Last week, a young woman died of severe burns after a man doused her with flammable liquid and then set her on fire while she was on a bus in Toronto in June.
Police are investigating the killing as a “hate-motivated” act; it is not yet known what the police’s motivation was.
Given that the victim was a woman, this led many to ask: Why is violence against women not treated as a hate crime?
This issue is long overdue and has now been taken up by the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner of British Columbia, investigating hate in the pandemic. This is the first such inquiry in Canada and one of the few worldwide to include a focus on gender-based violence as a form of hate.
In Canada, the definition of a hate crime has evolved from related sections of the Criminal Code identifying “gender” as a recognizable group. The Canadian Human Rights Act also includes “gender” among the list of identifiable groups protected from discrimination. For decades it has been possible to respond to violence against women and girls as a form of hatred based on “gender”.
How often does this happen?
Data gap on sexually motivated hate crimes
Police-reported statistics from 2006-20 show that sex never made up more than three percent of reported hate crimes. One study focusing on 2014 compared police data with self-reported data to show that sexually motivated hate crimes were significantly underreported: under three percent compared to 22 percent.
It is likely that many cases were motivated by the intersections of gender and characteristics such as race and religion, but data are limited in their ability to capture these combinations—a significant gap that is increasingly recognized.
Power and control do not negate hatred
A common argument for the invisibility of sexually motivated hatred is that violence against women and girls is more often perceived as motivated by men’s desire for power and control, as women and girls are most often (58 percent) victims of male partners and family members.
But the presence of power and control as a motivation for male violence does not preclude the concomitant motivation of hatred. In fact, hatred may be the primary motivation for efforts to exert power and control over a woman.
A large number of women and girls are also victims of men with whom they had a more distant or no relationship, or simply said they did not want to be in a relationship.
The Toronto woman who was burned alive did not know her killer.
A mother and daughter who were killed last month and a second daughter who was injured in Ottawa were not related to the accused male perpetrator. He is said to have had “romantic interests” in the surviving daughter. Days before the attack, he was released after being accused of stalking and sexually assaulting unrelated women.
Sexually motivated hate crimes are common
One might argue that these examples are anomalies perpetrated by men with mental problems. This is a common rationale for excusing the perpetrator.
This perception needs to change.
While the past month has been full of tragedies for these women and their loved ones, three separate trials have also been underway to help us move toward a better understanding and develop better responses to hate-motivated killings of women.
Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner conducted a three-week investigation into one of the worst intimate partner murders in Canadian history. The case involved the murders of three women by one man in 2015. The inquiry made 86 recommendations on femicide and gender-based violence. Jailing the man for life, the judge said: “…he is a violent vindictive, calculating abuser of women who…carried his hatred to its ultimate climax…”
The convicted male offender in the Toronto van attack was also convicted of killing eight women and two men and injuring 16 others in 2018. He said he was inspired by the so-called incel online subculture of sexually united men frustration and hatred of women.
Read more: Incels are surprisingly different, but united by hatred
And the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission is currently investigating the events leading up to and surrounding the murders of 13 women and nine men in April 2020. Ultimately killed by police, the man’s killing began with violence against his partner, which was reportedly not is the first case of violence against her. The links between gender-based violence and mass murder are explored, including the role of misogyny, roughly defined as hatred of women.
However, mass killings are not the only types of incidents involving hatred of women and girls.
Daily experiences of hate
According to the Canadian Observatory on Femicide Justice and Accountability, one woman or girl is killed every other day in Canada, a significant proportion of which are likely motivated by hate. We lack reliable data to understand its actual occurrence.
An investigation into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls shows how a significant proportion of female killings are motivated by a combination of sexual and racial hatred. These killings highlight how intersecting identities motivate hatred, often facilitated by institutional and systemic misogyny, including by the police, which also affects black women and other racialized and marginalized groups.
And then there are many other forms of everyday sexism that are common, including violence and hatred, especially against women in public life.
So why is it that hate-motivated violence against women and girls is rarely treated as such, even though our legislation provides mechanisms to do so?
The upcoming report from British Columbia and the recently announced national hate crime task force may help answer that question.
Until then, violence against women and girls remains marginalized in the Canadian hate crime framework, just as their experiences of male violence are marginalized, normalized and minimized in society.
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