Threats against a feminist are to be deplored but not because she is a feminist

By Andrew Brons.

Caroline Criado Perez is a feminist campaigner who wants to see  pictures of Jane Austen and other women on our bank notes. As Lady Bracknell might have observed: “Everybody must have an occupation”.

I should be pleased to see Jane Austen’s face on every tenner that I spent – not because she is a woman but because she is one of our most accomplished novelists. If I said that Pride and Prejudice was one of my favourite books, I might be misunderstood, so I shall not say so!

I am sure that there will be some who disagree with Miss Criado Perez and they are entitled to their opinion. Even people who would prefer no women to appear on our banknotes – not even Her Majesty – are entitled to their opinion.

However, Miss Criado Perez’s protagonists are not entitled to use Twitter to send her threats of  rape and murder. Two people did just that and have been prosecuted and convicted and rightly so.

BBC’s Radio Four took up the story partly because the story was newsworthy on objective criteria but probably also because it ticked one of the BBC’s famous boxes. Miss Criado-Perez was interviewed and asked for her reaction to the convictions and was even asked a coded question about what sentences people convicted of such crimes should receive. This bordered on an improper question because the convicted people had not yet been sentenced but let that pass.

Our feminist campaigner was then asked a more general question about  how the problem should be addressed. Miss Criado Perez discussed legal remedies but then suggested that the education system should tackle the problem of misogyny. Her interviewer listened to her courteously and was right to do so. She had been the victim of a particularly nasty crime. However, he should also have challenged her – however gently.

The pair who were convicted for their offences against her were not convicted of being misogynistic. People are and should be entitled to hold and express what views they like on this or any other subject, providing, of course, that they are not threatening – in the present case they were grossly threatening.

The law should address the problem of sending threats regardless of the motivation of the sender or the cause or opinions of the victim. I am sure that the law would act against those who sent threats against victims because of their ethnicity, sexuality, disability or liberal-left political opinion. If I were to say that I would be less sure that action would be taken if the victim had been chosen because of Nationalist political opinion, that would be an understatement. I am sure that no action would be taken.

Just after I was elected, my local newspaper quoted the police who said that a threat to burn my house down had appeared on an East London website. When I received a formal letter from the police about my security, I was assured that no threats had been made against me. I telephoned the officer concerned and reminded him of the threat on the East London website. He did not deny knowledge of it and sounded very embarrassed. He assured me that I had nothing to worry about. I have heard nothing about the matter since.

Perhaps we should trawl (not troll!) through all of the social media sites and see how many threats against us we can find. We can then send them to the appropriate police authorities and wait for their speedy —– inaction.