The new UK Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, was speaking to the BBC when he commented on misogyny, which he argued should not become a hate crime in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder.
Given that misogyny refers to a hatred or prejudice towards women, Raab has found himself on the receiving end of criticism due to his confusion about the term.
Political opponents of the Conservative Party jumped on the opportunity to blast the justice minister and the government's handling of the issue of violence against women.
Raab then back-peddled during the interview, saying "insults and misogyny is absolutely wrong whether it's a man against a woman or a woman against a man."
“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," Raab later said when trying to explain his confusion.
Earlier, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson ruled out making misogyny a hate crime in the wake of Everard's murder. Her case has stirred concern in British society over women's safety.