The Hong Kong government has certainly got more than it bargained for with its proposed extradition bill. Yet, it is going to keep on insisting that the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019 aims to deal with the Taiwan murder case and seeks to plug loopholes in the current regime for legal cooperation in criminal matters. Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu will continue to trip himself up, and shoot himself in the foot. His latest and most outrageous comment has to be his accusation that the legal sector does not really understand the bill. We have to congratulate him for being able to outdo a former security chief, who once caused an uproar by saying that taxi drivers and restaurant waiters would not be interested in the details of the national security bill to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law. Lee’s boss, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, has him to thank for inciting people to take to the streets in protest against the bill. We can hardly be surprised when outrageous politics is met with widespread public outrage. And even the sideshows are now revealing some of Hong Kong’s uglier politics. Petitions, both offline and online, have been popping up and – in addition to the ones we have come to expect, like those from schools and professional bodies – one in particular attracted a very nasty and undeserved response. Wong Choi-fung , a housewife, started a petition for people like herself – those who have to be available round the clock for their family, and therefore may not be available to join in protests – to express their opposition to the extradition proposal. Wong’s petition drew signatures from many homemakers and caught the attention of at least one lawmaker, who could not help but publicly ridicule it. At a Legislative Council security panel meeting last week, that lawmaker singled out the housewives’ petition and said, “Maybe they fear their husbands will be extradited for having mistresses in the mainland, right?” That loaded question is an abomination masquerading as a failed joke. The assumption that these homemakers are desperate housewives most worried about their husbands’ lovers is vile, especially coming from a woman. To assume housewives would even think that having an extramarital affair is an extraditable criminal offence is bafflingly misogynist. Extradition bill: a fugitive tycoon is now the poster boy for patriotism It’s shocking and depressing to see that, in 21st-century cosmopolitan Hong Kong, some people still believe homemakers deserve to be voiceless, political illiterates and therefore politically irrelevant and worthy of ridicule. How else can we explain the cruel jab at one of the 400 or so petitions that have been launched in response to the extradition bill? So, are homemakers expected to just focus on keeping their husbands from straying and shut up about everything else? Maybe we should be done with it once and for all, and take away their voting rights? Wong is, actually, no “ordinary” housewife – and who or what defines “ordinary housewives” anyway?” – she has a doctorate in gender studies. In fact, Wong would be well versed to educate the lawmaker in question on why the year 1795 in Britain was termed “the revolt of the housewives”. That was, in effect, the beginning of women’s fight for their legitimate place in activism; their involvement in public life. Of all the petitions, Wong’s housewife petition makes the most sense because homemakers tied down with the endless demands such a job entails are the ones who find it most difficult to march in the streets. But being a housewife doesn’t mean that they’re not active members of society with their own opinions that matter and deserve to be heard. The online petition may be the only means for them to make their views known. Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA