime’ to cover any <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/13/nottinghamshire-police-count-wolf-whistling-hate-crime">uninvited sexual advance</a> towards a woman, including taking photographs and wolf-whistling. This came after a local women’s group reported high rates of harassment and a general feeling of being unsafe on the streets. 
While many people were heartened by the move, others threw up their arms in complaint. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/catcalling-shouldnt-be-labelled-a-hate-crime-we-should-be-equipped-to-deal-with-that-ourselves-a7138791.html">Janet Street-Porter</a> wasted no time speaking up, saying: “I find it depressing that a new generation of women want to enlist the police to handle something they should be able to squash themselves.” Meanwhile, the two women that helped bring about this change have faced a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/wolf-whistling-misogyny-hate-crime-nottingham_uk_579756cce4b06d7c426da55d">barrage of criticism</a> and even personal threats. Clearly there’s no justifying such threats, but, on a wider scale, we might ask whether there is any weight to the opponents’ arguments. Was the move by Nottinghamshire police at all misjudged? 
Historically, the term ‘hate crime’ has been applied to threatening behaviour that attacks someone’s race or religion. In the last few years the definition has been expanded by groups such as the Lancashire police who, in 2013, decided to register attacks on goths and other sub-cultures in the same way. Now sexual identity is in the spotlight. 
In the case of wolf-whistling, we might question whether this act is always hateful. It might be an intentionally light-hearted comment received by a woman who finds it harmless, or maybe even flattering. At the other extreme, however, wolf-whistling is meant to intimidate and leaves the woman in fear for her safety. Many have written about their own experiences, such as Everyday Sexism Project founder Laura Bates who described being chased down the street and pinned against a wall, among other frightening incidents. 
Of course there’s a gulf of scenarios in between. But I’d argue that whatever the circumstances, wolf-whistling is symptomatic of a culture that privileges the male voice and men’s supposed right to appraise how women look, even in a public setting. 
I’m guessing most people (both women and men) would never feel the need to roll down their car window to shout at someone in the street about how physically attractive they are. Most of us wouldn’t wait on a street corner to follow someone down an alley. Or whistle at a passerby as if they were an animal. Yet this sort of behaviour is an everyday occurrence. It is seen as normal and, to Janet Street-Porter and others, an inevitable aspect of life. 
But the statistics paint such a grim picture. In <a href="http://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/news/234/85-of-younger-women-in-uk-have-been-sexually-harassed-in-public">a recent poll</a>, the End Violence Against Women Coalition found that “85% of women aged 18-24 have experienced unwanted sexual attention in public places and 45% have experienced unwanted sexual touching, which can amount to sexual assault.” 
Part of Janet Street-Porter’s argument was that police resources are already thinly spread. Do we want to take up more of their time with these reports? It’s impossible to say now, but it seems likely that the reality is – whether right or wrong – most women won’t end up reporting wolf-whistling to the police. They might report it to a company if the man in question is an employee, but most will likely just confide in their friends. The few cases reported will be the ones that are more extreme. The point is, though, women will at least have that option. 
This feels like a rare victory in a society that for so long has responded to its high level of sexual abuse against women (and that sees <a href="http://rapecrisis.org.uk/statistics.php">less than 6% of reported rape cases</a> ending in a conviction) with warnings that it is women who must adapt their own behaviour. We are told to avoid walking the streets alone at night, to carry a rape alarm, to check how we dress, and so on. 
When some universities dared to try and encourage male students to be aware of their own behaviour, there was an outcry that the <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/at-last-a-rebellion-against-sexual-consent-classes/17550#.V45kuZMrLIE">sexual consent classes were offensive</a>, despite the worrying views of many young people around sex (an American study found that <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/vio.2014.0022?journalCode=vio">one in three college men</a> might rape a woman if they thought no one would find out). 
So at last Nottinghamshire women have just a little more power. And I for one am happy about this. It’s not to say women don’t want to be approached in public or have someone start a conversation. But being shouted at from a passing car doesn’t feel like a respectful act. It’s one born of a wider culture that makes women feel self-conscious and unsafe walking the streets. Isn’t that pretty hateful?
<pre>Image from: http://dailym.ai/2be0mNv</pre>

Is Wolf-Whistling Really a Hate Crime?

