Mona Lena Krook - Violence Against Women in Politics-Oxford University Press (2020)

Violence against Women in Politics
Violence against Women in Politics

Mona Lena Krook
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Krook, Mona Lena, author.
Title: Violence against women in politics / Mona Lena Krook.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020008346 (print) | LCCN 2020008347 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190088460 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190088477 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780190088491 (epub) | ISBN 9780190088507 (online)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Political activity—Cross-cultural studies. |
Women—Violence against—Cross-cultural studies. |
Sexism in political culture—Cross-cultural studies.
Classification: LCC HQ1236 .K77 2020 (print) | LCC HQ1236 (ebook) |
DDC 320.082—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008346
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Paperback printed by LSC Communications, United States of America
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For Lars and Soren
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction
1. A “Problem with No Name” 3
Part I: An Emerging Concept

2. A Global Genealogy 13
3. Parallel and Related Trends 24
4. An Expanded Vision 36
5. International Recognition 46
6. A “New” Phenomenon? 52
7. Debates and Controversies 61
Part II: A Theoretical Framework

8. Politics as a Hostile Space 75
9. A Distinct Phenomenon 89
10. A Bias Event Approach 104
11. A Continuum of Violence 115
Part III: A Typology of Violence

12. Physical Violence 127
13. Psychological Violence 139
14. Sexual Violence 154
15. Economic Violence 177
16. Semiotic Violence 187

viii Contents
Part IV: A Call to Action

17. Cross-Cutting Solutions 217
18. Data Collection and Documentation Challenges 231
19. Political and Social Implications 247
20. Concluding Thoughts 256
Notes 259
References 271
Index 309
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is about feminist collaborations contributing to the global emer-

gence, development, and diffusion of the concept of violence against women in
politics. My own process of writing it was similarly made possible by numerous
collaborations along the way. I began exploring this topic in 2014 with Juliana
Restrepo Sanín, my graduate student at the time, with an eye to perhaps pro-
ducing a short research note. As we delved into the emerging debates, however,
it became clear it was a much bigger task than we had initially imagined. We
spent the next few years collecting news items, exploring different literatures,
talking to colleagues, and presenting our work to diverse audiences, all of which
pushed us to refine how we thought about violence against women in the politi-
cal realm—and ultimately leading to several co-authored papers. Although
we eventually began to pursue our own research agendas—Juliana went on
to write her doctoral dissertation on developments in Latin America, while
I decided to research and write this book from a more global perspective—I
will always be grateful to her for sharing my enthusiasm in the early days, which
powered us both to keep going in spite of many challenges. I am very proud of
the scholar she has become, and it goes without saying that the imprints of her
work are everywhere in this book.
The Rutgers Women & Politics Program, more generally, has been the
ideal place to work on a project of this nature and scope. My colleagues Sue
Carroll, Mary Hawkesworth, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and Kelly Dittmar provided
key thoughts and literature suggestions, while Cyndi Daniels is the best cheer-
leader anyone could ever have. I am deeply indebted to Nikol Alexander-Floyd
for suggesting a writing retreat at Easton’s Nook, which enabled me to write
the extremely complex chapter on sexual violence over two weekends, sustained
by Nadine’s amazing cooking and hospitality. Several cohorts of graduate stu-
dents also read and commented on papers and chapters. In particular, I would
like to thank Mary Nugent, Rebecca Kuperberg, Haley Norris, Anja Vojvodic,
Elizabeth Corredor, Isabel Köhler, Meriem Aissa, and Brit Anlar, who not
only participated in local seminars but also attended many conference panels
in the United States and abroad and helped inform my thinking. At Rutgers
University more broadly, I appreciate the support of my department chair,
Richard Lau, and the School of Arts and Sciences for finding new ways to fund
the research that went into this book, including nominating me for an Andrew
Carnegie Fellowship. Wendy Silverman and Daniel Portalatin also went above
and beyond in helping me administer my various grants. ix
x Acknowledgments
My practitioner colleagues inspire me every time we meet, and I feel privi-

leged to have been able to get to know them and their work more closely over
the last few years. Zeina Hilal and Kareen Jabre at the Inter-Parliamentary
Union were the first to invite me to participate in an event on this topic back in
2014, and generously shared their thoughts with me on Skype and in person in
Geneva and New York on many occasions. They also introduced me to Brigitte
Filion, a veritable fountain of knowledge who inspired numerous new direc-
tions in my research. In 2015, I began an amazing collaboration with Caroline
Hubbard and Sandra Pepera at the National Democratic Institute which was
born at a café near the United Nations and resulted, one year later, in the
launch of the #NotTheCost campaign to stop violence against women in poli-
tics. In the years since, our conversations have given me invaluable first-hand
insights into the important work being done on the ground to tackle violence
against women in politics—as well as provided much needed critical feedback
on how to conceptualize this phenomenon from an academic perspective. As
attention to this issue has accelerated around the world, I also consider myself
extremely lucky to have spent so much time in seminars, workshops, and one-
on-one meetings with Julie Ballington at UN Women; Marta Martínez, Betilde
Muñoz-Pogossian, and Sara Mía Noguera at the Organization of American
States; and María del Carmen Alanís Figueroa from the Mexican Federal
Electoral Tribunal.
The opportunity to participate in numerous academic as well as scholar-
practitioner events on violence against women in politics, further, has informed
this project at every step. On the scholarly side, I appreciate the sustained criti-
cal engagement of Elin Bjarnegård, Jennifer Piscopo, and Gabrielle Bardall
with my single-authored papers as well as my co-authored work with Juliana.
Conversations and workshops with Cheryl Collier, Tracey Raney, Sandra
Håkansson, Rebekah Herrick, Paige Schneider, Suzanne Dovi, Eleonora
Esposito, Erica Rayment, Pippa Norris, Sofia Collignon, and Pär Zetterberg
have also been extremely valuable and stimulating. Additionally, numerous fac-
ulty and students –both graduate and undergraduate –offered very helpful
feedback on the project as a whole in the course of presentations at Columbia
University, Rutgers University, Brigham Young University, Uppsala University,
Johns Hopkins University, The College of New Jersey, Emory University,
Sewanee: The University of the South, Oklahoma State University, the
University of Bucharest, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the
University of New South Wales, Monash University, the Australian National
University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Indiana University, and
Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
In the world of politics, I had the chance to meet many incredible women
around the globe who generously spoke to me about their experiences. This
travel and fieldwork was supported, at various stages, by a National Science
Foundation CAREER Award (2010– 2017), a Chancellor’s Scholarship at
Acknowledgments xi
Rutgers University (2015–2020), and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017–

2019). I also deeply appreciate having been included in meetings organized
by UN Women, the National Democratic Institute, the Inter-Parliamentary
Union, the Organization of American States, the Westminster Foundation
for Democracy, and the Party of European Socialists. These events brought
together political women from around the world to share their testimonies on
this topic, many for the very first time. Inspired by these diverse collaborations,
in early 2020 I created a companion website to this book at vawpolitics.org
to catalogue scholarly and practitioner contributions to these debates, and—
in the spirit of ongoing collective theorizing—to incorporate and reflect new
directions in the field as it develops.
Finishing this book would not have been conceivable in any shape or form,
however, without the collaboration of my husband, Ewan Harrison. Only with
his help has it been possible to undertake the extensive traveling required to
research this book, as well as to find the time and space to write it. He has been
a devoted, talented, and loving lead parent for our two boys. As an academic
himself, he has also been a useful theoretical sounding board and has helpfully
pointed me to numerous relevant news articles over the years. I feel fortunate to
have found a partner in life who is willing and able to provide so much moral,
practical, and intellectual support. I am also grateful to Fiona, Frances, and
John Harrison; Louise Anderson; and my parents, Leena and Christer Krook,
for lending a helping hand.
This book is dedicated, nonetheless, to our sons, Lars and Soren. Fascinated
by the concept of writing a book, Lars replaced my father as the person most
interested in knowing when I would finally finish writing it. Soren took a
more relaxed approach, asking me just once, very politely, what my “story”
was about. Along with their unconditional support for all my endeavors, they
remind me why this book is important and motivated me to push through to
the end. While this book consumed a great deal of my attention for a sustained
period of time, these two are and will always be the most important focus of my
life. This book is for you, my darlings.
ABBREVIATIONS
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED)

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Development (APWLD)
Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)
Association of Locally Elected Women of Bolivia (ACOBOL)
Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL)
Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO)
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW)
Declaration of Principles (DoP)
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
European Parliament (EP)
European Union (EU)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Federal Electoral Institute (IFE)
Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA)
Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC)
Global Journalist Security (GJS)
Human Rights Council (HRC)
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Illinois Anti-Harassment, Equality, and Access (AHEA)
Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM)
Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication
of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention)
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
International Labour Conference (ILC)
International Labour Organization (ILO)
International News Safety Institute (INSI)
International Press Institute (IPI)
International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) xiii
xiv List of Abbreviations
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)

Member of Parliament (MP)
Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
Mesoamerican Women Human Rights Defenders Initiative (IM-Defensoras)
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
National Democratic Institute (NDI)
Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)
Office of Compliance (OOC)
Operation Anti Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH)
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
Organization of American States (OAS)
Parliamentary Liaison and Investigation Team (PLaIT)
Real Academia Española (RAE)
South Asia Partnership (SAP)
Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA)
Tanzania Women Cross-Party Platform (TWCP)
UK Independence Party (UKIP)
UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
UN Development Program (UNDP)
United Nations (UN)
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO)
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of
Women (UN Women)
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Urgent Action Fund (UAF)
Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRDIC)
Women Influencing Nations (WIN)
Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML)
Women’s Media Center (WMC)
Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)
Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN)
Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF)
Introduction
1
A “Problem with No Name”
In October 2016, former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard spoke at an

event held in memory of Jo Cox, a female member of parliament (MP) in
the United Kingdom who had been murdered four months earlier. A sup-
porter of the campaign to remain in the European Union, Cox was fatally
shot and stabbed while arriving at a routine walk-in session for constituents
one week before the contested Brexit referendum. Gillard stated that she had
been asked to give “an honest account of the reality of being in politics,” in
the context of the meeting’s broader focus on promoting women’s participa-
tion in public life.
Gillard began with a frank catalogue of sexist insults and gendered critiques
she had faced as prime minister, content familiar to many scholars and political
observers. But she soon pivoted into darker territory, noting that “threats of
violence have become more prevalent for women in public life.” These ranged
from “detailed death threats, or threats against family, friends, and staff ” to
rape threats, which a “woman in public view may expect to receive . . . almost
daily.” Such acts sought to “challenge the resolve of the women who cop the
abuse,” as well as to “deter other women from raising their hand to serve in
public life” (Gillard 2016).
While born of her personal experiences, Gillard’s remarks echo concerns
voiced by a growing number of politically active women around the world,
despite very different political systems and local cultures. These women
explicitly reject the idea that such acts are simply the “cost of doing politics.”
A striking proportion, moreover, perceive these acts to be gender-based, aimed
specifically at deterring women’s political participation as women. Brought
together and theorized by local activists and international practitioners, these
testimonies have led to the recognition of a new global problem: violence
against women in politics.
4 Introduction
The organic and inductive origins of this concept, however, have resulted
in lingering ambiguities regarding its contours. This book seeks to bring clar-
ity to these debates. Written for both scholars and practitioners, it draws on
academic research in multiple disciplines, as well as empirical examples from
around the world. It argues, in short, that this phenomenon is not simply
a gendered extension of existing definitions of political violence privileging
physical aggressions against political rivals (Collier 2009; Della Porta 1995).
Rather, the book proposes that violence against women in politics is a dis-
tinct phenomenon involving a broad range of harms to attack and undermine
women as political actors. Its central motivation is thus not to gain the upper
hand in a game of partisan competition, but rather to exclude women as a
group from public life.
This analytical distinction, in turn, means that violence against women in
politics does not include all forms of violence faced by politically active women.
It is not the only or even the most common form of violence they may experi-
ence. Rather, it is a specific form of violence that can, and often does, coexist
with other forms of violence in the political sphere. Not recognizing it as a
separate phenomenon, however, overlooks a crucial source of bias and discrim-
ination against women in politics—and, in turn, its acute and underappreciated
costs for democracy, human rights, and gender equality.
A Hidden Problem
Understanding how and why violence against women in politics emerged as

a concept requires first considering why it remained hidden for so long—
and, indeed, why many women still hesitate to speak out. Testimonies by
politically active women reveal at least four reasons. Some women normal-
ize violence as part of the political game and thus simply do not perceive
it as a “problem” (a cognitive gap). Others recognize that violence is not
an acceptable cost of political engagement, but nonetheless remain quiet to
protect their political careers and/or their political parties (a political gap),
or to avoid scorn or blame from others for purportedly bringing the abuse
upon themselves (a receptivity gap). A final group would speak out but feels
there is no one to tell or no adequate language to describe their experiences
(a resources gap).
A COGNITIVE GAP
The cognitive gap is perhaps the most common. The comments of Norwegian
prime minister Erna Solberg illustrate this approach: appearing on a television
program to discuss online hate speech directed at her, she commented: “this
kind of abuse isn’t a big deal . . . As a female politician you get used to being
A “Problem with No Name” 5
judged . . . so you become thick-skinned” (“Norway PM” 2015). The reasons

for this cognitive gap are complex, but a driving factor is post-feminism, or
the widespread belief in many countries that gender equality has been already
achieved. With equality for women taken for granted, explanations of collec-
tive failures to achieve gender parity devolve to listing the shortcomings of
individual women (Johnson 2007).
These developments have given rise to what scholars term neo-or modern
sexism. “Old-fashioned” sexism is relatively unambiguous: presuming the infe-
riority of women as a group, it leads to prejudicial attitudes and discrimina-
tory behaviors against women. In contrast, newer versions of sexism are less
overt, creating obstacles to them being recognized as a form of sexism at all.
Neosexism emerges from a conflict between new egalitarian values and residual
negative feelings toward women, arguing that discrimination is a relic of the
past—but the gains women are making are unfair or moving too fast (Tougas
et al. 1995). Modern sexism adopts a slightly subtler approach, proposing
that—because discrimination no longer exists—unequal outcomes are not the
product of systematic disadvantage (Ellemers and Barreto 2009).
Post-feminist discourses have at least three implications for recognizing
the phenomenon of violence against women in politics. First, women facing
sexist violence confront an apparent contradiction between their supposedly
equal status as political actors and their experiences of blatant discrimination.
To resolve their cognitive dissonance, abused women may cope with hurt by
rationalizing it, defining it as tolerable or normal, “forgetting” it, or refusing
to acknowledge it (Ferraro and Johnson 1983; Kelly 1988). Second, beliefs that
discrimination against women is rare can lead to the discounting of individual
instances of prejudice. This is especially true when targets share a close rela-
tionship with their perpetrators. Nonetheless, these women are likely to suffer
the same negative psychological, work, and health consequences as those who
are more willing to label their experiences as a form of “violence” (Magley
et al. 1999). Third, women who lack—or are discouraged from developing—
awareness of group-based discrimination are unlikely to perceive sexist acts
against them as a form of injustice, deterring collective action to change the
status quo (Ellemers and Barreto 2009).
A POLITICAL GAP
Political reasons provide a different set of motivations for women to remain

silent. In these cases, women recognize violence as both sexist and deeply
problematic. They decide, however, to keep these experiences private for stra-
tegic reasons. Some remain quiet to avoid reinforcing stereotypes of women
as “weak” and “unsuited” to the rough world of politics. In her post-election
memoir, Hillary Clinton (2017) reflected on an October 2016 U.S. presidential
debate in which Donald Trump hovered menacingly behind her on the stage.
6 Introduction
Weighing whether or not she should call out his obvious attempts to intimidate
her, she explained: “I chose option A. I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of
dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off . . . I wonder, though, whether
I should have chosen option B” (136). She then went on to say that, had she
“told Trump off, he surely would have capitalized on it gleefully,” pointing to
other female politicians who had been called “angry” or “hysterical” as a means
to undermine their credibility as political actors (137).
Calling out sexism is a fraught enterprise: no matter how justified the
claim, it can invite a wide range of negative responses. At the most immediate
level, verbally confronting sexist acts can affect personal relationships between
the accuser and the accused. Feeling attacked, the latter may retaliate by dis-
liking or denigrating the accuser (Shelton and Stewart 2004). The accuser, in
turn, may lose prestige within the broader community, who may view them as
“complainers” who merit less respect. For this reason, Swim and Hyers (1999)
find that most women—when faced with the decision to react or not to a sexist
incident—prefer the least risky option of not responding at all. This is not due,
they emphasize, to personal failings on the part of women. Rather, it stems
from traditional gender roles socializing women to defer to others and main-
tain relationships at all costs. Consequently, while “self-silencing may appear
to be a choice, it is done within a social context that can impose negative con-
sequences for speaking one’s voice” (Swim et al 2010, 494).
A second set of political considerations revolves around preventing
scandals that might be weaponized by rival political parties. Data from the
National Democratic Institute (NDI 2018) and the Centre for Social Research
and UN Women (2014) find that most perpetrators are members of a wom-
an’s own party. This is consistent with findings in the broader violence against
women literature showing that women tend to know their offenders, whether
they are family members, friends, or colleagues (Watts and Zimmerman 2002).
Pressures to remain loyal to this “trusted circle” make it difficult to break the
silence by divulging these incidents publicly. However, this does not mean that
these acts remain a complete secret. As a female party member in Tunisia
explained: “This topic . . . has stayed a taboo. A woman can’t go up to a man
and confront him for sexual harassment. [But] as women in the political party,
we talk amongst ourselves.”1 Even if a woman has not personally experienced
violence, therefore, she often knows of other politically active women who have
(Cerva Cerna 2014).
A RECEPTIVITY GAP
A third reason women do not speak out stems from the lack of a receptive
audience. In 2017, Democrat Kim Weaver stood down as a candidate in an
Iowa congressional race against Republican incumbent Steve King. In a
Facebook post to her supporters, she explained that she had grown increasingly
concerned about “very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats.”2

