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Women-hating should be classed as a hate crime like racism, according to campaigners.

The new movement comes after a survey showed that nearly half of women have been groped.

Activists want police to treat misogyny in the same way as harassment based around sexuality, race or disability.

The call comes as the results of a two-year study by Nottingham Women’s Centre found 48.9% of women in the city had experienced unwanted sexual advances, 46.2% unwanted groping, and 25.9% indecent exposure.

Campaigners believe that treating misogyny more seriously, in the wake of the #MeToo #TimesUp movements, will help protect women.

(Image: AFP)

Juts five police forces class misogyny as hate crimes, according to grassroots activist group Citizens UK.

Its council member Sajid Mohammed said: “Misogynistic abuse is an everyday reality for women and the same hateful attitude which breeds Islamophobia and anti-Semitism can be directed at women because of their gender.

“Nationwide misogyny hate crime reporting would allow police, the public and law makers to fully understand the scale of the day to day abuse and harassment women face, so that we can build a society that does not tolerate hate directed against any person on the basis of their identity.”

(Image: Getty Images North America)

Sam Smethers, chief executive of women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society, said: “Misogyny is so widespread it has become normalised in our society.

“As a result women are routinely objectified and harassed.

“Unless we challenge it, this won’t change.

“We have to start calling misogyny out for what it is - a hate crime.”

Feminist campaigner and backbench Labour MP Stella Creasy suffered a wave of online misogynistic abuse after speaking out against her party’s frontbench.

(Image: PA)

Demanding police treat it the same as other forms of hate crime, she said: “It sends all the wrong signals to recognise that violence based on someone’s race, religion, sexuality or disability is unacceptable and so should be explicitly challenged, but to say if you are targeted because of your sex it isn’t important enough for us to record let alone recognise.

“It’s time we treated all forms of hate crime equally and identify misogyny as the divisive and damaging force in our communities that it is, to show that no one should live in fear for walking down our streets for who they are.”