Though rape is violent, abhorrent and never okay, comedy should not shy away or be afraid to tackle the subject 
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These days, it seems that the easiest way for a comedian to get publicity is to make a joke about rape. This is almost guaranteed to get people sitting up and listening, and may even spark a media frenzy. Most recently, a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/rape-joke-backfires-on-virgin-mobile-us-20121210-2b4lc.html">Virgin Mobile US advert</a> was accused of making a joke about a husband raping his wife, describing this as the ‘gift of Christmas surprise’. 
As a result, a wave of debates has been provoked, with news sites and Twitter pages being flood with opinions and responses. There has also been the inevitable backlash against feminists or other groups who have commented on or criticised rape jokes. Louis CK perhaps articulated this resentment most obviously, arguing that comedians and feminists are natural enemies. In turn, the familiar retort of “they just can’t take a joke” gets banded about, attempting to silence and belittle those who dare voice an opinion. 
Yet we can and should talk about rape jokes. 
I will start by saying that I am not in favour of enforcing some kind of censorship on comedy. Even if it was felt a useful thing to do, we could never draw up a set of rules and parameters delineating what counts as acceptable. In other words, people should be free to say what they want. But, in the same way, people should be free to react in the way that they want. 
Rape jokes don’t operate in purely abstract terms; not only is the high incidents of rape an ongoing reality, the politics around the issue are often very contentious. This is unlike cases of, for example, racism or paedophilia, where there is generally a clear demarcation between the guilty and the innocent. Rather, accusations of rape are often met with the attitude that the victim deserved, or was somehow complicit in, the act. Needless to say, women’s rights and other social groups have much anger towards what they see as the ignorance and misconceptions around rape. 
So when a comedian engages with the issue of rape, people tend to listen closely. And those who don’t like a particular joke aren’t hypersensitive, they’re human. At some point in each of our lives, we will hear a joke or line that we find offensive or an affront to our taste; everyone has ideas that they care about, viewpoints that they are protective over. 
However, it is not the contentiousness of the subject of rape that in itself results in the criticism of certain jokes. In fact, the tendency to provoke strong reactions is what can make jokes about rape really great. Sarah Silverman’s line “I was raped by my doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl” got her a big laugh from many feminists, for example. Here, the act of making a joke from the perspective of a woman disrupts the dynamic of the powerless, silent female victim. Yet, more generally, rape jokes can be about breaking a taboo as a means to challenge a dominant viewpoint.  When Louis CK quipped “I’m not condoning rape, obviously you should never rape anyone&#8230; unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won’t let you”, he was mocking the prevalent dismissal of rape as an unfortunate yet inevitable outcome of overriding sexual urges. 
To me there’s something liberating about these jokes – laughing at social wrongs from a point of view that is insightful and surprising in some way. In contrast, many rape jokes are tired and lazy, simply dressing up sexist and offensive statements as comedy.  In my opinion, Frankie Boyle’s joke about Victoria Pendleton falls into this category: “Victoria can lift twice her own bodyweight. Sexy, as it means she still wouldn’t be able to throw me off”. To point out a man’s ability to overpower and rape a woman is not so much a joke as the reminder of a sad reality. For me, a funny rape joke engages with the culture around rape rather than laughing at the act of rape itself. Otherwise you’re laughing at pain and victimisation, which isn’t exactly hilarious. 
Having said this, I do think it’s dangerous to start dissecting what is funny and why. Like I said earlier, there will never be a set of rules for comedy &#8211; perceptions of what is funny will always vary. What I am defending is the right of reply. This is nothing new. While the advent of blogs and news chat rooms may be relatively recent, people have always vocalised a response to comedy – be it in the form of heckling or printed reviews. And by making rape jokes, comedians are willfully inviting this dialogue, so must therefore accept all responses – good and bad. 
Strong reactions are what keep things interesting and comedians on their toes, because words are important and carry a certain amount of weight. There’s nothing wrong with actually thinking about what you’re saying, which isn’t to say that comedians should censor themselves or intellectualise their actions. Rather, they should have a little conviction about the words they use. This way, if someone has some sort of response, they can retort with something more credible than the rather measly, “you can’t take a joke”.
<pre>Image from: http://www.shelltosea.com/content/media-and-garda-rape-remarks</pre>

Rape Jokes, Let&#039;s Talk About Them

The Five-Year Engagement takes on established generic conventions but turns others on their head to form a surprisingly funny, hearty and believable film 
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Romantic comedy is a difficult genre to crack – when it works it’s truly great but more often than not scripts wind up as generic drivel, full of clichés and tired dialogue. Worst of all, the intended ‘feel-good factor’ misses the mark as the audience is unable to relate to the two-dimensional characters and their unlikely lives and careers. Yes, the successful romantic comedy is a rare and precious thing. 
So I was nervous when I sat down to watch The Five-Year Engagement. Produced by Judd Apatow and starring Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, the Hollywood film had a promising start, but would the story ring true? 
The film begins at a place where most other rom-coms finish – with a couple getting engaged and ready to start their lives together. But, of course, a series of obstacles stands in the way of their planned trip down the aisle, most crucially, the pair wanting everything in their lives to be perfect. The challenges start when the couple, Tom (Segel) and Violet (Blunt), move from the sunny climes of San Francisco to snowy Michigan; a result of Violet winning a postdoctoral fellowship to study psychology. While Violet happily settles into her new academic life, Tom is left mourning the loss of his prestigious career as a head chef. 
It’s worth noting that the frustration Tom feels at his loss of status is something that, historically, women have long experienced. Indeed, gender roles prove to be an interesting theme throughout the film. As Tom’s career plays second fiddle to his fiancé’s and he becomes chief wedding-planner, his male ego suffers quite a bashing. At the same time, he takes on one of the most macho of sports – animal hunting. This mixture of activities makes for some more interesting gender characterisation, not to mention hilarious moments when a blood-thirsty shooting is followed by the complimenting of a self-knitted jumper. In addition, a potentially comical but actually very sad moment is when Tom feigns an orgasm, retorting, “Men can fake it too… hurts doesn’t it?” Tom gradually turns from a confident, happy person to someone obsessive and unhinged. And his destructive descent is aptly shown when, on Tom leaving his crossbow on the kitchen table, Violet gets accidentally shot in the leg. 
What’s compelling throughout this is that Tom retains a sensitivity and gentleness, determined to be a supportive boyfriend despite his frustration. His love seemingly endures, quietly changing and shifting as his psyche darkens. Meanwhile, Violet is out pursuing her career goals, trying to put any guilt over Tom to the back of her mind. 
The unraveling of the relationship happens slowly but surely. It’s well acted by Segel whose slightly oversized frame seems to gradually crumple, with a series of sad glances tugging at the audience’s heartstrings.  Blunt is also convincing as the ambitious yet conflicted partner, although is perhaps sometimes too controlled and polished in her portrayal. The film, however, drags towards the end where a climax is reached only to be followed by an unexpectedly long final stretch. And of course, the title tells us there will be five long years to endure before any possibility of the ultimate goal. 
Arguably, what keeps the viewer hooked is that while the ending is inevitable, it’s far from predictable; we may guess at what happens but we don’t know the journey taken to get there. And that’s because the film seems very life-like. The story reflects the fact that even if both partners do all the right things to make a relationship work, the circumstances of life will always play a part in shaping their future. Ultimately, the film is about the hardship of compromise – that thing that always rears its ugly head. When Tom wonders if he’d be better off going back to San Francisco alone, he’s asking himself how much value he places on self-preservation versus building a life with his partner. How much is love worth? And how do you know when to let it go if it’s not working? 
Such questions are what make the film ring true. They are things we’ll most likely all ask ourselves at some point in our lives. And the characters are interesting and human enough &#8211; in their gender roles and otherwise &#8211; to persuade us of their believability. Is there a feel-good factor? Arguably there is. While love is shown to be undeniably fragile, it is also portrayed as something of real complexity and endurance. 
The Five-Year Engagement was released on UK DVD on 29 October 2012 and is available to buy now.
<pre>Image from: http://notsoserious-fashion.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/five-year-engagement.html</pre>

Harriet Cummings