Responding via Twitter, King claimed that Democrats drove her out of the
race, not Republicans, and “Death threats likely didn’t happen but a fabrica-
tion.”3 Although women have long been dismissed as reliable witnesses of their
own lives (Gilmore 2017), recent work in philosophy theorizes this trend as a
form of “gaslighting,” which occurs when a hearer tells a speaker that their
claims are not serious, they are overreacting, they are being too sensitive, or
they are not interpreting events properly (McKinnon 2017). Gaslighting is a
tactic commonly employed against women to raise doubts not only about their
“ability to discern harm but [also] their standing as one who is owed better
treatment” (Stark 2019, 231).
A variation on this theme is to accuse women who speak up of “playing
the gender card.” According to Falk (2008), female politicians are “ ‘accused,’
‘called out,’ and ‘criticized’ for playing the gender card,” which involves “refer-
encing the barriers women have faced in the political sphere” or suggesting that
a woman in politics gets “different treatment because of her sex” (174). This
phrase dogged Gillard (2014) following her famous misogyny speech in parlia-
ment in 2012: “That speech brought me the reputation of being the one who
was brave enough to name sexism and misogyny. And it brought with it all the
baggage that stops women naming sexism and misogyny when they see it: I was
accused of playing the gender card, of playing the victim” (112).
“Playing the gender card” undercuts the possibility of serious discussions
of sexism in politics by suggesting that women who call it out do so for rea-
sons other than genuine grievance (Donaghue 2015). Gillard’s case, however,
also points to the existence of multiple audiences. While her speech received
a negative and often scornful response from political opponents, as well as
many Australian media outlets, her words and delivery resonated strongly with
women at home and around the world (Sawer 2013). In her autobiography,
Gillard (2014) thus argues for redefining the term: “Someone who acts in a
sexist manner, who imposes gender stereotypes, is playing the gender card. It is
that person who is misusing gender to dismiss, to confine, to humiliate: not the
woman who calls it out for what it is. Calling the sexism out is not playing the
victim. I have done it and I know how it made me feel. Strong. I am nobody’s
victim. It is the only strategy that will enable change” (112).
A RESOURCES GAP
A final barrier to naming this problem stems from a deficit of resources. In

recent years, a number of veteran female politicians have come forward to dis-
close incidents experienced decades earlier. In 2016, former minister Monique
Pelletier responded to campaigns against sexual harassment in French politics
by tweeting: “Minister of women in 1979, I was harassed by a senator . . . shame
on me for my silence!”4 She explained in a subsequent interview that she had
8 Introduction
not spoken out previously because “it was a climate that very few people talked
about at the time” (“Agression Sexuelle” 2016). Former deputy prime minister
of Canada, Sheila Copps, made similar remarks in an editorial in 2014 in which
she disclosed that she had been sexually assaulted by a political colleague in the
1980s: “I never reported it . . . I was the only woman in my caucus. There wasn’t
a safe place to go talk about it” (Copps 2014). Widespread silence on these
issues leads politically active women to adopt a wide range of individualized
coping strategies to deal with threats and acts of violence (Barry 2011).
A related challenge is the dearth of adequate language for women to
describe their experiences. When female candidates in the United States were
approached by a reporter about intimidation on the campaign trail, some
“said initially that they had not been harassed—but then, when given exam-
ples like menacing social media messages, said yes, they had experienced those
things . . . a certain level of misogyny is so expected as to feel unremarkable”
(Astor 2018, 14). Similarly, a local councilor in Colombia observed: “At first, it
was hard to recognize that I was a victim of political violence . . . I saw things
that made me think, ‘why are they doing this to me?’ But I did not identify
those things as political violence” (Restrepo Sanín 2016, 44).
Aims of this Book
This book explains how, despite these challenges, women came to name the
problem of violence against women in politics. It then develops a more robust
version of this concept to support ongoing activism and inform future schol-
arly work. From a feminist perspective, these aims are deeply interconnected.
Stretching at least as far back as Betty Friedan’s (1963) discussion of the “prob-
lem with no name” (15), feminists have noted the lack of adequate language
to describe women’s experiences. This is because, as Robin L. West (2000)
observes, “an injury uniquely sustained by a disempowered group will lack a
name, a history, and in general a linguistic reality” (153).
Putting a name to such harms, however, can help de-normalize these injus-
tices, “making visible what was invisible, defining as unacceptable what was
acceptable, and insisting that what was naturalized is problematic” (Kelly 1988,
139). By such means, naming highlights the structural nature of these harms,
stressing their shared and systematic character as opposed to dismissing them
as “matters of intense, private shame” and “idiosyncratic, individual, and
rare occurrences” (Mantilla 2015, 153). Discovering a language by which to
interpret women’s experiences, in turn, can help link individual recognition of
inequality or mistreatment to a collective resolve to take action (Klatch 2001).
The book tackles this project in four parts. The first traces how the con-
cept of violence against women in politics emerged on the global stage through
the collective theorizing of many different actors. Chapter 2 maps its multiple,
parallel origins across the global South and subsequent efforts by international
actors to connect these debates into one overarching concept. Chapter 3 iden-
tifies incidents of political sexism and misogyny in other regions—including
the global North—that, together with the #MeToo movement, helped propel
recognition of violence against women in politics as a truly global problem.
Chapter 4 argues for a further expansion of the concept to incorporate all cat-
egories of politically active women, pointing to equivalent and contemporane-
ous campaigns to address violence against women human rights defenders and
female journalists. Chapter 5 traces how these discussions have become embed-
ded, in turn, in a growing number of international normative frameworks.
In light of these developments, Chapter 6 explores whether violence
against women in politics is in fact a “new” phenomenon. Existing evidence
points to at least three scenarios: it is a new expression of an old problem;
it stems from technological advances and rising levels of incivility in world
politics; and it constitutes a backlash against women’s increased political pres-
ence. While the lack of prior research complicates the task of testing these
various explanations, the chapter ultimately argues that the search for a defini-
tive answer may be misplaced: rather than constituting competing hypotheses,
these accounts more likely collectively capture distinct elements driving this
phenomenon.
Chapter 7 applies a more critical, comparative lens to these developments.
It outlines a series of debates and controversies emerging from practitioner
work, which have been subject at times to tense academic engagement. These
disagreements include disputes over terminology; violence against women or
gender-based violence as the defining feature of this phenomenon; differing
typologies and classifications of specific forms of violence; views on targets and
perpetrators of violence; the presence of intersecting forms of violence based
on race, class, age, and other identities; and contextual factors and their role
in shaping incidents of violence. The discussion stakes out the position of this
book in relation to each of these debates, providing a short summary of the
ideas subsequently elaborated at length in the next part of the volume.
The second section of the book develops a theoretical framework for under-
standing what violence against women in politics is—and, in particular, how
it is distinct from other forms of violence experienced in the political sphere.
Chapter 8 considers arguments suggesting politics is simply a hostile space and
catalogues analogous campaigns focused on mapping and addressing violence
against politicians, human rights defenders, and journalists. Chapter 9 rejects
the view that violence against women in politics is simply a gendered version
of already-recognized forms of political violence. It argues that this phenom-
enon is distinct because it specifically aims to exclude women as women from
the political sphere via dynamics of structural, cultural, and symbolic violence.
Theorizing the phenomenon in relation to these forms of violence also explains
why, until recently, it has remained largely “normalized” and hidden from view.
10 Introduction
Chapter 10 discusses how to identify empirical cases. Addressing method-

ological challenges related to under-reporting, comparisons, and intersection-
ality, the chapter draws from the literature on hate crimes to propose a bias
event approach, presenting six criteria to ascertain whether an incident was
potentially motivated by bias. Chapter 11 outlines competing views on defining
“violence” and argues in favor of adopting a comprehensive approach, limited
not to the use of force but attending to violations of personal integrity more
broadly. Feminist work theorizing a continuum of violence against women
highlights why identifying a more complete spectrum of violent acts is vital, as
manifestations of violence not only overlap but also inform and reinforce one
another (Kelly 1988).
The third part of the book identifies five forms of violence against women
in politics. Four of these—physical, psychological, sexual, and economic—are
widely recognized among both activist and research communities. The book
also theorizes a fifth type, semiotic violence, which emerged inductively in the
course of the research. These five forms are taken up in chapters 12 through 16,
respectively, which elaborate manifestations and emerging solutions, drawing
on a global dataset of news items, practitioner reports, autobiographies, and
original interviews. The discussion in each chapter is not intended to be exhaus-
tive, but illustrative, providing an initial architecture for future theorizing and
elaboration of this phenomenon.
The fourth and final section of the book issues a call to action, outlin-
ing what activists and scholars might do to tackle and raise awareness of vio-
lence against women in politics. Chapter 17 focuses on practitioner solutions
cutting across different kinds of violence, cataloguing legal reforms and other
initiatives to call out perpetrators and provide redress and care for targets.
Chapter 18 outlines and assesses current data collection efforts. Highlighting
the need for quantitative and qualitative data, it enumerates practical strategies
and methodological challenges in documenting this phenomenon. Chapter 19
considers the political and social implications of allowing violence against
women in politics to continue unabated. Utilizing data from around the world,
it delineates the threats this problem poses to democracy, human rights, and
gender equality. Chapter 20 concludes the volume by looking to the future,
arguing that tackling violence against women in politics requires ongoing dia-
logue and collaboration to ensure women’s equal rights to participate—freely
and safely—in political life around the world.
PART I
An Emerging Concept
2
A Global Genealogy
Global debates on violence against women in politics cannot be traced back to

a single source. As Kingdon (1984) argues in his influential book on agenda-
setting, public policy never originates with a single actor; rather, a community
of people working in a particular domain help an idea grow and take hold.
Interacting extensively with one another, these specialists exchange visions,
proposals, and research, and work together to gain the support of prominent
actors to move a subject onto the political agenda. Such networks may be
national and/or transnational, with the latter helping to circulate new ideas and
strategies across countries and world regions (Keck and Sikkink 1998). A cen-
tral focus of these efforts involves developing language that “names, interprets,
and dramatizes” problems in ways that inspire and mobilize campaigns for
change (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 897).
Inductive Origins across the Global South
The first moves to name the problem of violence against women in politics
emerged in parallel across different parts of the global South. Working induc-
tively, locally elected women in Bolivia theorized their experiences as “political
harassment and violence against women” in the late 1990s; networks of elected
women across South Asia, with support from global organizations, mapped
and condemned manifestations of “violence against women in politics” in the
mid-2000s; and state and non-state actors in Kenya recognized and sought to
tackle “electoral gender-based violence” in the late 2000s. Taking women’s lived
experiences as a shared starting point, these campaigns named the problem in
different ways, but overlapped in their concerns to condemn the use of violence
as a method to deter women’s political participation.
14 An Emerging Concept
BOLIVIA: POLITICAL HARASSMENT AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Women in Bolivia first began to talk about “political harassment and violence
against women” within meetings of the Association of Locally Elected Women
of Bolivia (ACOBOL). Soon after its creation in 1999, ACOBOL started receiv-
ing reports of violent incidents against female councilors and mayors. After
realizing the attacks were not isolated events, they began distributing surveys
at their meetings to gain a better sense of the manifestations and frequency
of these acts (Restrepo Sanín 2018b). In 2000, ACOBOL organized a seminar
with the Vice Minister of Gender Affairs and the Family, followed a few months
later by a public hearing hosted by the Commission of Decentralization and
Popular Participation. In 2001, they started working with state and civil society
institutions on drafting a bill on political harassment and violence for reasons
of gender, taking the first steps toward defining the problem and classifying
its various forms based on the various cases they had received (Rojas Valverde
2014). The bill was discussed in parliament in 2005 and 2006 and sent to a joint
committee to resolve some technical issues.
By 2007, the issue reached the agenda of the Tenth Regional Conference
on Women, organized by the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in Quito, Ecuador. The meet-
ing’s Consensus of Quito contained the first international call to member
states “to adopt legislative measures and institutional reforms to prevent, sanc-
tion, and eradicate political and administrative harassment against women to
accede to elected and appointed decision-making positions” (ECLAC 2007,
5). While continuing to lobby for the bill, ACOBOL joined forces with the UN
Population Fund (UNFPA) to develop a handbook of basic definitions and
examples to raise awareness of the problem, gain support for legal reforms, and
offer guidance on using indigenous justice systems, creating local networks of
support, and collecting data on complaints (Yaksic and Rojas 2010).
In 2011, the campaign gained new life with support from women in parlia-
ment, the Vice Minister of Equality of Opportunities, an alliance of more than
15 women’s organizations, and UN Women. The bill was brought up again in
the 2011–2012 session and reworked in light of the new constitution approved
in 2009. Key changes included expanding its remit to encompass women in
all political-public functions (not just elected women) and changing the lan-
guage to focus on acts committed against women (rather than acts commit-
ted “for reasons of gender”) (Restrepo Sanín 2018b, 128). Passed in 2012, the
bill defines political harassment and violence, establishes legal sanctions, and
enumerates a series of factors that might magnify these penalties. Article 7
defines harassment as “acts of pressure, persecution, harassment, or threats”
and violence as “physical, psychological, and sexual actions, behaviors, and/
or aggressions” aimed at restricting the exercise of women’s political rights.
Article 8 contains a wide-ranging list of examples of harassment and violence,1
A Global Genealogy 15
reflecting the inductive work of ACOBOL drawing on more than 4000 testimo-
nies (ACOBOL 2012, 1). This text, in turn, inspired women elsewhere in Latin
America to lobby for similar reforms, with varying degrees of success (Restrepo
Sanín 2018b).
SOUTH ASIA: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN POLITICS
In South Asia, discussions of “violence against women in politics” began in

2006 as an initiative of South Asia Partnership (SAP) International, with finan-
cial support from Oxfam Novib. The project was inspired by findings from
an SAP study on women’s participation in governance in South Asia, reveal-
ing widespread discrimination, exploitation, oppression, and violence against
women in politics (SAP International 2003). The first regional gathering was
held in 2006 with women involved in national and provincial level politics, as
well as female activists, representatives of the media, and staff from SAP offices
in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Based on the testimo-
nies given, participants proposed that violence against women in politics was a
problem present across South Asia, with female politicians enduring not only
physical attacks but also mental trauma and other offenses to discourage them
from entering or continuing in politics. Women faced this violence within and
outside political parties, as well as in the home and in society at large (SAP
International 2006).
Subsequent regional conferences were organized in 2007, 2008, and 2009.
Noting that many victims hesitated to speak openly about this problem, the
2007 conference in Kathmandu, Nepal, sought to “break the silence on the cul-
ture of feminized violence in politics which till now remained invisible” (SAP
International 2007, vi). With financial support from a wide range of interna-
tional actors, including the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM),2
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA),
UNFPA, and National Democratic Institute (NDI), participants elaborated a
more extensive typology of different forms of psychological and physical vio-
lence faced by female politicians.
The 2008 conference in Kathmandu, supported by Oxfam, UNFPA, CARE
Nepal, and International IDEA, focused on laws and policies for reducing vio-
lence against women in politics, as well as on showcasing best practices from
female politicians themselves. The work enumerated three types of violence—
physical, sexual, and psychological— and produced the 2008 Kathmandu
Declaration calling for zero tolerance for violence against women in politics
(SAP International 2009). The third conference in 2009 in Dhaka, Bangladesh,
focused on the role of the media and on galvanizing regional and global action
on this issue, identifying Article 7 and General Recommendations 12, 19, and
23 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) as potential entry points for action.
SAP International continued this work over the next two years, seeking to
disseminate its work across as well as beyond South Asia. In 2010, it published a
handbook with definitions of 46 terms and concepts related to violence against
women in politics. It adapted the language of the UN’s 1993 Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women to define it as “any act/s of violence
that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm
or suffering to women politicians, including threats of such actors, coercion
or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private
life” (SAP International 2010, 26). SAP International concluded its work with
a 2011 book containing a digest of case studies collected over the course of
the project, featuring the testimonies of women in politics in five South Asian
countries and Afghanistan (SAP International 2011).
KENYA: ELECTORAL GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE
The concept of “electoral gender-based violence,” finally, surfaced in Kenya in

the late 2000s in connection with violence targeting female candidates and vot-
ers in the 2007 elections. One case featured prominently in the media involved
parliamentary candidate Flora Terah, who was nearly killed after being physi-
cally assaulted by a gang of five men hired by her political opponent. While not
the first violent incident targeting a political woman, Terah was visited in the
hospital by politicians, activists, and even the U.S. ambassador, and the case
was covered extensively by both local and global media outlets (Kihiu 2007;
Terah 2008). Following the attack, an Electoral Gender Based Violence Rapid
Response Unit was set up by the Education Centre for Women in Democracy,
with support from UNIFEM, to assist survivors in gaining medical attention
and trauma counseling, as well as with referring their cases to the police and the
Electoral Commission of Kenya. The UNIFEM director also pledged to sup-
port female candidates by organizing trainings on personal security. Women
in the media contributed by publishing testimonies of women candidates who
had been attacked (Nyambala 2007). In early 2008, Terah launched a campaign
against electoral gender-based violence, Terah against Terror, taking a caravan
across the country to raise awareness.
Rampant violence following the elections led to the establishment of a
Commission of Inquiry on Post-Election Violence, which noted that women
and children were most at risk of and most affected by sexual violence, loss of
property, and displacement. Enlisting the assistance of UNIFEM and UNFPA,
as well as local organizations like the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA)
Kenya, CARE Kenya, and the Center for Rights Education and Awareness,
the commission devoted a chapter of its report to victims of post-election sex-
ual violence. The Independent Review Commission examined conduct during
the election itself and observed that a common feature of the elections had
been the use of “sexist tactics and violence to keep women out of the race,”
with “violence during party nominations” being a key reason that “there were
few women candidates.”3 The Elections Act of 2011, consolidating existing
electoral laws into one piece of legislation, subsequently prohibited threaten-
ing and abusive language and actions, including on grounds of gender. These
developments influenced preparations for the 2013 elections, which included a
dedicated SMS hotline set up by FIDA Kenya for both victims and witnesses
to report cases of violence against women in elections, which were forwarded to
the closest police station for response with, where relevant, offers of legal aid.4
These interventions were strengthened ahead of the 2017 elections. In
addition to reviving its hotline, FIDA Kenya trained police officers in five coun-
ties on how to handle gender-based violence during the elections.5 The United
Nations Development Program (UNDP) in partnership with UN Women and
the Secretary-General’s UNiTE Campaign to End Violence against Women,
with financial support from UK Department for International Development,
the U.S. Agency for International Development, the European Union (EU),
and the governments of Ireland and Italy, published a pocket-sized booklet dis-
tributed to 180,000 polling agents.6 It defines electoral gender-based violence as
“gender-based violence to achieve political gain,” taking sexual, physical, emo-
tional, mental, social, and economic forms. Stating that electoral gender-based
violence is a human rights issue, the booklet cites applicable laws on elections,
electoral offenses, sexual offenses, criminal procedure, and domestic violence.
It also outlines what security agents, citizens, and victims should do when faced
with electoral gender-based violence and provides contacts for helplines, legal
services, rescue shelters, and medical and trauma services.7 Various UN agen-
cies and civil society organizations subsequently came together to collect data
and case studies, with a number of programming guides in development.8
Transnational Networks and the Forging of a Global Concept
The inductive theorizing done by actors in these three contexts did not imme-
diately translate into a global campaign. Their efforts, however, planted impor-
tant seeds subsequently taken up by a wide range of international practitioners,
who in the late 2000s and early 2010s actively worked to craft a global concept
of violence against women in politics. For many, this work grew out of prior
programming on women’s political participation, which had expanded rapidly
in the 1990s and 2000s following increased global and regional calls to promote
gender-balanced decision-making (Hughes, Krook, and Paxton 2015).
The first cross- regional exchange was the e- discussion “Eliminating
Violence against Women in Politics” organized in 2007 by iKNOW Politics,
a joint project of International IDEA, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU),
NDI, UNDP, and UNIFEM (now UN Women). The opening message of the
forum explained that “Violence or the threat of violence has been identified
by members of the iKNOW Politics community—as well as through global

and regional meetings of women politicians and their supporters sponsored by
iKNOW partner organizations—as a significant impediment to women’s politi-
cal participation.”
To strengthen the knowledge base on violence against women in politics,
the moderators requested information on dimensions, frequency, and sources
of violence; the distinction between violence targeting women because of their
gender versus their political affiliations or ideologies; and measures that might
be put in place to tackle this violence. Developments in Bolivia, South Asia,
and Kenya were all explicitly mentioned in the discussion, along with examples
from other countries like Ecuador and Iraq. The iKNOW Politics team con-
cluded that, despite a fair amount of press coverage of specific cases of vio-
lence, very little research or policy work had to date been conducted (iKNOW
Politics 2007).
INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION
Although the topic surfaced in work that various international practitioners

were doing at the time on women’s political participation, the IPU was one of
the first organizations to address it systematically.9 Since 2006, the IPU had
been supporting parliaments in developing policies to combat violence against
women. At the same time, it began conducting survey research with male and
female MPs, exploring how to attain greater gender equality in politics (IPU
2008). The latter inspired the IPU’s subsequent work analyzing the gendered
dynamics of parliament as a workplace. Published in 2011, its Gender-Sensitive
Parliaments report indicated ongoing challenges faced by women, includ-
ing problems with sexual harassment (Palmieri 2011). A Plan of Action for
Gender-Sensitive Parliaments adopted in 2012 in Quebec, Canada, called on
parliaments to take steps to foster “a work culture free of discrimination and
harassment” (IPU 2012).
In parallel developments, the IPU organized a side event on gender and
electoral violence at the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
meetings in March 2011. In April, the IPU Assembly adopted a resolution
on electoral violence in Panama City, Panama, which included paragraphs
expressing concern that female voters and candidates were “deterred from par-
ticipating in the political process by a climate of intimidation” and observing
that “gender-based electoral violence occurs prior to, during, and after elec-
tions and includes physical violence and verbal abuse” (IPU 2011). From 2014
onward, the IPU’s annual reports on progress and setbacks in women’s par-
liamentary representation have included a number of paragraphs on violence.
The first report to do so, on elections that had taken place in 2013, noted that
gender-based electoral and political violence was receiving greater attention
and offered examples from Kenya, Honduras, and Italy (IPU 2014).
These trends led the IPU to carry out a consultative process with female
parliamentarians in 2014 and 2015, with the idea of conducting a survey. The
resulting brief, published in October 2016, showed that psychological, physical,
sexual, and economic violence against women in parliaments was widespread
(IPU 2016b). To coincide with its publication, the IPU Assembly approved a
resolution noting that “the increasing inclusion of women in political processes
around the world has been accompanied by forms of resistance such as ste-
reotyping, harassment, intimidation, and violence,” such that “women face an
additional obstacle to their engagement in politics that can inhibit their free-
dom to exercise their mandate as they would wish” (IPU 2016a). A study done
in collaboration with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
two years later showed that younger women, as well as members of staff, suf-
fered from exceptionally high levels of violence and harassment (IPU 2018).
UNITED NATIONS
These issues began to be taken up within the global UN system in late 2010. In
a report on women’s participation in peacebuilding, the UN Secretary-General
(2010) called for “vulnerability mapping to assess potential violence facing
women (as voters, party workers and candidates), as well as action to prevent
and respond to such threats” (15). In February 2011, UN Women in New York
collaborated with the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa and
UN Women country offices to develop a toolkit for managing and preventing
“political violence against women,” piloted sequentially in Uganda, Nigeria,
and Zimbabwe (UN Women 2011). In early 2011, UN Women also organized
a high-level meeting to update UN General Assembly Resolution 58/142 on
women and political participation, adopted in 2003. The new Resolution 66/
130, approved by member states in December 2011, urged states “To investigate
allegations of violence, assault or harassment of women elected officials and
candidates for political office, create an environment of zero tolerance for such
offences and, to ensure accountability, take all appropriate steps to prosecute
those responsible” (UN General Assembly 2011, 4).
Two years later, the UN Secretary-General’s (2013a) report on progress
made on Resolution 66/130 expanded this discussion to observe that “violence
against women in political life discourages or prevents them from exercising
their political rights” (15). Acknowledging that recognition of such violence
was new, it argued for data and evidence to be collected to prevent violence
and hold perpetrators accountable. It also recognized efforts in Bolivia and
Mexico to legislate on the issue, as well as the work of various UN agencies to
monitor violence against women in elections and include violence prevention
in candidate trainings. The following year, UN Women published a study done
in collaboration with the Centre for Social Research in New Delhi on violence
against women in politics in India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Citing the work of
SAP International, this work provided data on the nature, extent, motives, and
effects of this violence (Centre for Social Research and UN Women 2014).
Intersecting with these developments was an initiative at UNDP to develop
a handbook on gender and electoral violence. The project began to coalesce in
early 2011, after a colleague who had participated in the CSW panel organized
by the IPU later attended a joint EU-UNDP meeting on electoral violence
where there was no discussion of gender at all. However, the project encoun-
tered challenges in framing the concept—namely, whether to add a gender lens
to tools designed to prevent and mitigate electoral violence, or alternatively, to
expand violence against women frameworks to political and electoral arenas.
After the colleague moved to UN Women in 2012, the work became a joint
UNDP/UN Women initiative and—with input from UN Women staff—took
on a stronger violence against women angle. As a result, the preferred termi-
nology began to evolve from “electoral violence against women” to “violence
against women in elections.”10 This language appeared in a subsequent pub-
lication, Inclusive Electoral Processes, identifying four types of violence: psy-
chological, physical, sexual, and economic (UNDP and UN Women 2015).
The original 2011 project was published in 2017 as a programming guide for
tackling violence against women in elections (UNDP and UN Women 2017).
INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR ELECTORAL SYSTEMS
Inspired by conversations at UNDP, in 2011 the International Foundation for

Electoral Systems (IFES) revisited data collected in six countries between 2006
and 2010 via its citizen-monitoring initiative, the Electoral Violence Education
and Resolution Program. Focusing on three types of violence—physical, eco-
nomic, and social-psychological—the research noted significant gender dif-
ferences in the types of election-related violence experienced by women and
men (Bardall 2011). IFES did not take up the issue again, however, until 2014.
Similar clashes over terminology occurred. Electoral violence experts preferred
“electoral violence against women,” which would add women to existing elec-
tion security frameworks, while the gender team favored “violence against
women in elections,” which would center more expansive feminist definitions of
“violence” as well as the survivors of gender-based violence. To better articu-
late the issue in its work, in 2016 IFES launched a Violence against Women in
Elections Assessment Tool (Huber and Kammerud 2016).11 It has since carried
out assessments in various parts of the world, in addition to pilot studies of
online violence against women in elections.12
ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES
During this same period, the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM)

of the Organization of American States (OAS) began fielding numerous
requests about political harassment and violence from female politicians

across the region. This led it to convene a hemispheric expert group meeting
in February 2015 to exchange information on the Bolivian experience as well
as on ongoing legislative efforts in other Latin American countries. Based on
these discussions, CIM developed a Declaration on Political Harassment and
Violence against Women, which was approved by state-parties to the 1994
Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication
of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention) at the conference of
the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention in Lima, Peru, in
October 2015.
Applying the convention’s definition of violence against women as acts
causing “death or physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to
women,” the declaration called for the adoption of mechanisms and measures,
collection of data, introduction of victim services, awareness raising campaigns,
and development of media codes of conduct (CIM 2015, 3). To assist countries
in developing legislation to this end, CIM subsequently carried out regional
consultations to produce an Inter-American Model Law on the Prevention,
Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women in Political Life (CIM
2017). Points of contention in these debates revolved primarily around the lan-
guage of “violence” versus “harassment,” as well as “violence against women”
versus “gender-based violence.”13
The work of the Group of Women Parliamentarians of ParlAmericas, an
independent body that cooperates closely with the OAS, intersected with and
complemented these efforts. At its annual hemispheric conference in 2014, a
Peruvian participant on a panel discussing barriers to gender equality in poli-
tics shared her work with a network of locally elected women to pass a bill on
political harassment. The contribution resonated strongly with the audience,
leading the group to recommend focusing exclusively on this issue during its
2015 meeting, which was also attended by colleagues from NDI, UN Women,
and CIM. To facilitate the sharing of experiences beyond the meeting, staff
at ParlAmericas began filming testimonies from women across the Americas,
which were later posted on its website as a means to map violence against
women in politics across the region.14 In 2016, ParlAmericas held a special event
in Saint Lucia for women parliamentarians from the Anglophone Caribbean,
where these debates were less advanced than in the Spanish-speaking countries
of Latin America.15
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE
Around 2012, NDI began informally collecting stories about women’s experi-
ences with harassment and violence during elections. Over the next two years,
the need to develop a more systematic approach to data collection became
increasingly evident.16 In 2015, the gender team launched the Votes without
Violence project to “gender” NDI’s work on electoral violence and the demo-
cratic quality of elections by training stakeholders to detect early warning signs
and acts of violence against women in elections. As the project was piloted
across several countries in Africa and Latin America, the team expanded its
original typology—adding economic violence, for example—to better reflect
realities on the ground.17
The cross-regional nature of this work inspired NDI to pursue the idea of
creating a global framework for conceptualizing, raising awareness, and devis-
ing solutions to tackle violence against women in politics. In December 2015,
it convened a workshop with practitioners, politicians, and academics to con-
sider how to best frame the case for change. In March 2016, NDI launched
the #NotTheCost campaign with a global call to action, arguing that violence
should not be the price women have to pay to participate in politics.18 To give
voice to—and draw connections across—women’s experiences, the event fea-
tured testimonies from female politicians and activists from around the world.
Following this event, NDI developed a suite of tools to address different
locations and aspects of this phenomenon. The first involved program guid-
ance, which sought to clarify how violence against women in politics was dis-
tinct from political violence affecting both women and men. Drawing on global
debates, it proposed that violence against women in politics targets women
because of their gender, its forms can be gendered, and its impact is to discour-
age women in particular from being or becoming politically active (NDI 2016).
NDI’s subsequent projects focused on violence against women in political par-
ties (NDI 2018); online violence against women in politics, including state-
based gendered disinformation (NDI 2019); and individual safety planning.19
From 2016 onward, NDI also played a vital role in lobbying the UN’s Special
Rapporteur on Violence against Women to take up the issue, contributing cen-
trally to her report to the UN General Assembly in 2018.20
ADDITIONAL INITIATIVES
A variety of other international practitioners have also generated knowledge

and raised awareness. To support implementation of the Quito Consensus, UN
Habitat published a report theorizing political harassment as a form of dis-
crimination against women (Torres García 2010) and the UN Women’s Training
Center funded empirical case studies to map political violence and harassment
in Costa Rica (Escalante and Méndez 2011), El Salvador (Herrera, Arias, and
García 2011), Ecuador (Arboleda 2012), and Bolivia (Rojas Valverde 2012).
In 2013, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation published case studies of harassment
against women in politics in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama (Hoyos 2014).
Between 2014 and 2017, International IDEA and the Netherlands Institute for
Multiparty Democracy collaborated on a project on women’s political rights in
Colombia, Kenya, and Tunisia, which included a prominent focus on violence

against women in politics.21 The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians ded-
icated their 2016 conference to the theme of political violence against women.
And in 2018, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, in partnership with
the British political parties, hosted an international summit to address violence
against women in politics, with more than 50 speakers from over 20 countries.
3
Parallel and Related Trends
Inductive development of the concept of violence against women in poli-

tics largely proceeded from an activist and practitioner space focused on the
global South. Over this same time period, however, a series of testimonies from
politically active women in other regions—including the global North—have
emerged, showing that this problem affects women across a range of different
countries. In late 2017, the #MeToo movement that swept around the world
also drew attention to sexual harassment within political institutions, high-
lighting that gender-based violence was not restricted to election-related events.
These episodes have largely been folded into the work done by practitioners in
the violence against women in politics field, helping to strengthen its recogni-
tion as a universal phenomenon.
Individual and Collective Testimonies
Over the last two decades, women’s opportunities to participate in politics have
expanded rapidly, enabling their entry into new political spaces and leadership
positions. In recent years, a growing number of women have spoken out about
the violence they have faced in the course of seeking to have a political voice.
Emerging organically, these accounts reveal that violence against women in
politics is not a phenomenon restricted to particular parts of the global South.
EGYPT AND TUNISIA
Women were a visible force in protests in late 2010 and early 2011 that spread
across the Arab world, toppling longstanding authoritarian regimes. In Egypt,
sexual violence against women became a regular feature of mass gatherings
following the fall of President Hosni Mubarak (Zaki 2017). However, during
Mubarak’s rule security forces also used sexual assault—either directly or with
Parallel and Related Trends 25
the help of hired thugs—as a means to terrorize women and prevent them from
participating in protests (Tadros 2015). Despite attempts to protect female
protesters, the number and severity of attacks on women grew in 2013 and
2014, committed by a wide range of perpetrators (Zaki 2017). Consultations
by Saferworld (2013) with hundreds of women involved in protests in Egypt,
Libya, and Yemen explicitly used the term “harassment” to refer to the range
of behaviors women experienced in public spaces, from derogatory com-
ments to groping, sexual assault, and rape. Hearings of the Truth and Dignity
Commission in Tunisia in 2014 also revealed systematic patterns of rape and
sexual assault against female members of the opposition during the rule of
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his predecessor Habib Bourguiba (Zaki 2017).1
AUSTRALIA
In 2012, Australian journalist Anne Summers gave a speech detailing the vili-
fication of the country’s first female prime minister. She argued that if Julia
Gillard worked in any other profession, she would have a strong case for sex
discrimination and sexual harassment.2 Providing examples of sexist and highly
sexualized words, cartoons, and doctored photographs circulated widely in the
media and by citizens via email and social media accounts, Summers observed
this “was something we had not seen before in Australian politics.” She attrib-
uted this trend to the “misogyny factor,” or beliefs “predicated on the view
that women do not have the fundamental right to be part of society beyond
the home” (Summers 2013, 106, 8). Delivered on the same day that shock jock
Alan Jones claimed that female leaders were “destroying the joint,” Summers’s
speech garnered widespread attention across Australia.3
A few weeks later, Gillard rose in parliament to respond to Tony Abbott,
the leader of the opposition, who had submitted a motion to remove the
speaker over crude and sexist texts he had sent to an aide. Speaking largely
off the cuff, she opened by emphatically declaring: “I will not be lectured
about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not . . . If he wants to know
what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he does not need a motion in
the House of Representatives—he needs a mirror.” She went on to document
Abbott’s own vast history of sexism and misogyny, including statements that
the under-representation of women was not “a bad thing,” as men’s minds were
“more adapted to exercise authority.”4 The speech went viral in Australia and
around the world, resonating with many women and opening up conversations
about sexism in Australian society (Donaghue 2015).
The issue returned to the public eye in 2018, when Greens Senator Sarah
Hanson-Young (2018) decided to break her “silence on the smears and sexual-
ized bullying” she had endured for years, following an incident when Senator
David Leyonhjelm yelled at her to “stop shagging men” during a debate on
tackling violence against women (27). Refusing to apologize, he then went on

