Vio­lence against women is a hate crime and should be clas­si­fied as such. Yet, accord­ing to the FBI’s Hate Crime Sta­tis­tics (2012)  hate crimes are based on race, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, dis­abil­i­ty, ethnic/national ori­gin, and reli­gion. Gen­der is left out. Why? Rape is not sex out of con­trol. It’s an act of hatred, con­tempt and destruc­tive­ness against a spe­cif­ic class of peo­ple — women and girls. Mis-cat­e­go­riz­ing is not an inci­den­tal issue as it has an impact on how rapists are viewed and pun­ished and it lim­its wom­en’s con­scious­ness and sol­i­dar­i­ty as a tar­get­ed people.