ShootSpeeders
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- May 13, 2012
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This law itself is an insult to women since it's based on the idea that women are weak helpless creatures that need the govt to protect them - even from mere words!
Belgium bans a wide range of sexist speech
March 21 2014
Rik Torfs, rector of the University of Leuven, and Jogchum Vrielink, coordinator of the Centre for Discrimination Law at the University of Leuven, pass along a guest post quoted below about a new Belgian law that provides (Vrielinks translation):
Penalization of Sexism
For the purposes of this Act, the concept of sexism will be understood to mean any gesture or act that, in the circumstances of Article 444 of the Penal Code,* is evidently intended to express contempt for a person because of his gender, or that regards them as inferior, or reduces them to their sexual dimension, and which has the effect of violating someones dignity.
Anyone found guilty of [such conduct] will be punished with a prison sentence of one month to one year, and a fine , or one of these penalties alone .
Vrielink reports that the law will indeed cover not just face-to-face insults, but also things said about people in print or in other forms of mass communications. Thus, I infer, it would be a crime to publish newspaper articles or blog posts that say a politician, journalist, criminal, or whoever else is inferior because of his or her gender, or intentionally show contempt for the person because of his or her gender, or reduce them to their sexual dimension, and which has the effect of violating someones dignity.