a series of television and radio shows, where he doubled down with statements
like: “Sarah is known for liking men. The rumors about her in parliament are
well known.” He further claimed that his remarks were not sexist but rather
“normal Australian behavior” (29–31). Pointing to Gillard’s misogyny speech
as a factor in her decision to speak out, Hanson-Young called sexist rumors
the “oldest trick in the book” and emphatically stated that no one “deserves to
show up to work and be harassed, bullied, or intimidated. It’s not okay in the
workplace, it’s not okay in our homes, and our parliament should set a better
example” (94).
ITALY
Similar debates emerged in Italy in 2013 and 2014 in the wake of sexist and
racist attacks against Laura Boldrini, president of the Chamber of Deputies,
and Cécile Kyenge, the first black cabinet minister. Interviewed by the Guardian
in 2014, Boldrini disclosed that she had received thousands of misogynistic
insults, threats, and images since becoming a candidate, including photos of
her faced superimposed on the body of a woman being raped (Davies 2014).
Far-right politicians from the Five Star Movement and the Northern League
were particularly active in targeting her, using sexist language, inciting violence,
and comparing her to a blow-up sex doll (Feder, Nardelli, and De Luca 2018).
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kyenge migrated to Italy
in 1983 and served as minister of integration from 2013 to 2014. Political
opponents—mostly belonging to the far-right—called for her to be raped,
threw bananas at her during political rallies, compared her to an orangutan,
and remarked that “she seems like a great housekeeper” but “not a govern-
ment minister” (Meret, Della Corta, and Sanguiliano 2013). In 2016, members
of the Parliamentary Intergroup on Women, Rights, and Equal Opportunities
published a statement in La Reppublica condemning “vulgar insults” and “sex-
ist vignettes” targeting women at all levels of Italian politics. They argued
such acts “feed and give legitimacy to the debasement and discrimination of
women in society, in the world of work, in institutions, in political life, and in
the media” (Bianchi et al. 2016).
FRANCE
A series of events across Europe and North America in 2016 gave fur-
ther momentum to these discussions. In May 2016, four female politicians
in France— Isabelle Attard, Elen Debost, Annie Lahmer, and Sandrine
Rousseau— came forward to accuse Denis Baupin, a Green MP and vice
president of the French National Assembly, of sexual harassment, involving
both physical assaults as well as the repeated and unwelcome sending of lewd
text messages (Chrisafis 2016). The next day, 500 activists and elected officials
published a manifesto in Libération calling for an end to impunity for sexual
harassment in French politics (Le Collectif “Levons l’omerta” 2016). These
efforts built on a manifesto issued by a group of female journalists a year ear-
lier, calling out harassing behaviors committed by politicians from all parties
at all levels of political power (Amar et al. 2015).5 Within days, 17 former gov-
ernment ministers from across the political spectrum penned an opinion piece
in Le Journal de Dimanche: declaring that the “law of silence” was over, they
argued it was not women’s role to adapt, but rather, the behavior of certain men
needed to change (Bachelot et al. 2016).
Although Baupin resigned his leadership post, he remained an MP and
denied that his behaviors constituted acts of sexual harassment. In March
2017, the deputy attorney-general decided that while many of the acts fit the
legal (and criminal) definition of sexual harassment, the statute of limitations
had passed and thus no further action could be taken on any of the four cases.
In the absence of a legal remedy, Rousseau decided to write a book sharing
her account, with a collective preface by Attard, Debost, and Lahmer, who
explained why they chose to speak out: “One day, we realized that our silence
had made this man believe that he had all the rights . . . Our fears about being
humiliated granted him immunity. Continuing to remain silent would have
given him the power to do it again—and this would have made us his accom-
plices” (Rousseau 2017, 15). Rousseau then went on to establish an association,
Parler, to assist and support women who were victims of sexual violence.6
Meanwhile, female staff at the National Assembly noted limited indig-
nation within the political class itself. Instead, male deputies suggested that
the women who accused Baupin had ulterior motives against him; portrayed
Baupin as a victim, removing any responsibility from him for his behavior; or
“jokingly” asked colleagues or staff if women were going to file a complaint
if men said they looked nice or touched their shoulders (Julié-Viot 2018). To
raise awareness of sexual harassment in French politics, therefore, a group of
staffers created Chair Collaboratrice,7 a group and a website to receive and post
anonymous testimonies from women working at all levels of the political sys-
tem.8 These accounts revealed a range of sexist behaviors and highlighted fac-
tors facilitating these abuses, including precarious work contracts, late working
hours, and widespread use of alcohol.9
In March 2019, Chair Collaboratrice sent a questionnaire to all staff mem-
bers, inquiring into incidents of sexist harassment and sexual violence they had
experienced or witnessed in the course of their work at the National Assembly.
The results indicated that one in two women were victims of “sexist or sexual
jokes,” one in three experienced repeated and bothersome staring or simulated
sexual acts, one in five fielded unwanted sexual advances, and one in six were
touched on the breasts, buttocks, or thighs against their will.10 As part of the
group’s efforts to secure a commitment to fight against all forms of harassment
and discrimination in parliament, Chair Collaboratrice shared these findings

with the Working Group on Work Conditions and Staff, which voted in May
2019 to create an independent office to support victims (Paillou 2019).
UNITED KINGDOM
The murder of British MP Jo Cox in June 2016 served as another major crys-
tallizing event for global debates on violence against women in politics. Several
months earlier, Muslim Women’s Network UK had raised issues of intimida-
tion of female Muslim candidates. In a letter to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn,
they claimed that Muslim male politicians at the local level had displayed “sys-
tematic misogyny” and actively “undermined, sabotaged, and blocked [women]
from becoming councilors.”11 Appearing on BBC Newsnight, one woman
recounted how, during her bid to become a local official, she had been sub-
jected to a smear campaign and men had come to her family home attempting
to intimidate her mother (Elgot 2016). A subsequent report by the Citizens
Commission on Islam, Participation, and Public Life (2017) confirmed these
accounts, finding that a “patriarchal” system “led by male community elders”
engaged in widespread bullying to pressure women to stay out of politics (46).
Cox, a member of the Labour Party, was assaulted on the street by
Thomas Mair, a far-right extremist who reportedly yelled “Britain first!” dur-
ing the attack. She had previously contacted police after receiving a stream
of malicious messages, leading to an arrest in March 2016. Due to this online
harassment, at the time of her death police were considering additional security
both at her constituency office in Birstall and her houseboat in London. Many
female MPs perceived a gendered dimension in her attack, with Diane Abbott
stating: “It is hard to escape the conclusion that the vitriolic misogyny that so
many women politicians endure framed the murderous attack on Jo” (Hughes,
Riley-Smith, and Swinford 2016). Cox’s friend, Jess Phillips, wrote at the time
of Mair’s sentencing that “for me and for many of my colleagues—particularly
female MPs—fear has also become real and present” (Phillips 2016b).
In direct response to Cox’s murder, the Metropolitan Police established
a Parliamentary Liaison and Investigations Team in August 2016 to provide
security support to MPs, beyond existing funds for extra locks and security
cameras provided by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. The
team estimated that approximately 60% of the cases it receives concern female
MPs, although women only constituted 32% of MPs overall.12 Following snap
elections in June 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May called on the Committee
on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) to undertake a study on abuse and intimi-
dation of parliamentary candidates. In its report, published that December,
the CSPL (2017) noted that, while candidates of all political persuasions are
affected, those “who are female, BAME [black, Asian, or minority ethnic], or
LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender] are disproportionately targeted
in terms of scale, intensity, and vitriol” (28). Making her first public statement
on the report on February 6, 2018, the centenary of women’s suffrage, May
(2018) drew parallels with suffragettes who “had to contend with open hostility
and abuse to win their right to vote.”
UNITED STATES
A third event occurring in 2016, the U.S. presidential election, left perhaps the
strongest global impression in relation to these debates. Sexism and misogyny
characterized the contested primary season as well as the election itself. Within
the Democratic Party, the Bernie Sanders campaign attracted a large con-
tingent of young and enthusiastic male supporters known, disparagingly, as
“Bernie Bros.” They created and circulated misogynistic memes about Hillary
Clinton, while also engaging in sexist harassment and denigration of her female
supporters in particular (Albrecht 2017). On the Republican side, supporters of
Donald Trump often broke into chants of “Lock her up!” during rallies, while
vendors at campaign events sold merchandise with highly sexist and misogynis-
tic content (Beinart 2016).
The candidate himself made numerous remarks during the campaign dis-
paraging women. During the primary season, Trump claimed that a female
journalist, Megyn Kelly, questioned him aggressively because she was menstru-
ating. He also declared his female Republican rival, Carly Fiorina, not attrac-
tive enough to hold public office. At an August 2016 rally, he wondered aloud
whether the “Second Amendment people” (gun owners) could do anything
about Clinton. In the following months, he asserted that Clinton simply did not
have a “presidential look,” and during the third and final presidential debate, he
famously called her a “nasty woman.”
According to Valentino, Wayne, and Oceno (2018), such comments ele-
vated the role of sexism in driving voting choices, the first and only time this fac-
tor had affected presidential election outcomes. Bolstering this interpretation,
Levey (2018) tracked usage of the word “bitch” on Twitter at various moments
in 2016. She found a relatively stable daily average of 400,000 hits, except on
days following the three presidential debates when there was a notable increase.
On Election Day, this number spiked to more than 900,000, with content analy-
sis showing that the words “Clinton” and “bitch” often appeared together in
these tweets (2018, 123–125). Reflecting on these developments, some commen-
tators suggested that the proliferation of misogynistic hate speech during the
campaign had a chilling effect on women’s free expression, pointing for exam-
ple to the emergence of the secret Facebook group, Pantsuit Nation (Carlson
2018). What started as a small group of women planning to wear pantsuits
(Clinton’s famous wardrobe item) on Election Day rapidly grew into a commu-
nity of more than three million members offering “a troll-free space in which
Clinton supporters could enthusiastically support their candidate.”13
While some observers expressed concerns that Clinton’s loss would nor-
malize misogyny and reverse gains in gender equality, many women reacted
by mobilizing and running for political office in record numbers the following
year.14 The increased presence of female candidates contributed, in turn, to
more frank discussions of violence against women in politics. As one reporter
noted: “Harassment is not new for women in politics . . . [but] it has come to
the fore this election cycle, partly because so many women are running and
partly because more of them are discussing their experiences” (Astor 2018, 14).
In November 2017, the Women’s Media Center launched a four-minute video
to foster greater “public awareness of the daily hostility that women in politics
face as the result of being women in public life.” Featuring testimonies from
eight Democratic and Republican women who had run for office at all levels,
the video sought to “recognize the additional risks women take when they run
for office and serve in public roles.”15
EUROPE
Collectively, these events facilitated increased recognition of violence against

women in politics as a global problem, not confined to specific countries or
regions (Krook and Restrepo Sanín 2016b). In a telling indication of growing
awareness of this problem in the global North, female parliamentarians from
Europe were the first to approach the IPU to conduct a regional study on vio-
lence against women in parliament.16 Conducted in close collaboration with the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the study interviewed more
than 120 female MPs and staff across 45 member states. Rates of violence were
relatively similar to the global sample, although levels of psychological violence
were slightly higher and levels of physical violence somewhat lower. The study
further discovered that female MPs under the age of 40 were more likely than
older MPs to face acts of psychological and sexual violence, and among staff-
ers, more than 40% had experienced sexual harassment (IPU 2018, 2, 6–7).
These findings inspired women in the Party of European Socialists to orga-
nize a day-long conference on violence against women in politics in Lisbon,
Portugal, in December 2018.
#MeToo and the Political Sphere
These developments coincided with the rise of the global #MeToo movement
in October 2017, which drew attention to problems of sexual harassment in all
fields, including politics. The hashtag went viral17 on Twitter after American
actress Alyssa Milano posted a screenshot from a friend suggesting: “If all the
women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status,
we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” To this, Milano
added: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’ as a reply
to this tweet.”18 Within 24 hours, 500,000 people responded on Twitter and the
hashtag #MeToo appeared on Facebook 12 million times (Renkl 2017). Within
three weeks, it appeared in 2.3 million tweets by users in 85 countries (Fox
and Diehm 2017). Although allegations of sexual misconduct by Hollywood
producer Harvey Weinstein served as the immediate catalyst for #MeToo,
many commentators argue that the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign—during
which a growing number of women came forward to accuse Trump of sexual
assault and Trump himself made comments on tape about sexually assaulting
women—also served as a precipitating factor (Hillstrom 2019).
UNITED STATES
Less than two weeks after the New York Times article breaking the Weinstein
story, and the day after Milano’s tweet, more than 140 women in California
politics published a letter in the Los Angeles Times denouncing widespread
sexual harassment against (and by) lawmakers, aides, and lobbyists. In their
opening sentences, they wrote: “As women leaders in politics, in a state that
postures itself as a leader in justice and equality, you might assume our experi-
ence has been different. It has not. Each of us has endured, or witnessed, or
worked with women who have experienced some form of dehumanizing behav-
ior by men with power in our workplaces.” They explained that victim blaming
and fear of professional ramifications had prevented them from speaking out
before, including to protect their friends from abuse. Referring to their previ-
ous perceived powerlessness to stop the cycle, they asserted: “We’re done with
this. Each of us who signed this op-ed will no longer tolerate the perpetrators
or enablers who do.”19 Calling the group “We Said Enough,” they posted 20
firsthand accounts on their website20 and created a Twitter account to monitor
developments related to sexual harassment in politics.21 In December, one of
the group’s founders, Adama Iwu, was featured on the cover of Time magazine
as one of “The Silence Breakers,” who were collectively recognized as Time’s
Person of the Year in 2017.
Although the issue of sexual harassment had previously been raised in a
number of state legislatures across the United States, the #MeToo movement
brought this problem into sharper focus. By the end of 2017, more than 100
people had publicly accused at least 40 lawmakers across 20 states of sexual
misconduct or harassment (Ebert 2017). Several prominent leaders, includ-
ing U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, disclosed that as state legislators they were
told informally that sexual favors would enable their bills to go further (Vock
2017; Wang 2017). In response to this attention, over the next year 32 states
introduced over 125 bills to expel members, mandate harassment training, and
criminalize sexual harassment in legislatures.22 By the end of 2018, 75% of the
138 elected or appointment officials publicly accused had left or been ousted
from their positions. However, 23 of the 27 who ran for office again were re-
elected or elected to a new government position (Williams 2018, 2–3).
In the U.S. Congress, five members resigned as a result of #MeToo allega-
tions, including four representatives—John Conyers, Blake Farenthold, Trent
Franks, and Pat Meehan—and one senator, Al Franken. In November 2017,
Representative Jackie Speier shared her experiences as a young congressional
staffer and launched #MeTooCongress, urging current and former staffers to
come forward with their stories. The problem was not new: according to a CQ
Roll Call survey in July 2016, 6 in 10 female staffers reported being sexually
harassed (Bacon 2017). Although Speier had sought since 2014 to change the
onerous complaint process, she finally succeeded in late 2018, aided by pressure
from all 22 female senators in an unprecedented bipartisan display of support.
Reforming the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, the law streamlines
the process for reporting allegations, stipulates that legislators are financially
liable for harassment settlements, and increases transparency regarding the
settlements reached.23
UNITED KINGDOM
#MeToo debates also spread to other political bodies around the world. In
the UK, the issue was not new. In 2013, the Liberal Democrat chief executive,
Chris Rennard, was accused of sexually harassing numerous female party col-
leagues going as far back as 2007. Although there was insufficient evidence for
criminal charges, an internal party report found credible evidence for other
claims, and he was suspended from the party in 2014. In the wake of a sexual
assault case against former Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans, in 2014 House of
Commons Speaker John Bercow established a confidential hotline for anyone
working in parliament to report incidents of harassment and bullying (Dixon
2014). Beginning in October 2017, however, a number of male cabinet minis-
ters and MPs suddenly resigned or were suspended from their parties. Some of
these offenders came to light via a list developed by parliamentary staff using a
private WhatsApp messaging group (Elgot and Mason 2017).
At the end of October, Labour MP Harriet Harman posed an Urgent
Question to House of Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom asking for a state-
ment about her plan to tackle sexual harassment in parliament. Liz Saville
Roberts, a Plaid Cymru MP, shared that a female staff member for another
MP had come to her that day, frustrated that she had reported an incident no
less than four times, but the case had gone nowhere. Roberts commented: “You
would expect this place to be setting an example and not lagging behind what is
normal workplace practice anywhere else in the country.”24
Leadsom subsequently established a cross-party working group, which
was later expanded to include an academic expert on sexual violence,25 to
develop new policies and mechanisms for handling harassment complaints and
improving the working culture at parliament (Culhane 2019). As part of its

work, the group conducted a survey that found that one of five people working
at Westminster had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment or inappropri-
ate conduct in the previous 12 months (Buchan 2018). In March 2018, Dame
Laura Cox (2018) led a parallel independent inquiry into bullying and harass-
ment of staff, noting: “No workplace is immune from pervasive misconduct of
this kind and it was perhaps not surprising that such allegations had emerged
in the world of politics, where the inherent imbalance of power creates obvious
vulnerabilities” (8).
Meanwhile, a group of women in the Labour Party formed LabourToo to
raise awareness and lobby for policy changes within the party itself.26 They set
up a website “to enable women to share their stories anonymously so that we
can build a compendium of the types of abuse women face which all too often
are unseen, ignored, or swept under the carpet.”27 At the same time, Bex Bailey,
a former youth leader within the party, came forward to reveal she had been
raped by a party figure senior to her in 2011: “It took me a while to summon up
the courage to tell anyone in the party, but when I did I told a senior member
of staff . . . it was suggested to me that I not report it. I was told that if I did
it might damage me” (Mason, Asthana, and Weaver 2017). An independent
review by lawyer Karen Monaghan confirmed that the issue was rife within the
party and called for new complaint procedures and greater support for victims.
CANADA
Debates in Canada also had a longer history. In 2014, two female MPs from
the National Democratic Party accused two male MPs from the Liberal Party
of sexual harassment. When seeking redress, the women discovered there were
no formal or informal mechanisms in place in parliament for dealing with com-
plaints involving two colleagues. They approached the Liberal Party leader,
Justin Trudeau, who suspended the two men, Scott Andrews and Massimo
Pacetti, from the party after an independent expert reviewed the complaints
(Wingrove, Curry, and Hannay 2014). In 2015, an all-party House of Commons
committee proposed a new code of conduct for MPs, together with a new com-
plaint mechanism involving party whips, the House’s chief human resources
officers and, if necessary, an independent investigator (Watters 2015).
In the wake of #MeToo, the Canadian Press surveyed female MPs of all
parties in December 2017 to learn to what extent they had been targets of sex-
ual harassment or assault. Nearly 58% of respondents said they had person-
ally experienced one or more forms of sexual misconduct during their time in
elected office, including inappropriate or unwanted remarks, gestures, or text
messages of a sexual nature. The perpetrators included lobbyists, as well as col-
leagues inside and outside their own parties (Smith 2018). A follow-up survey
of political staff of MPs, cabinet ministers, and senators revealed that 29% had
been sexually harassed at least once while working in parliament and 9% had
been sexually assaulted, with the largest share of harassers being MPs other
than those for whom they worked. Most incidents were not reported: in addi-
tion to being young and possessing less social capital than perpetrators, targets
often worked in precarious employment conditions where partisan and per-
sonal loyalty were highly valued (Samara Centre 2018).
Over the course of several days in late January 2018, however, four politi-
cal leaders stepped down in rapid succession in connection with allegations of
sexual misconduct: Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leader Jamie Baillie,
Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown, Liberal Minister Kent
Hehr, and Ontario Progressive Conservative president Rick Dykstra. That
same week a bill to amend the Canada Labour Code, extending labor code pro-
tections regarding harassment and violence to parliamentary workplaces, was
referred to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources,
Skills, and Social Development. Introduced by Employment Minister Patty
Hajdu in November 2017, the bill sought to balance employee protections
while preserving parliamentary privileges and immunities guaranteed to MPs,
ultimately passing in amended form in October 2018.28 In February 2018, the
House of Commons Procedure and House Affairs Committee unanimously
decided to review the sexual harassment code of conduct for MPs.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Few debates on these issues, in contrast, had occurred in the European

Parliament (EP) prior to the #MeToo movement. After starting work at the EP
in 2014, however, parliamentary assistant Jeanne Ponte began making notes
about incidents of sexual harassment—ones she had personally experienced as
well as others she had witnessed—in a notebook she kept in her purse. Shocked
at how often and easily people around her dismissed such acts, she recorded
the events to remind herself—if not others—that they were not “normal” or
“acceptable.”29 Other women heard and soon approached her with their own
stories, which she also recorded in the notebook.
In October 2017, her boss, Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
Édouard Martin, asked if he could mention the notebook, which at that
point contained more the 80 accounts, in a local radio interview. Shortly after,
MEPs passed a resolution on sexual harassment tabled by seven of the EP’s
eight political groups, noting that it was form of violence against women and
calling on all colleagues to support and encourage victims to speak out and
report cases of sexual harassment (European Parliament 2017). Some held up
#MeToo placards to demonstrate support, shared their experiences, and criti-
cized existing reporting mechanisms (Fallert 2019).
Concerned that little action was taken in the ensuing months, in March
2018 staffers launched MeTooEP, collecting one thousand signatures to
support full implementation of the October 2017 resolution.30 They sought the
creation of a task force of independent experts, an upgrading in the status of
doctors and psychologists on case committees, and a requirement making sex-
ual harassment training mandatory for MEPs. In October 2018, further delays
led the group set up a blog31 featuring anonymous testimonies, which organiz-
ers argued “would not have been necessary if victims felt comfortable to go
through the tools of the institution” (Ritzen 2018). Despite these pressures,
many MEPs attributed inappropriate comments and behaviors to “cultural dif-
ferences”—and some Conservative Germans, a powerful group within the EP,
argued mandatory training would infringe upon their individual rights (Berthet
and Kantola 2019). In the run-up the 2019 EP elections, MeTooEP introduced
a pledge for MEP candidates to sign, supporting work to combat sexual harass-
ment during the 2019–2024 mandate.32
ADDITIONAL DEBATES
The #MeToo movement’s effects were not limited to these legislatures, how-
ever. In Iceland, Reykjavík city councilor Heiða Björg Hilmisdóttir created a
Facebook group called Í skugga valdsins (In the shadow of power), a closed
group where over 600 women shared their experiences of sexual harassment
in Icelandic politics. More than 100 of these stories were later made public
in anonymized form (“Icelandic Women Politicians” 2017).33 In early 2018,
several female journalists came forward anonymously to accuse Russian MP
Leonid Slutsky of sexual harassment. When he laughed off the accusations,
four reporters from different outlets then came forward without anonymity,
one even sharing a recording of the incident. A parliamentary ethics commit-
tee reviewed the accusations and found no “violations of behavioral norms,”
however. In response, nearly 40 media outlets announced a boycott of the par-
liament, which retaliated by withdrawing their accreditation (Raspopina 2018).
4
An Expanded Vision
The concept of violence against women in politics, as it has emerged, has largely
been restricted to actions perpetrated against women in elections and/or within
formal political institutions. During this same period, however, parallel cam-
paigns have surfaced to draw attention to violence committed against women
human rights defenders and against female journalists, respectively. These
efforts take up highly similar issues concerning violence as a barrier to women’s
participation in the political field. This book advocates for joining these various
streams to forge a more comprehensive concept of violence against women in
politics, underscoring continuities across challenges faced by politically active
women of all types.
Violence against Women Human Rights Defenders
Article 12 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders establishes

that everyone has the right “to participate in peaceful activities against viola-
tions of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” It also stipulates the right
to be protected “against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure
adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence
of . . . legitimate exercise of [these] rights” (UN General Assembly 1998, 6).
In 2000, the Commission on Human Rights1 requested that Secretary-General
Kofi Annan appoint a Special Representative on the Situation of Human
Rights Defenders to gather information, enter into dialogue with governments,
and recommend strategies to better protect defenders. He named Pakistani law-
yer Hina Jilani to the position later that year.
Jilani’s first report to the UN General Assembly in 2002 included a chap-
ter on women. It noted that women defenders “face risks that are specific to
their gender and additional to those faced by men,” because “they may defy
cultural, religious, or social norms about femininity and the role of women
An Expanded Vision 37
in a particular country or society.” Jilani (2002) went on to observe that “the

hostility, harassment and repression women defenders face may themselves
take a gender-specific form, ranging from, for example, verbal abuse directed
exclusively at women because of their gender to sexual harassment and rape.”
She also pointed out specific risks inherent in defending women’s rights, “as the
assertion of some such rights is seen as a threat to patriarchy and as disruptive
of cultural, religious, and societal mores” (22).
Inclusion of women human rights defenders in the report was significant in
that it built on and extended the work of women’s rights activists in the 1980s
and 1990s who had argued “women’s rights are human rights” (Bunch 1990).
Although activists successfully lobbied to integrate a gender perspective into
the major international rights declarations adopted in the 1990s (Friedman
2003), defenders on the ground continued to meet with strong resistance to
the recognition of women’s human rights. Further, the women advocating and
seeking to protect these rights were frequently attacked themselves on gendered
grounds.2
Growing awareness of this problem led to collaboration between the
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and
Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) on a publication entitled
Written Out: How Sexuality Is Used to Attack Women’s Organizing. Launched
in 2000 at a public event during the UN’s five-year review of the Fourth World
Conference on Women (Beijing +5), the book pointed to a growing counter-
reaction to “women who dare to assert their leadership and perspectives as
public advocates” and “the disparagement and silencing of their identities and
political visions through sexuality-based attacks” (Rothschild 2005, 1).
At the Beijing +5 event, as well as at annual meetings of the UN’s
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in the early 2000s, women’s rights
opponents disrupted events and harassed participants on numerous occasions.
These incidents inspired IGLHRC and CWGL to revise and update the pub-
lication in preparation for the Beijing +10 meetings in 2005. A new chapter
addressed efforts to discredit female leaders, whether or not their work was
related to gender and sexuality. A key tactic, the publication observed, involved
the continual questioning of these women’s sexuality morality—in some cases
by suggesting, often erroneously, that they were lesbians.
To turn these insights into coordinated activism, a group of organizations—
Amnesty International; the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and
Development (APWLD); CWGL; and International Women’s Rights Action
Watch Asia Pacific—organized a meeting with Special Representative Jilani
in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2004, with the idea of organizing an interna-
tional conference on women human rights defenders in 2005. Joined by the
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development; Front Line; Information
Monitor; IGLHRC; International Service for Human Rights; the International
League for Human Rights; and the World Organization against Torture, the
Geneva group established the International Campaign on Women Human

Rights Defenders. To ensure balance between women’s rights and human rights
groups, they subsequently invited ISIS-Women’s International Cross-Cultural
Exchange, the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of
Human Rights, and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) to join
the campaign.
Held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the 2005 consultation brought together
more than 200 activists from over 75 countries, along with current and former
UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights Defenders; Adequate Housing;
Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions; and Violence against
Women. Providing a platform to recognize violence against women human
rights defenders, the consultation highlighted abuse emanating from both state
and non-state actors, as well as the need to include sexual rights and LGBT
defenders under the “women human rights defenders” umbrella. The meeting
also offered skills workshops on security; prevention and protection; documen-
tation; and mental and emotional well-being. Participants decided to create a
series of resource tools, spearheaded by different partner organizations, build-
ing on these topics. They also committed to mobilizing around November 29 as
International Women Human Rights Defenders Day (Real 2005).
In 2007, APWLD published Claiming Rights, Claiming Justice: A Guidebook
on Women Human Rights Defenders, providing an analytical framework for
understanding the issues facing women human rights defenders. To incorporate
a wide range of perspectives, they organized two consultations, one in Nepal
with participants from South Asia and the other in Indonesia with activists
from Asia and the Middle East. Based on documentation from organizations as
well as personal stories shared during the consultations, the guidebook defined
the concept of women human rights defenders to encompass “women active in
human rights defense who are targeted for who they are as well as those active in
the defense of women’s rights who are targeted for what they do,” clarifying that
this included LGBT activists (APWLD 2007, 15).
Theorizing violence against women human rights defenders, the book
noted that attacks may take gender-specific forms (like sexual harassment and
rape) and generate gender-specific repercussions (like pregnancy). In a critique
of existing national and international frameworks, the volume pointed out that
many abuses faced by women were not classified as rights violations or were
ignored in favor of similar atrocities against male defenders. It also criticized
the disregard of abuses committed by non-state actors, like family and com-
munity members. It attributed these oversights—as well as the perpetration of
these acts of violence more generally—to patriarchal imperatives to preserve
male and heteronormative privilege.
In a parallel set of initiatives, the Urgent Action Fund (UAF) for Women’s
Human Rights published a series of books focusing on security strategies
for women human rights defenders. Set up in 1997, the UAF provides rapid
response grants to women human rights activists around the world to stay safe
or respond to a threat.3 Drawing on stories of more than 100 activists from 45
countries, the first volume explored how activists managed daily physical and
emotional stress (Barry and Đorđević 2007). A second book, based on col-
laboration with Front Line and the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, focused
on cataloguing strategies women human rights defenders used to cope with
and mitigate security threats. These included hyper-vigilance, fatalism, humor,
denial, and paranoia, pointing to the enormous emotional, spiritual, and
physical costs involved in suppressing fear and facing violence on a daily basis
(Barry with Nainar 2008). Working from a protection manual first developed
by Front Line in 2005, a final product translated this research into a set of
practical and gender-sensitive tools (Barry 2011).
The International Committee— a steering group of the International
Campaign on Women Human Rights Defenders—had been dissolved after the
final reports of the 2005 consultation in Sri Lanka. In 2008, however, many of
the same organizations came together again to formalize a new network, the
Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRDIC), which
by 2019 included 28 member organizations from around the world.4 Relying on
funds, contacts, expertise, staff time, and facilities from member associations,
the WHRDIC worked on lobbying human rights organizations, as well as the
new Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, to increase their focus
and reporting on women human rights defenders. A survey of members in the
first year found that increasing conservatism around the world exposed women
human rights defenders to greater risks. This included growing violence perpe-
trated by non-state actors, like religious fundamentalists, whose acts were—at
the same time—often dismissed as “less serious” forms of human rights viola-
tions. Documenting acts committed against women was rendered more difficult
by the fact that states and organizations usually did not make note of the sex
or gender of victims of human rights abuses or include many gender-specific
offenses (Real 2009).
In the ensuing years, publications produced by WHRDIC working groups
focused on enhancing analytical understandings as well as creating practi-
cal tools for responding to and documenting the problem. Facilitated by the
Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), the Working Group
on Urgent Responses mapped existing resources, many of which were not
designed specifically for women human rights defenders (Barcia 2011); devel-
oped recommendations for strengthening response mechanisms for women
human rights defenders at risk (Barcia and Penchaszadeh 2012); and advanced
a holistic approach to security recognizing multiple forms, locations, and per-
petrators of violence (Barcia 2014).
Coordinated by WLUML, the Documentation Manual Working Group
addressed issues related to documenting abuses from a gender perspective. It
noted that existing projects often made assumptions about who defenders are
(men), where violations take place (public spaces), who perpetrates these abuses
(agents of state), what kinds of advocacy are associated with human rights
advocacy (ending the death penalty), and what constitutes a human rights
violation (torture in prison). Prevailing approaches thus tended to exclude—
and thus ignore—the experiences of female defenders, offenses occurring in
private spaces, acts committed by non-state actors, individuals engaged in
women’s rights advocacy, and violations that were gendered or sexual in nature.
Adopting a feminist methodology, the WHRDIC framed documentation as a
form of empowerment, “a politically-motivated telling of women human rights
defenders’ stories . . . a thread between our acts of resistance and the abuses we
face” (WHRDIC 2015, 2).
In the midst of these developments, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-
moon named Margaret Sekaggya as the (newly renamed) Special Rapporteur
on Human Rights Defenders in 2008. In line with a resolution requesting
that future special rapporteurs “integrate a gender perspective throughout
the work of his/her mandate, paying particular attention to the situation of
WHRDs” (UN Human Rights Council 2008, 2), Sekaggya’s first report in
2008—outlining her vision and priorities—called attention to the greater risks
faced by women defenders, particularly those working in the area of women’s
rights. Her third report in 2010 was devoted exclusively to the situation of
women human rights defenders. In it, she expanded official debates on these
issues in several new directions, reflecting changes in activist understandings.
First, she expanded the focus to include male defenders working on women’s
rights and gender issues, as well as abuses perpetrated against spouses, part-
ners, and family members of defenders. Second, she specifically mentioned
defenders of sexual and reproductive rights, topics often excluded from tra-
ditional human rights agendas.5 Third, she linked a variety of professions to
the pursuit of human rights, listing violations against female health workers,
lawyers, journalists, trade union leaders, and indigenous and environmental
activists (Sekaggya 2010, 7–11).
The year 2013 marked a turning point in terms of broader institutional-
ization of these ideas. In March, the Agreed Conclusions emerging from the
annual CSW meetings included language on women human rights defenders
for the first time. In December, the General Assembly adopted its first resolu-
tion on women human rights defenders. Incorporating many of the ideas found
in earlier publications by WHRDIC members, Resolution 68/181 expressed
“particular concern about systemic and structural discrimination and violence
faced by women human rights defenders of all ages” and called on states to
“integrate a gender perspective into their efforts to create a safe and enabling
environment for the defense of human rights” (UN General Assembly 2013b,
4). Its adoption, however, was not a smooth process, with last minute interven-
tions from conservative governments and the Holy See to remove references to
sexual and reproductive rights (WHRDIC 2015, 76).
In advance of the 20th anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights

Defenders, in December 2017 the General Assembly adopted Resolution 72/
247, reiterating the key points made in Resolution 68/181. The 2019 report of
Michel Forst (2019), the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders since
2014, captured further advances in theorizing violence against women human
rights defenders. First, it explicitly recognized the role of intersectionality—or
interactions with other facets of identity, like race, ethnicity, age, and sexual
orientation—in shaping “stereotypes and deeply held ideas and norms about
who women are and how women should be” (2). Second, it expanded the cat-
egory of women human rights defenders to include lawyers, journalists, union
leaders, politicians, judges, academics, humanitarian and development workers,
and health workers, among others. Third, it highlighted recent changes in the
global political context leading to “greater resistance” to the work of women
human rights defenders and a “rise in misogynistic, sexist, and homophobic
speech by prominent political leaders . . . normalizing violence against women
and gender non-conforming persons” (6). This report thus offered a clear
bridge to debates on violence against women in politics, above and beyond the
striking parallels in conceptualization across these two phenomena.
Violence against Female Journalists
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes that

“everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression . . . and to seek,
receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers” (UN 1948, 5). In 1997, the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution condemning vio-
lence against journalists. Resolution 29 observed with concern that “over the
past ten years an increasing number of journalists have been assassinated for
exercising their profession” and that “the majority of these crimes still go
unpunished.” Pointing to Article 19, the resolution argued that “assassina-
tion and any physical violence against journalists” constituted a “crime against
society, since this curtails freedom of expression and, as a consequence, the
other rights and freedoms set forth in international human rights instruments”
(UNESCO 1997, 1–2).
In 2002, the International Federation of Journalists and International
Press Institute proposed the creation of a journalism safety body. Launched in
2003, the International News Safety Institute (INSI) provides training, coun-
seling, and support for journalists around the world, particular those reporting
in conflict zones. In 2004, it conducted a survey, sponsored by the Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency, to determine whether
female war journalists faced specific safety concerns. The survey found that
82% of survey respondents encountered physical attacks or intimidation, 55%
experienced sexual harassment, and 7% faced sexual abuse while covering con-
flict.6 At an event organized in early 2005 with the Dart Center for Journalism
and Trauma to discuss these findings, female war correspondents and secu-
rity trainers pointed to widespread ignorance and dismissal of women’s safety
concerns.7 As one participant later remarked, leading handbooks on journalist
safety included no sections on sexual harassment and assault, an “oversight”
which is “staggering” given “the level of detail over protection against other
eventualities” (Matloff 2007, 23).
A dramatic shift in awareness occurred, however, following the widely
reported mass sexual assault of American news correspondent Lara Logan
in Tahrir Square in February 2011. In The Silencing Crime: Sexual Violence
and Journalists, a report for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Wolfe
(2011) interviewed more than 50 female journalists about sexual violence expe-
rienced either in retaliation for their work or in the course of their reporting.
These acts fell into three broad categories: targeted sexual violation of spe-
cific journalists in reprisal for their work; mob-related sexual violence against
journalists covering specific events; and sexual abuse of journalists in deten-
tion or captivity. Risk came not only from strangers on the street, but also
from co-workers and the men who guarded their lodging, drove their cars, or
helped arrange their appointments. Few had previously disclosed their experi-
ences due to cultural stigmas, widespread impunity for perpetrators, and pro-
fessional concerns about being denied future assignments. As a result, sexual
violence “remained a dark, largely unexplored corner” (9), in contrast to mur-
ders, imprisonments, threats of censorship, and other forms of assault regu-
larly documented by CPJ and other press groups worldwide. To fill this gap,
CPJ published an addendum to its existing security guide, focusing on ways to
minimize the risk of sexual assault.8
The following year, UNESCO and the UN Special Rapporteur on the
Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression
incorporated these findings in their Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists
and Report to the Human Rights Council, respectively, calling for a gender-
sensitive approach when considering measures to address the issue of violence
against journalists in both conflict and non-conflict environments (LaRue 2012;
UNESCO 2012). Nearly identical language appeared in UN General Assembly
Resolution 68/163 on “The Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity” in
2013 (UN General Assembly 2013a). In his report on women, peace, and secu-
rity to the Security Council, the UN Secretary-General went further to recom-
mend that “sexual violence, death threats, or murders of women human rights
defenders and journalists” be considered when adopting or renewing targeted
sanctions in situations of armed conflict (UN Secretary-General 2013b, 30).
During the second half of 2013, INSI and the International Women’s
Media Foundation (IWMF) collaborated on the first comprehensive study
of dangers faced by women working in news media around the world. The
project built on No Woman’s Land, a book inspired by the attack on Logan

