Dominic Raab has been has been accused of failing to understand the meaning of the word misogyny when speaking about violence against women
Speaking to the BBC, he said that “insults and misogyny is absolutely wrong whether it’s a man against a woman or a woman against a man”.
Misogyny refers to a hatred or prejudice towards women.
Opposition parties have seized on his apparent confusion after the interviewer had to correct him.
Labour’s shadow justice secretary David Lammy has said: “No wonder the Conservatives are hopeless at tackling violence against women and girls.”
The Liberal Democrat equalities spokesperson Wera Hobhouse has said: “It’s little wonder the Conservatives are failing to tackle misogyny when their justice secretary doesn’t even seem to know what it is.
“These comments are an insult to the millions of women and girls impacted by misogyny and show just how out of touch the Conservatives are on this issue.
“Women and girls deserve better than these callous remarks.”
This comes after Boris Johnson does not support calls to make misogyny a hate crime saying there is “abundant” existing legislation to tackle violence against women. The PM told the BBC that “widening the scope” of what you ask the police to do would just increase the problem.
During the interview, Mr Raab reiterated the government’s opposition to making misogyny a hate crime, arguing it would lead to “criminalising insults”.
Calls for misogyny to be made a hate crime within the UK have increased, following the conviction of former police officer Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard, and both Labour and the Lib Dems back such a move.
Asked on BBC Breakfast whether the government would make misogyny a hate crime, Mr Raab, who was made justice secretary in September, said that it was a “legitimate” debate to have but have argued that it wouldn’t “solve the problem we’ve got”.
When a crime is carried out in the UK against someone, such as assault, harassment or criminal damage, if it is proven that it was because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or transgender identity, it is considered to be a hate crime.
There is no specific hate crime offence within England and Wales, but when a crime falls into one of those above categories, judges have enhanced sentencing powers and can increase the potential punishment as a result.
Campaigners say that sex and gender should be added to this list, arguing that misogyny is one of the “root causes” of violence against women.
Mr Raab added that “insults, and misogyny is or course absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman or a woman against a man”.
BBC Breakfast Presenter Sally Nugent told Mr Raab that the dictionary definition of misogyny is in fact hatred towards women.
This comes after the Prime Minister has denied the UK is in crisis as both labour shortages and supply issues continue to affect the nation. Amidst the shortages, the PM said that the economy was facing the “stresses and strains that you’d expect from a giant waking up” after the COVID-19.
Asked to clarify his comments later in the interview, Mr Raab said: “What I meant was, if we are talking about things below the level of public order offences of harassment, intimidation, which are rightly criminalised – if we are talking about, effectively, insults with a sexist basis, I don’t think that criminalising those sorts of things will deal with the problem that we have got at the heart of the Sarah Everard case.
“Just criminalising insulting language even if it is misogynistic doesn’t deal with the intimidation, the violence and the much higher level of offence and damage and harm that we really ought to be laser-like focused in on,” he added.
One of those supporting making misogyny a hate crime is Sue Fish the ex-chief of Nottingham.
She told the BBC it would be “one vital step” towards ensuring women are not subject to violence.