and published by INSI in 2012, providing testimonies about safety challenges
from 40 female media workers around the world (Storm and Williams 2012).
The global survey of nearly 1000 women found that two-thirds had experi-
enced intimidation, threats, or abuse in relation to their work. Physical violence
tended to be committed by strangers in crowds or public places, while sexual
harassment and assaults occurred both in the field and in the workplace, where
it was perpetrated by male bosses, supervisors, and co-workers. Roughly one in
five respondents experienced phone taps and various types of digital security
threats. When state officials were involved, threats of imprisonment and with-
drawal of press passes were most common (Barton and Storm 2014).
Over the course of 2015, UN Security Council Resolution 2222 acknowl-
edged the “specific risks faced by women journalists” and the importance
of “considering the gender dimension of measures to address their safety in
situations of armed conflict” (UN Security Council 2015, 3), while the UN
General Assembly (2015) and UN Secretary-General (2015) reiterated their
earlier statements regarding gender and journalist safety. In a new initiative, the
Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Dunja Mijatović, issued a communiqué on the
growing safety threat to female journalists online. While pointing out that the
“female journalists targeted most report on crime, politics, and sensitive—and
sometimes painful—issues,” she noted that “online attacks tend not to address
the content of the articles but instead degrade the journalist as a woman.”9
After conducting a small qualitative study in English and Russian with
female journalists across the OSCE region, Mijatović convened an expert
group meeting in Vienna in September 2015 with 80 stakeholders represent-
ing governments, the media and communications industries, academia, inter-
national organizations, and civil society. The meeting called on OSCE member
states to “declare, unequivocally, that any effort to silence women online must
be regarded as a direct attack on our fundamental freedoms” (Mijatović 2016,
1). It also led to a report featuring testimonies and strategies to deal with online
threats against female journalists. These essays pointed to varied motivations
for these threats: intimidation to stop them from pursuing a particular story;
efforts to discredit or humiliate them in retaliation for past reporting; antiso-
cial acts with no strategic aims other than personal harm to the target; and
workplace aggression—like gender discrimination or sexual harassment—by a
co-worker or boss.
Growing awareness of these issues led to stepped-up efforts to collect wom-
en’s firsthand accounts and to improve existing channels of data collection.
For the first time, the CPJ’s annual report, Attacks on the Press, focused exclu-
sively on gender, violence, and press freedom (Committee to Protect Journalists
2016). In late 2016, the UNESCO governing council invited Director-General
Irina Bokova to improve “data disaggregation [on journalist safety] in order to
highlight the specific risks faced by women journalists in the exercise of their
work.”10 In 2017, the International Federation of Journalists launched a survey
of 400 female journalists in 50 countries, which found that nearly half (48%)
had suffered gender-based violence at work. Of these, 63% had faced verbal
abuse, 44% online abuse, 41% psychological abuse, 37% sexual harassment,
21% economic abuse, and 11% physical violence. Slightly more than half (55%)
of the perpetrators were supervisors or colleagues; the other 45% were sources,
politicians, readers, or listeners.11
Updating its earlier research, the IWMF collaborated with TrollBusters on
a survey of nearly 600 female journalists and media workers in 2018, supple-
mented by 25 in-person interviews in 2017 and 2018. Nearly two-thirds (63%)
of the survey respondents reported that they had been threatened or harassed
online at least once. Nearly 60% had been threatened or harassed in person,
while 26% had been physically attacked and 10% had received death threats.
Most felt that the number of threats in general had grown over the last five
years; almost all (90%) said that online threats had increased (Ferrier 2018, 22,
25). Looking at the content of these threats, the report noted that many were
“sexist in nature, designed to intimidate or shame the journalists,” aiming “to
discredit women journalists and media workers, damage their reputations, and
ultimately silence them” (12). Most of these threats appeared in online com-
ment sections of news articles, followed by professional and personal Twitter
accounts.
International organizations began to accelerate their efforts in this area in
2017. In his annual report on the safety of journalists, the UN Secretary-General
(2017) observed rising levels of violence, threats, and harassment directed at
female journalists. He noted that while women faced many of the same human
rights violations experienced by their male counterparts, they were also subject
to additional forms of violence motivated by gender discrimination, involving
“severe social pressure not to enter the profession, or to leave it” (3). For this
reason, women who covered politics or women’s rights were particularly likely
to become targets of abuse. He expressed concerns that these attacks were caus-
ing women to self-censor or leave the profession, resulting in an absence of
women’s voices and perspectives in the media. These dynamics not only further
entrenched inequality and discrimination, but also impoverished democracy by
affecting rights to free expression and access to information.
UNESCO, for its part, added a module on gender and safe reporting to its
model syllabus for training journalists in physical and digital safety. The 2017
edition of its Safety Guide for Journalists, produced together with Reporters
without Borders, also included a specific focus on the safety of women journal-
ists. In November 2017, the UNESCO General Conference invited the Director-
General to undertake further activities “addressing the specific threats to the
safety of women journalists, both online and off-line” (UNESCO 2017, 43).
UNESCO also organized a panel on threats encountered by women journalists

at the 2018 CSW meetings in New York.
Continuing the work of his predecessor, the new OSCE Representative on
Freedom of the Media Harlem Désir launched the Safety of Female Journalists
Online project in late 2017. Via workshops with journalists, academics, and
civil society, the project aimed to raise awareness, provide tools and resources
for journalists targeted with online abuse, and create a network of support for
female journalists across the OSCE region (OSCE Representative on Freedom
of the Media 2018). The OSCE Ministerial Council (2018) subsequently took
up these themes at its December 2018 meeting, condemning “publicly and
unequivocally attacks on women journalists in relation to their work, such as
sexual harassment, abuse, intimidation, threats and violence, including through
digital technologies” (3). Collaborating with the International Press Institute,
the OSCE Representative also published a study in 2019 on best practices used
by newsrooms across Europe for addressing online harassment and attacks on
female journalists (Trionfi and Luque 2019). Like work on violence against
women in politics and women human rights defenders, these initiatives recog-
nize the gender-specific tools employed to exclude women from exercising their
rights to participate in political life.
5
International Recognition
The conversations outlined in previous chapters have resonated across diverse

contexts and captured the attention of actors, from local to international lev-
els, concerned about the role of violence as a previously unarticulated bar-
rier to women’s political participation. This is not a small achievement. As
Kingdon (1984) notes, “Getting people to see new problems, or to see old
problems in one way rather than another, is a major conceptual and politi-
cal accomplishment” (121). Yet similarities across conceptualizations of vio-
lence against women in electoral politics, violence against women human
rights defenders, and violence against female journalists also suggest that fur-
ther leverage might be gained by uniting these separate streams into a single
broader concept, highlighting how violence may be deployed as an effective
tool for excluding and marginalizing women serving in different political roles.
This merging has started to occur, to some extent, as the concept of violence
against women in politics has become embedded in a growing number of
global normative frameworks.
CEDAW Committee Reports and General Recommendations
CEDAW has provided one entry point for consolidating and gaining recogni-
tion of the concept of violence against women in politics. Every year, a selec-
tion of member states submits country reports addressing the progress they
have made—or not made—toward reaching the goals set out by the conven-
tion. The CEDAW Committee—a body of 23 independent women’s rights
experts who monitor implementation of CEDAW—reviews and provides com-
ments on these reports. Between 2015 and mid-2019, the committee raised the
issue of violence against women in politics in concluding observations to five
country reports: Bolivia in 2015, Honduras in 2016, Costa Rica in 2017, Italy
in 2017,1 and Mexico in 2018.
International Recognition 47
In each case, the CEDAW Committee viewed violence as posing a challenge

to effective implementation of Article 7, which stipulates that states should
“take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in
the political and public life of the country” (UN 1979, 3). Adopting a broad
definition of political engagement, Article 7 mandates that states must “ensure
to women, on equal terms with men” the rights to vote and be eligible for elec-
tion, to hold public office and perform all public functions, and to participate
in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and associations concerned with
the public and political life of the country. To fight discrimination, the com-
mittee recommended the passage or more effective application of legislation to
combat political harassment and violence against women.
General Recommendations are a second tool which the CEDAW Committee
can use to raise attention to issues it believes merit further attention from states.
Indeed, the problem of violence against women first entered the remit of the
committee through this mechanism, as this issue is not mentioned anywhere
in the text of the convention itself. In 1989, General Recommendation No.
12 requested statistical data as well as information on laws and other mea-
sures adopted to eradicate this violence. Expanding on discussions taking place
around the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, General Recommendation
No. 19 in 1992 provided a lengthier treatment of the topic, including defin-
ing gender-based violence and how it constituted a form of discrimination
against women.
While General Recommendation No. 19 briefly mentions that “gender-
based violence” may keep “women in subordinate roles and contribute to their
low level of political participation” (CEDAW Committee 1992, 2), the issue
was elaborated at greater length for the first time in General Recommendation
No. 30, adopted in 2013. Discussing women in conflict prevention, conflict, and
post-conflict situations, the recommendation stated that “substantive progress
towards the equal participation of women as candidates and voters” would
require ensuring that “women voters and female political candidates are not
subject to violence by state or private actors.” To this end, it recommended that
states “adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of violence that under-
mine women’s participation, including targeted violence by state and non-state
groups against women campaigning for public office or women exercising their
right to vote” (CEDAW Committee 2013, 19).
General Recommendation No. 35 on gender- based violence against
women, adopted in 2017, served to update General Recommendation No. 19.
Drawing connections between the various campaigns outlined in the previous
chapters of this book, the new recommendation stated that “harmful prac-
tices and crimes against women human rights defenders, politicians, activists,
or journalists are . . . forms of gender-based violence against women.” In a later
paragraph, the recommendation further stressed that “gender-based violence
against women occurs in all spaces and spheres of human interaction, whether
public or private, including . . . politics” (CEDAW Committee 2017, 6–7).
UN Special Rapporteur Reports
A second mode of institutionalization has occurred via the mandate of the

UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women. Created in 1994 by the
UN Commission on Human Rights (now the UN Human Rights Council,
HRC), the Special Rapporteur seeks and receives information on, and recom-
mends measures to eliminate, all forms of violence against women. In 2008,
the HRC adopted Resolution 7/24 which, among other provisions, added that
the Special Rapporteur should “continue to adopt a comprehensive and uni-
versal approach to the elimination of violence against women, its causes and
consequences, including causes of violence against women related to the civil,
cultural, economic, political, and social spheres” (HRC 2008, 4).
Two reports submitted in 2018 by Dubravka Šimonović, the Special
Rapporteur since 2015, take up the question of violence against women in
politics. The first report focused on online violence against women and girls,
observing that gendered attacks were pervasive on the internet and produced a
range of psychological, physical, sexual, and economic harms to women.
Šimonović (2018a) specifically identified “women human rights defend-
ers, women in politics, including parliamentarians, [and] journalists” as groups
“directly targeted, threatened, harassed, and even killed for their work,” includ-
ing through generally misogynistic, often sexualized, and expressly gendered
online threats. Stating that such abuse was a “direct attack on women’s visibility
and full participation in public life” (8), she argued that online violence against
these actors had an individual and a societal impact, violating women’s rights
and undermining democracy.
The second report explicitly tackled the topic of violence against women
in politics. In a June 2016 press release, the Special Rapporteur referenced the
tragic death of Jo Cox and NDI’s #NotTheCost campaign to announce her
plans to focus on this topic in an upcoming study.2 In March 2018, the Office of
the High Commissioner on Human Rights and UN Women convened a meet-
ing in New York to support her mandate with more than 40 experts, including
politicians, academics, gender equality advocates, representatives from regional
human and women’s rights monitoring mechanisms, electoral management
bodies, and various UN agencies.3
In her report to the UN General Assembly in October 2018, Šimonović
captured the collective contributions of the many actors who have participated
in these debates over the last several years. The section on violence against
women in parliaments included references to data collection and interven-
tions developed by the IPU and NDI; the section on violence against women
in elections pointed to the work of UN Women, UNDP, SAP International,

International IDEA, FIDA Kenya, and IFES; and the section on interventions
mentioned CIM’s model law. The report adopted a slightly expanded definition
of “women in politics,” however, to include “all women involved in political
activities, those elected at the national or local levels, members and candidates
of political parties, government and state officials at the local, national, and
international levels, civil servants, ministers, [and] ambassadors,” with the fur-
ther examples of “human rights defenders” and “activists” in the following sen-
tence (Šimonović 2018b, 5).
UN General Assembly Resolutions
A third pathway to rooting the concept of violence against women in poli-

tics in global frameworks has been through efforts at the UN to respond to
the conversations initiated by the #MeToo movement. In December 2018, the
UN General Assembly approved Resolution 73/148, linking sexual harassment
to the intensification of efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence
against women and girls. In addition to being the first General Assembly reso-
lution to take up sexual harassment, this resolution is significant for at least
two reasons.
First, its preamble expressed deep concerns about “all acts of violence,
including sexual harassment, against women and girls involved in political
and public life, including women in leadership positions, journalists and other
media workers, and human rights defenders” (UN General Assembly 2018,
3). In a single sentence, it thus drew together diverse strands of these debates,
highlighting broad continuities across the actions and actors forming part of
this phenomenon. Second, the resolution encouraged national parliaments
and political parties “to adopt codes of conduct and reporting mechanisms,
or revise existing ones, stating zero tolerance by these legislative authorities
and political parties for sexual harassment, intimidation, and any other form
of violence against women in politics” (5), making it the first UN document to
specifically invoke this concept following the Special Rapporteur’s report.
ILO Convention on the World of Work
A fourth, and perhaps unexpected, way that violence against women in politics
has been integrated into international frameworks is through a recent standard-
setting campaign at the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO
brings together governments, employers, and workers from UN member states
to set labor standards, develop policies, and devise programs promoting decent
work for all women and men. In 2015, the ILO’s governing body decided to
place the issue of violence against women and men in the world of work on
the agenda for its conference in 2018. An expert group meeting in 2016 sug-
gested replacing the term “violence” with the broader phrase “violence and
harassment” to “ensure the range of unacceptable behavior being targeted is
adequately understood and addressed” (ILO Director-General 2017, 2). The
2018 International Labour Conference (ILC) approved the agenda item, set-
ting in motion negotiations between representatives of governments, employ-
ers, and workers and culminating in the adoption of the finalized instrument
in June 2019.
In 2018, the 16 Days Campaign—an international campaign coordinated
by CWGL each year calling for the elimination of all forms of gender-based
violence4—joined the global call for the new ILO convention. To comple-
ment advocacy by unions and labor organizations, 16 Days launched the
#ILOendGBV hashtag to strengthen global awareness and demand for the new
instrument. To bring needed feminist voices to these debates, CWGL devel-
oped a Sector Focus Initiative to highlight violence and discrimination faced by
women in various labor sectors, using a curated set of reports, videos, and news
items to give a human face to gender-based violence in the world of work and
build an evidence-based case for the convention. The five sectors included agri-
cultural workers, domestic workers, garment workers, journalists, and women
in politics.5
The emphasis on the “world of work” rather than the “workplace” in
the broader campaign sought to capture all aspects of the work environment,
breaking down the false dichotomy between the public world of work and the
private sphere of the home.6 The campaign by CWGL and others lobbied for
five core demands within this framework: recognition of violence and harass-
ment against women in the world of work as a human rights violation; a broad
definition of “worker” to encompass all female workers, including those over-
represented in unpaid, underpaid, and/ or informal jobs; a comprehensive
understanding of “the world of work” to provide protection beyond the work-
place, such as during commutes or online; a wide scope ensuring protection
to those most vulnerable and including intimate partner violence; and strong
language recognizing and addressing the gendered nature of violence and dis-
crimination faced by female workers.7
On the final day of its 2019 conference, the ILC voted overwhelmingly to
adopt the new instrument, known officially as the Convention Concerning the
Elimination of Violence and Harassment in the World of Work, which will
enter into force 12 months after two member states have ratified it. From the
perspective of debates on violence against women in politics, the convention
makes two crucial additions. First, it highlights—from a new angle—the larger
implications of allowing violence and harassment to continue undisturbed,
stating that it “can constitute a human rights violation or abuse” and, as such,
is “unacceptable and incompatible with decent work” (ILO 2019, 2).
Second, the convention contains a number of articles that help resolve

ambiguities and specificities regarding “politics” as a place of work. Article
2 defines “workers” to include “employees,” as well as “persons working irre-
spective of their contractual status, persons in training, including interns and
apprentices,” “volunteers,” and “individuals exercising the authority, duties or
responsibilities of an employer.” Article 3 clarifies that the “world of work”
encompasses both public and private spaces serving as places of work. It also
includes other locations where work occurs, including “work-related trips,
travel, training, events or social activities” and “work-related communications,
including those enabled by information and communication technologies” (6).
These provisions identify and fill gaps that have posed challenges to dealing
with issues of sexual as well as online harassment in political spaces.
Additional Statement and Frameworks
A handful of other global actors have also helped ground the concept of vio-
lence against women in politics in international documents and frameworks.
In 2010, the HRC established the Working Group on Discrimination against
Women in Law and in Practice to help promote and exchange good practices
related to eliminating laws that discriminate against women. In its first the-
matic report, the working group took up the topic of discrimination against
women in public and political life, focusing on current achievements and fur-
ther challenges to women’s full and equal participation. Published in 2013, the
report includes an entire section on violence against women, building on the
report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in 2010 and UN
General Assembly Resolution 66/130 from 2011. Seeing the link between these
two strands, the report observes that “stigmatization, harassment and outright
attacks have been used to silence and discredit women who are outspoken as
leaders, community workers, human rights defenders, and politicians” (UN
Human Rights Council 2013, 15).
More recently, members of the Convening Committee for the Declaration
of Principles (DoP) for International Election Observation and the Code
of Conduct for International Election Observers came together to develop
DoP Guidelines on Integrating Gender Considerations in International
Observation, including Violence Against Women in Elections. Developed in
the early 2000s as a framework for credible international electoral observation,
the DoP is currently endorsed by more than 50 intergovernmental and inter-
national organizations. Finalized in 2019, the gender guidelines outlined many
ways in which women may participate in elections, including as citizen election
observers, media representatives, and election workers, emphasizing that they
should be able to serve in all these capacities “without fear or threat of vio-
lence” (Convening Committee 2019, 6).8
6
A “New” Phenomenon?
The concept of violence against women in politics has only recently arrived
on the world stage, but as feminist naming projects suggest, the birth of new
vocabulary does not necessarily mean that the experiences it describes are
novel. Applying this lens to women’s experiences in the past, indeed, reveals
stark parallels with present debates, indicating that violence has long served as
a tool to exclude women from political life. At the same time, growing attention
to this phenomenon coincides with other developments that appear to be caus-
ally related: rising levels of incivility in world politics, bolstered by advances
in communications technologies, as well as increased levels of female political
engagement around the world. The lack of prior benchmarks complicates the
task of testing these various explanations. Yet the search for a definitive answer
may also be misplaced: these accounts more likely overlap and coexist, collec-
tively capturing distinct elements driving this phenomenon.
Scenario 1: An Old Problem Newly Expressed
One perspective is that violence against women in politics is simply a new

expression of an old problem. Drawing on historical examples, this account
highlights continuities in resistance to women’s political engagement. In some
instances, evidence of violence has long existed, but recent events cast a new
light on their meaning. In others, current debates have inspired women to speak
out about—and problematize—events they experienced in the past. Recent
events have thus raised awareness of long-standing dynamics, rather than
uncovered an entirely new problem.
SUFFRAGE CAMPAIGNERS
Centenaries of women’s suffrage in some countries have coincided with rising

attention to the problem of violence against women in politics. In the UK, an
A “New” Phenomenon? 53
exhibition at the Museum of London in 2018 highlighted incidents of violence

faced by militant suffragettes.1 In a media interview, the curator, Beverley Cook,
shared a postcard addressed to members of the Women’s Social and Political
Union with the text: “You set of sickening fools. If you have no homes, no
husbands, no children, no relations, why don’t you just drown yourselves out of
the way?” A handwritten letter to another individual advised: “your windows
are likely to be broken shortly, as an act of retaliation, so would warn you to
take precautions.” Cook drew comparisons between this hate mail and threats
that female politicians today receive on Facebook and Twitter(Shearing 2018).
The most notorious incident of violence faced by suffragettes occurred in
November 1910, when women marched to the House of Commons upon learn-
ing that the prime minister was not going to take up a new suffrage bill. The
first contingent faced some physical resistance but was able to enter parlia-
ment. Later waves of women, however, were pushed back by police, and over
the course of six hours, were brutally assaulted leading to numerous physical
injuries (Morrell 1981).
A subsequent inquiry by a journalist and a psychologist drew attention
to the sexual nature of many of these acts. One woman testified: “One police-
man . . . put his arm round me and seized my left breast, nipping it and wring-
ing it very painfully, saying as he did so, ‘You have been wanting this for a long
time, haven’t you?’ ” Another woman attested: “my skirt was lifted up as high
as possible and the constable . . . threw me into the crowd and incited the men
to treat me as they wished.” The authors concluded that the impression con-
veyed by this evidence was that the police sought to “inflict upon [the women]
a degree of humiliation and pain which would deter them or intimidate them”
(Murray and Brailsford 1911, 9–13).
These attacks were not isolated incidents. Women selling suffrage news-
papers often faced physical abuse (Shearing 2018). In 1913 and 1914, anti-
suffrage forces around the country mobbed speakers at suffragist meetings,
wrecked local suffrage offices, threw stones and vegetables at suffragist carts in
the streets, and broke windows of suffragists’ homes (Harrison 1978).
Women in the United States similarly experienced violence in 1913 when
taking part in a suffrage parade in Washington, DC, the day before Woodrow
Wilson’s presidential inauguration. More than 300 people were injured when
thousands of spectators rioted (Finnegan 1999, 52), causing parade leaders to
call in cavalry officers when police failed to keep order. In addition to attempt-
ing to ignite parade flags and banners, spectators “pinched, fondled, spat on,
insulted, jostled, kicked, pulled, and trampled” the marchers, with injuries
serious enough to require more than 40 women to be hospitalized overnight
(Jensen 2008, 5). During a subsequent Congressional hearing, one parade offi-
cial stated that she had asked a police officer to help an injured woman, but he
simply responded: “there would be nothing like this happen if you would stay
at home” (U.S. Senate 1913, 70).
FEMALE POLITICIANS
The first women elected to various political offices also faced extensive, and
sometimes violent, resistance. Nancy Astor, the first female MP to take her
seat2 in the British House of Commons and a Conservative, faced “hostility—
petty, persistent, and often vicious” from her male colleagues, “mostly from
her own party.” In a campaign to discourage other constituencies from adopt-
ing female candidates, these male MPs sought to prove that Astor—and by
extension all other women—were unable to stand the work. Their harassment
included refusing to give her a seat at the end of the bench so that she was
forced to climb over the men’s legs, telling her that no women’s toilets were
available nearby so that she was compelled to search for facilities on the far side
of the building, and putting up graphic photographs during a debate on vene-
real disease in an effort to embarrass her. Recalling this “bullying animosity,”
she told her biographer: “If I’d known how much men would hate it I never
would have dared do it” (Fox 1998, 322).
In 1954, Coya Knutson became the first woman from Minnesota elected
to the U.S. Congress. As she was running for re-election in 1958, a letter signed
by her estranged husband, Andy, was published in a regional newspaper.
Urging her to “come home,” he stated in the letter that he was “sick and tired
of having [her] run around with other men all the time and not [her] husband”
(Beito 1990, 237). Members of her own party had in fact paid Andy to sign
the letter which they had written themselves, upset that she had twice prevailed
over candidates preferred by party bosses. They also circulated false rumors
in her very religious district that she was having an affair with a young male
aide. At a time when women’s place was believed to be the home, the story was
quickly picked up in newspapers nationwide and had a devastating impact on
Knutson’s re-election campaign. She ultimately lost the race to a Republican
challenger whose campaign slogan was, tellingly, “a big man for a man-sized
job” (270).
SEXUAL PREDATORS
Revelations of sexual predation by elected officials, similarly, predate the

#MeToo movement. In 1992, the Washington Post published accusations
from 10 women regarding unwanted sexual advances by U.S. Senator Bob
Packwood. The women, who had worked for or with Packwood during his
tenure in Washington, DC, described instances where he grabbed them without
warning, pushed them into rooms, or pulled their hair while forcefully kissing
them or trying to take off their clothes. As more women started to come for-
ward with similar accounts, Packwood initially issued an apology—but then
quickly backtracked, claiming he was unaware he had done anything wrong
(Moore 1996).
Newly elected Senator Patty Murray, who had run for office because of her
outrage at how the Senate Judiciary Committee had treated Anita Hill during
the Clarence Thomas hearings the year before,3 responded to the Packwood case
by calling for an end to the congressional exemption to federal laws prohibit-
ing sexual harassment.4 Although Senator Pat Schroeder had attempted in 1976
with Senator Charlie Rose to create a voluntary employee rights committee to
investigate complaints, only 15 other members had signed on to their proposal.
Packwood’s case was therefore referred to the Senate Ethics Committee, which
conducted a three-year investigation and found evidence that Packwood had
been sexually harassing subordinates since the 1960s (Bingham 1997). In early
1995, both houses passed the Congressional Accountability Act, subjecting leg-
islators to the civil rights, labor, and workplace safety and health laws governing
other employers. Later that year, Packwood resigned amid mounting pressures.
In 1993, a similar scandal occurred in Canada, when the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police announced they were investigating Gerald Regan, former pre-
mier of Nova Scotia and previously a federal cabinet minister, for sexual mis-
conduct. He went on trial in 1998 for eight counts of rape, attempted rape, and
sexual confinement committed against three women between 1956 and 1969.
Although he was acquitted, the verdict lifted a publication ban on stories told
to police by dozens of women—including office staff, job seekers, reporters,
party workers, and a legislative page—relating similar attacks committed by
Regan over a 40-year period from the 1950s to the 1990s (Kimber 1999).
More recently, as #MeToo debates got underway in the Canadian parlia-
ment in early 2018, a veteran journalist published an editorial about her experi-
ences as a young female reporter on Parliament Hill in the 1980s. She recounted
being sexually assaulted one night by a senator in front of two male journal-
ists, who were shocked at what they had just witnessed—but advised her to be
careful what she did about it. They reminded her of Judy Morrison, a radio
host who had been scorned and ridiculed for exposing inappropriate sexual
favors demanded by the prime minister’s press secretary. When a female MP
had stood up in parliament a few days later to demand an explanation, “the
House [had] erupted into uproarious laughter, a rare moment of shared mirth
among political foes. The mockery spread up into the press gallery above.”
After watching other women leave journalism as a result of sexual harassment,
she reflected: “I often berate myself for not having had the courage to speak
out 30 years ago . . . . But we all came to accept that this was a reality we could
not alter” (Off 2018).
Scenario 2: New Technologies and Contexts for Abuse
An alternative view is that violence against women in politics stems from tech-
nological advances and rising levels of incivility in world politics. While abuse
may have existed before, widespread “nastiness” is a relatively new develop-

ment, with shifts in the digital and political environments reinforcing one
another. These trends are highly gendered: while men are most likely to be
attacked on for their ideas and actions, women are disproportionately targeted
for being female (Citron 2014). In this view, barriers to expressing misogyny
have simply been lowered, resulting in more visible and personalized attacks
against politically active women.
REDUCED INHIBITION
One reason that increased access to social media has enabled and accelerated
violence against women in politics stems from what Suler (2004) terms the
“online disinhibition effect,” whereby online “some people self-disclose or act
out more frequently or intensely than they would in person” (321). Some types
of disinhibition are benign, with individuals revealing secret wishes and emo-
tions and engaging in unusual acts of kindness and generosity. Other forms
are toxic, however, with individuals expressing anger and hatred through harsh
language and even threats.
Anonymity is a key factor contributing to the online disinhibition effect,
freeing people to defy social norms—including engaging in their worst behavior
because their actions cannot be traced back to them. Online environments also
remove the possibility of feedback from social cues, like facial expressions indi-
cating disapproval or empathy that are available when people meet face to face.
Finally, online networking technologies can bring together like-minded people,
enabling extremists to communicate and providing opportunities to coordinate
harassment of specific targets. Group dynamics can also embolden individuals
to engage in ever more outrageous forms of abuse, expressing hate speech that
is no longer seen as acceptable in society, at work, or at home (Citron 2014;
Jane 2017; Vickery and Everbach 2018).
Attacking women online is not a unique phenomenon linked to qualities
of the internet, however. Rather, Mantilla (2015) suggests, it is an adaptation
of offline misogyny, rooted in a much longer history of driving women out of
participating in public spaces. Online technologies simply make this process
easier and more efficient, reaching broad global audiences in a matter of sec-
onds (Levey 2018). As Jane (2017) observes: “Misogynists have never had so
many opportunities to collectivize and abuse women with so few consequences.
Female targets have never been so visible and instantly accessible in such large
numbers” (51).
PERSONALIZED ATTACKS
Online attacks are also often deeply personalized. In an editorial, Diane Abbott
reflected on her 30-year political career and the growing amount of online
abuse she received as a black female MP in the UK. Although sexism and rac-
ism had always been part of her experiences, she noted that something had
changed: “Once, the pushback was against the actual arguments for equality
and social justice. Now the pushback is the politics of personal destruction.”
She went on to note, however, that this individualized abuse also had broader
ramifications, because “other women [may] look at how those of us in the pub-
lic space are treated and think twice about speaking up publicly, let alone get-
ting involved in political activity” (Abbott 2017).
These effects are exacerbated by the internet’s abilities to spread abuse far
and wide. Requiring very little effort, re-tweeting, liking, or sharing posts can
help spread degrading and humiliating attacks with dramatic speed (Bardall
2013). They can also help extend the life of destructive posts, with images and
screenshots displayed elsewhere on the internet, even when the original posts
have been taken down (Citron 2014). Harm done to victims’ personal images,
in turn, may be difficult if not impossible to correct. Combined, these features
of new online technologies amplify the possibility of online abuse, as well as its
impact and potential for injury.
POLITICAL POLARIZATION
Intersecting with these developments is growing political polarization in many

countries, leading to greater resentment, nastiness, and incivility across ideolog-
ical divides. Although some argue that politics has always been a “bit rough,”
Shea and Sproveri (2012) examine words and phrases appearing in books going
back to 1800 and find that writing about “nasty politics” (and similar phe-
nomena like mean, bitter, hateful, and filthy politics) has varied greatly across
periods of time, occurring typically in 20-to 30-year cycles. However, they find
that all of their measures climb after the 1980s, suggesting a prolonged period
of partisan polarization.
Other work highlights structural changes in the political media industry
rendering “outrage” content increasingly profitable. In this new landscape,
political discourse is increasingly uncivil (Mutz 2015). On particular “outrage
platforms” like political talk radio, cable news programs, and political blogs,
reporting on politics entails ideological selectivity, vilification of opponents,
and fear mongering (Berry and Sobieraj 2014). This “politics of resentment,”
Engels (2015) notes, “does not promote a discussion about what ails soci-
ety . . . It is a strategy of distraction that focuses attention on the grievance
as an excuse to taunt and offend . . . [turning] citizens against one another,
making interpersonal violence seem justifiable and at times righteous” (19,
6). Platforms like Twitter have exacerbated these trends, with its character
limits—requiring short and streamlined messages—promoting a “public dis-
course that is simple, impetuous, and frequently denigrating and dehuman-
izing” (Ott 2017, 60).
RISE OF “FAKE NEWS”
Claims about “fake news” have elevated the stakes behind these debates, espe-
cially for journalists. While initially the concept was used to point out misinfor-
mation (the inadvertent sharing of false information) and disinformation (the
deliberate creation and distribution of information known to be untrue), “fake
news” claims are also increasingly invoked as a tool to demonize traditional
news organizations (Tandoc, Lim, and Ling 2018). These dynamics have, in
turn, contributed to a qualitative change in how members of the public view
and communicate with the news media.
As Swedish television anchor Jenny Alversjö noted to a BBC reporter: “For
almost 20 years, I have worked as a journalist and I have always been a tar-
get for other people’s opinions . . . [but] four or five years ago something
changed and the tone became much more aggressive and threatening” (Bell
2015). Corroborating her impression, 90% of female journalists surveyed in
2018 stated that online threats had increased over the last five years (Ferrier
2018, 25).
This trope, however, does not simply target the media industry. Emulating
Donald Trump, authoritarian rulers around the world increasingly use the term
“fake news” to dismiss critique and deny human rights violations (Schwartz
2017). In calling reporters who provide credible coverage the “enemy of the
people,” these leaders contribute to rising violence against and persecution of
journalists as well as enhanced levels of impunity for acts committed against
human rights defenders and opposition politicians.
Scenario 3: Backlash against Women’s Political Opportunities
A third explanation is that violence constitutes a backlash against women’s

increased political presence (Restrepo Sanín 2020). From this perspective,
violence is a new phenomenon, motivated explicitly by attempts to undercut
and deter women’s expanding opportunities to participate. Feminists typically
understand the term “backlash” to refer to “a powerful counter-assault on
women’s rights . . . at once sophisticated and banal, deceptively ‘progressive’
and proudly backward . . . triggered by the perception—accurate or not—that
women are making great strides” (Faludi 1991, xviii-xix). Mansbridge and
Shames (2008) argue that backlash occurs when dominant groups perceive a
challenge to existing power relations: reacting emotionally to this loss, they
resort to various forms of coercive power to restore their previous status.
Violence against women, according to Kimmel (2017), is thus “restorative,
retaliatory . . . when that entitlement is aggrieved, [men] don’t just get mad;
they get even” (183).
Although men and women have the same formal political rights, many
political arenas continue to be strongly male dominated. Increased opportuni-
ties for women to participate in politics, therefore, can pose a serious challenge
to existing gender roles. When these changes occur at an accelerated pace, back-
lash dynamics may be particularly severe, with opponents seeking to interrupt
and even reverse the trajectory toward greater gender equality (Rudman and
Fairchild 2004; Yoder 1991). Violence against women in politics may thus be a
rejection of women’s presence in the political sphere and/or part of a broader
reaction against feminism itself.
BACKLASH AGAINST PRESENCE
Early academic theorizing of violence against women in politics connected it to

the phenomenon of electoral gender quotas, policies to promote women’s rep-
resentation which began to diffuse rapidly around the world in the mid-1990s
(Krook 2006). As part of this global wave, most countries in Latin America
adopted legislative quotas, generally requiring that all parties nominate at least
30% female candidates. In the late 2000s, some states expanded these provi-
sions to 50%, mandating gender parity at all levels of government (Piscopo
2015). During this same period, debates on political harassment and violence
emerged, first in Bolivia and then spreading to other countries across the region
(Albaine 2015; Krook and Restrepo Sanín 2016a; Restrepo Sanín 2018b).
In this context, Latin Americanists framed violence against women in
politics as a tool used to undermine the implementation of quota provisions
(Archenti and Albaine 2013; Albaine 2015; Cerva Cerna 2014). Violence weak-
ened quotas, they noted, by reducing both the presence and effectiveness of
women in political office. Violence committed by members of a woman’s own
party typically aimed to pressure women elected via quotas to stand down in
favor of male alternates, decreasing the share of women in political bodies.
Other tactics, involving a wide range of perpetrators inside and outside their
parties, sought to prevent women from exercising functions to which they had
been elected or appointed (Albaine 2016; Restrepo Sanín 2018b).
Research on politics in North America, where quotas do not widely apply,
theorizes this problem in terms of challenges to the presence of women in poli-
tics more broadly. Sanbonmatsu (2008) speculates that three situations might
provoke backlash: a high proportion of women in office, a rapid change in the
share of women in office, and a historic bid by women to achieve a new level
of office. These scenarios can generate challenges to women’s leadership, with
women facing verbal aggression and dismissal of their authority from male
colleagues (Hawkesworth 2003; Kathlene 1994); more frequent competition in
their efforts to be re-elected (Lawless and Pearson 2008); and greater levels of
social media abuse as they become more visible as political leaders (Rheault,
Rayment, and Musulan 2019). Backlash can also motivate the deployment of
highly sexualized stereotypes of gender to minimize and degrade women aspir-
ing to higher political roles (Anderson 2011; Hipkins 2011; Sawer 2013; Sheeler
and Anderson 2013).
BACKLASH AGAINST FEMINISM
Others situate violence against women in politics within the context of the
growing backlash to feminism around the world. Speaking to the online vio-
lence she has experienced as a British MP, Jess Phillips—who self-identifies
as a feminist—remarked: “The misogyny has got worse in the last five years.
I think it was because the equality side was winning. We made some gains and
they retaliated” (Sylvester and Thomson 2019). Due to these interconnections
with anti-feminism, Biroli (2018) advocates expanding the concept of violence
against women in politics to include reactions to increases in the numbers of
women elected as well as efforts to counteract feminist activism in both society
and the state.
Although anti-feminism is not new (Chafetz and Dworkin 1987), it has
taken on renewed force with the global movement against “gender ideology.”
Championed by religious leaders, far right politicians, and conservative groups,
these campaigns oppose women’s and LGBT rights on the grounds that they
treat gender as socially constructed, rather than as biologically determined—
thus undermining, these groups claim, religious morals and values (Corredor
2019; Kuhar and Paternotte 2017). Framing themselves as victims of more
inclusive social orders, “rebellious conservatives,” more generally, seek to return
to an idealized past in which inequalities were normalized (Dietrich 2014).
Treating gains for women as a zero sum game, they utilize “public vitriol and
violence” to devalue and dehumanize women—and thus restore undisputed
male dominance (Banet-Weiser 2018, 5).
7
Debates and Controversies
The collaborative and multi-streamed construction of the concept of violence

against women in politics has provided crucial momentum in its development
and diffusion. Yet this inclusive, largely non-hierarchical process has also meant
that its contours remain vague, giving rise to potentially conflicting understand-
ings of this phenomenon. These disagreements concern terminology, the focus
on women versus gender, types of violence, targets and perpetrators, intersec-
tionality, and the importance of context. The ongoing construction of violence
against women in politics as a concept, however, provides an opportunity to
address these tensions and contradictions and, in turn, develop more robust
definitions, typologies, and indicators to inform future academic research and
practitioner programming.
Terminology
Naming does not simply entail articulating a previously overlooked prob-

lem. It also raises the question of what to call the new phenomenon. Naming
decisions are difficult, given multiple possible interpretations of a problem
(Bacchi 1999) and pressures to find a frame that resonates with the public at
large (Benford and Snow 2000). For these reasons, debates over categories are
not uncommon as advocates struggle to name and define problems (Kingdon
1984). In the case of violence against women in politics, actors on the ground
have resolved these dilemmas in various ways, making decisions that adapt to
local circumstances or favor particular theoretical perspectives.
One debate concerns the word “violence” as the best or only term to
describe the behaviors in question. This ambivalence stems from two very dif-
ferent approaches to thinking about violence (Bufacchi 2005). A minimalistic
perspective equates violence with the use of force, restricting its manifestations
to physical attacks on people and property. In so doing, it adopts the view of
the perpetrator and focuses on ascertaining the motives behind a violent act
that is understood as temporally determinate. A comprehensive approach, in
contrast, conceives violence as an act of violation, arguing that it entails a wide
range of infringements on personal integrity. As such, it prioritizes the survivor
and centers the experience of violence, observing that violence may leave traces
that never fully disappear, with “ripples of violence” affecting victims, their
families, and their communities for years to come (Bufacchi and Gilson 2016).
To permit the unambiguous inclusion of non-physical forms of violence,
many advocates have opted for double-or triple-barreled terms to describe this
phenomenon. In Bolivia, ACOBOL made the strategic decision to add “harass-
ment,” which they did not see so much as a second dimension but as part of
broader continuum of violent behaviors (Restrepo Sanín 2018b). To further
ensure no misunderstandings, however, they also used Article 8 of the draft law
to enumerate a long list of non-physical manifestations of “harassment and/
or violence.”1 In the case of the IPU, this task was even more complex, with
national differences to take into account. After considering many alternatives,
it ultimately settled on the phrase “sexism, harassment, and violence” as a way
to capture a wide array of behaviors.2 In other contexts, actors simply avoid the
word “violence” entirely. Debates in the UK tend to use the terms “abuse and
intimidation,” which was the name that Theresa May gave to the problem when
commissioning the CSPL report. In Peru, advocates use only the word “harass-
ment,” due to strong associations between the phrase “political violence” and
the country’s earlier history of armed conflict.3
A second point of contention revolves around the ordering of the words
used to describe this phenomenon. Interviewees at numerous practitioner orga-
nizations reported struggling with colleagues over whether to call the problem
“electoral (or political) violence against women,” or alternatively, “violence
against women in elections (or politics).”4 Many observed that these labels were
not arbitrary, but instead reflected very different notions about what the phe-
nomenon was—and, in turn, how it should be conceptualized and measured.
The phrase “electoral violence against women,” several interviewees noted,
privileged existing electoral violence frameworks— most of which focused
exclusively on physical acts of violence—and simply extended these existing
frameworks to include women. In contrast, the expression “violence against
women in elections” placed feminist concepts of violence against women at
the center. These are far more expansive in their scope, recognizing the role of
power and inequality as well as a broad array of perpetrators, locations, and
forms of violence. To date, however, these ideas had not been applied widely to
the realm of politics or elections.
A third, more minor debate involves focusing on violence against women
“in elections” versus “in politics.” Apart from IFES,5 whose mission revolves
around electoral processes, few organizations restrict their focus to violence
against women in elections. Some, like UN Women, however, use both concepts,
Debates and Controversies 63
with “politics” referring to any gender-based violence that prevents women

from exercising and realizing their political rights and “elections” focusing spe-
cifically on these violations in an electoral context (UNDP and UN Women
2017). In an analogous but distinct strategy, NDI treats “violence against
women in politics” as the larger category, under which more specific forms can
be identified, like “violence against women in political parties” or “online vio-
lence against women in politics.”6
THIS BOOK’S APPROACH
This book uses the term violence against women in politics for three reasons.
First, combining “violence” with words like “harassment,” or substituting it
for terms like “abuse,” may reify the notion that violence is strictly physical,
as well as imply a hierarchy between more and less serious or severe injuries.
Conversely, using a single word helps highlight continuities and interactions
across a broad spectrum of harmful acts. Second, beginning with “violence
against women” prioritizes a feminist framing of this issue, expanding rather
than simply deferring to traditional definitions of political violence. It also
invokes a concept that activists used to unify diverse campaigns around the
world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, arguing that distinct practices—like
female genital mutilation, rape, sexual slavery, and dowry deaths—were in fact
manifestations of the same broader phenomenon, affecting women of all back-
grounds (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Third, beyond encapsulating both electoral
and non-electoral moments, the word “politics” provides a means for expand-
ing how the concept has been utilized to date—largely restricted to the formal
political arena of elections and elected office—to incorporate politically active
women of all types.
Women versus Gender
Feminist scholars have long pointed out that “gender” is not a synonym for
“women” (Carver 1996). Indeed, the core theoretical contribution of femi-
nism is the distinction between sex, signifying biological differences between
women and men, and gender, referring to social constructions of femininity
and masculinity (Hawkesworth 2006). Nonetheless, the terms “violence against
women” and “gender-based violence” are often used interchangeably in public
discourse (Boyle 2019). This slippage has given rise to vigorous methodological
debates among scholars as to how to best conceptualize and measure violence
against women in politics.
Some argue that activism and research has been over- inclusive,
“subsum[ing] general electoral or political violence” into the phenomenon
of violence against women in politics, thus erasing any “distinction between
gendered and non-gendered violence” (Piscopo 2016, 443). Others decry the
exclusive focus on women, arguing that men’s experiences should also be exam-
ined to “distinguish between instances of violence in which gender is part of
the motive versus contexts in which violence is widespread and affects all politi-
cal actors” (Bjarnegård 2018, 694). While raising some valid points, these cri-
tiques lack nuance, portraying the bulk of work in this field as naively assuming
that all instances of violence faced by politically active women constitute cases
of violence against women in politics.
In fact, early analyses—on which subsequent work builds—specifically
highlight the role of gendered power relations, arguing that structural
inequalities between women and men— motivating the defense of male
privilege—give rise to this phenomenon (Albaine 2016; Cerva Cerna 2014;
Machicao 2004). This approach is consistent with global advocacy on vio-
lence against women which, while recognizing that women sometimes suffer
the same abuses as men, points out that “many violations of women’s human
rights are distinctly connected to being female—that is, women are discrimi-
nated against and abused on the basis of gender” (Bunch 1990, 486). The
centrality of gender equality to these definitions, indeed, leads Biroli (2018)
to argue for a further expansion of the concept to include efforts to discredit
and undermine feminist activism in society and within the state. The central
feature of this work is thus to illuminate a specific set of acts motivated by
gender inequalities.
Revisiting international frameworks helps shed light on the origin of
these disparities in interpretation. Article 1 of the UN Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women defines “violence against women”
as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in,
physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including
threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether
occurring in public or in private life” (UN 1993a, 3). Despite using the word
“women,” therefore, this concept does not refer to all violence experienced
by women, but only that which is “gender-based.” Addressing this slippage,
CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35 thus prefers “gender-based vio-
lence against women” as a “more precise term that makes explicit the gen-
dered causes and impacts of the violence,” bolstering “understanding of
this violence as a social—rather than an individual—problem” (CEDAW
Committee 2017, 4).
This book tackles these issues at greater length in the following chapters. In brief,
it argues that these debates elide two distinct phenomena: violence in politics
and violence against women in politics. In the first, hostility derives from what
Phillips (1995) calls the “politics of ideas,” or competition over political views.
Both men and women are potentially vulnerable to this kind of violence, with
levels of risk varying depending on rates of violence in society more generally.
These acts may take gendered forms, with women facing politically motivated
rape, as well as non-gendered forms, with women subjected, like men, to physi-
cal injury or displacement (AIDS-Free World 2009; Bardall 2011). Because this
type of violence affects what Pitkin (1967) terms “substantive representation,”
or advocacy of different policy alternatives, the democratic costs of violence in
politics are widely recognized (Schwarzmantel 2010).
Violence against women in politics, in contrast, is about the “politics of
presence,” or the inclusion of members of diverse groups in policymaking
(Phillips 1995). Because it is motivated by bias and discrimination, this form
of violence is specifically directed at women, including in intersectional ways.
Similar to violence in politics, its forms may also be gendered, like sexual objec-
tification, or non-gendered, like death threats. Its defining feature, therefore,
is not gender differentiation but gender motivation to exclude women as women
from participating in political life. As such, violence against women in poli-
tics seeks to influence what Pitkin (1967) calls “descriptive representation,” the
degree to which the composition of decision-making bodies reflects diversity
within the population at large. Rendered largely invisible until recently, the
democratic costs of this type of violence are not yet widely recognized and
appreciated.
Previous work has struggled to distinguish these phenomena for several
reasons. First, politically active women may experience both forms of violence.
These incidents may transpire separately, with attacks focusing on a woman’s
political views at one moment and their female identity at another. Forms of
violence may also co-occur, discrediting women’s political views by questioning
their right as women to participate at all. Second, most of the data collected or
available to study these dynamics captures both forms of violence simultane-
ously. Studies of online violence, for instance, may identify threatening and abu-
sive tweets that are collectively—and individually—both politically motivated
and misogynistic. Third, in some cases women are attacked both as women and
in response to their women’s rights advocacy, placing them at the intersection
between violence in politics (which is issue-based) and violence against women
in politics (which is identity-based). With clearer concepts, however, it becomes
easier to parse out acts simply directed at women from those seeking to exclude
them as women.
Types of Violence
Expanding the term violence to incorporate more than just physical acts
enables the recognition of a broader range of violations and infringements.
However, it also raises questions about how to categorize and name those
additional forms of violence. A review of legislation, publications, and toolkits

on violence against women in politics reveals widely disparate lists. The most
parsimonious, from this perspective, appears in the 2017 law on eliminating
violence against women in Tunisia. Alongside other forms, it identifies “politi-
cal violence” as its own specific type, referring to “all actions and practices
based on sex discrimination whose author aims to deprive a woman or prevent
her from exercising any political, partisan, or associational activity or right or
fundamental freedom.”7
More commonly, practitioners have adopted one of two approaches to
developing these typologies. The first is to draw from existing international
frameworks and elaborate them in relation to the political sphere. Article 1
of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women identi-
fies three types of violence: physical, sexual, and psychological (UN 1993a).
SAP International directly imports this language into its 2010 handbook defin-
ing terminologies and concepts related to violence against women in politics.
The 2012 Bolivian legislation also makes use of this typology, defining “politi-
cal violence” as “physical, psychological, or sexual actions, behaviors, and/or
aggressions.”8
Article 3 of the 2011 Istanbul Convention, formally known as the Council
of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women
and Domestic Violence, adds economic violence as a fourth type (Council of
Europe 2011). In 2017, CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35 did the
same. This typology, in turn, appears in IPU’s two publications on the topic;
indeed, the glossary to IPU (2018) specifically cites the Istanbul Convention
definition of violence against women. The 2019 ILO Convention also men-
tions these four types. Several other frameworks adapt from this prevailing
list. An early IFES report eliminates sexual violence, focusing on physical,
psychological, and economic violence (Bardall 2011). The Inter-American
Model Law includes these four forms but adds moral and symbolic violence
(CIM 2017), while NDI instead includes threats and coercion as a fifth type
(NDI 2018).
A second, less widespread approach is to theorize inductively from
behaviors observed on the ground. In its 2016 Violence against Women in
Elections Assessment Tool, IFES identifies the following categories: physi-
cal harms, intimidation, verbal harassment, interference with voting,
and other (like arbitrary detention and property damage) (Huber and
Kammerud 2016). The CIM (2017) and NDI (2018) examples given earlier
might be considered to be at least partly in this category as well, as they
identify additional types of violence beyond the four most commonly rec-
ognized forms. In its work on online violence, NDI (2019) adapts prevail-
ing categories to features of the online world, focusing on insults and hate
speech, embarrassment and reputational risk, physical threats, and sexual-
ized distortion.
This book adopts a combined approach. On the one hand, it follows interna-
tional conventions by considering acts of physical, psychological, sexual, and
economic violence. On the other hand, it draws on inductive insights to propose
a new, fifth category, semiotic violence, which captures dynamics that intersect
with, but cannot be reduced to, the other four types. Semiotic violence, in short,
refers to the use of language and images to denigrate women in an attempt to
deny their political rights. A defining feature of these acts is their public signi-
fication: while perpetrated against individual women, they seek—though their
circulation among citizens at large—to send a message that women as a group
are unworthy. While semiotic violence is not a new phenomenon, recent tech-
nological innovations have dramatically expanded opportunities to create and
distribute negative and harmful portrayals, further normalizing these tropes
while also reaching new, potentially global audiences.
Targets and Perpetrators
Women engaged in any number of activities in the political realm are potential
targets of violence against women in politics. Because this concept originated
among actors operating in the formal political arena, it has primarily been used
in reference to women serving as voters, candidates, pre-candidates, elected
and appointed officials, party members, campaign workers, electoral admin-
istrators and observers, and to a lesser extent, political staffers. Yet analogous
campaigns highlight similar dynamics at work beyond the electoral moment,
involving violence against human rights defenders, and by extension, other
activists, as well as political journalists. While practitioners are limited in their
ability to engage with actors beyond their organizational remit, uniting these
different streams under the same umbrella underscores broad continuities in
the challenges women face in ensuring their full and equal political participa-
tion, regardless of their specific political roles.
Adopting a violence against women perspective calls, in turn, for a
broader view of perpetrators. While traditional political violence and human
rights frameworks focus on public acts committed by political opponents and
state officials, Article 2 of the 1993 UN declaration indicates that members of
the family, the community, and the state may all commit and condone acts of
violence against women, occurring in both the public and the private spheres
(UN 1993a). This expansive approach has informed the literature on violence
against women in politics from the beginning, pointing to a wide array of
actors attempting to suppress women’s participation through violent means.
Relatives may resort to violence on the grounds that women’s political
activities bring shame to the family’s honor (APWLD 2007). Some husbands
have locked their wives inside the home to prevent them from participating
in political events,9 or threatened to divorce women who do not vote as they
instruct (Makoye 2015). Still others have mounted political campaigns to
defeat them.10 Parents and other relatives have also abused and forcibly con-
fined women to the home to stop their political work. After being released
from prison, where she was tortured and sexually assaulted, one young human
rights activist in Sudan thus noted: “[The security forces] do not need to detain
us anymore, the family members can do their jobs for them” (Human Rights
Watch 2016, 30). A survey conducted in India, Nepal, and Pakistan show that
these cases are not outliers, as between 25% and 40% of respondents identified
family members as responsible for violence against female candidates (Centre
for Social Research and UN Women 2014, 62).
Diverse actors within the community may also seek to restrain or pun-
ish politically active women. Religious and tribal leaders are among the most
powerful, drawing on their traditional positions of authority to restrict wom-
en’s participation in the public sphere and thus reinforce conservative views on
gender roles. Religions and tribal edicts against women’s right to vote in some
parts of Pakistan, for example, included threats to burn homes and impose
fines on those who defied the ban (SAP International 2009, 22). Ordinary citi-
zens, however, may also play a role. Sexual and physical violence during dem-
onstrations is one tool, affecting both activists and journalists, although the
anonymity provided by crowds makes it difficult to determine whether perpe-
trators are hired thugs or state security agents dressed in plainclothes (Barton
and Storm 2014; Tadros 2016). Online abuse is a second tool which citizens
may use to intimidate women, often behind the cloak of anonymity,11 through
direct attacks as well as more indirectly by liking or re-tweeting abusive posts
(Bardall 2013, 2018).
Political and work colleagues are perhaps more surprising perpetrators.
Data from a wide range of countries, however, indicate that these are among
the most frequent offenders. Across three countries in a 2014 study, the largest
share of respondents—58% in India, 63% in Nepal, and 40% in Pakistan—
mentioned members of a woman’s own party as perpetrators of violence
against them (Centre for Social Research and UN Women 2014, 62). More than
half (55%) of women surveyed by NDI in Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Tanzania,
and Tunisia reported encountering violence from party colleagues (NDI 2018,
6). Similarly, data from ACOBOL noted that pressures to resign—typically
emanating from male rivals within the party who sought those positions for
themselves—were the most common act of intimidation experienced by locally
elected women (Rojas Valverde 2010, 529). More recently, a network of male
journalists in France was exposed in 2019 after 10 years of coordinating the
harassment of their female colleagues via anonymous Twitter accounts (“Ligue
du LOL,” 2019).
State actors, finally, are particularly prominent perpetrators of violence

against human rights defenders and other activists (Sekaggya 2010). In 2019,
the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which has mon-
itored incidents of political violence around the world since 1997, launched a
new tool tracking political violence against women. Focusing on reported acts
of physical and sexual violence, its first analysis found that demonstrations fea-
turing women—where women made up the majority or entirety of protesters—
were disproportionately more likely than demonstrations not featuring women
to meet with excessive force (live fire) and intervention (arrests and tear gas),
usually at the hands of the state (Kishi, Pavlik, and Matfess 2019).
This book includes examples from all these arenas, revealing that violence
against women in politics can occur in many spaces—including many where their
male counterparts, as a rule, are safe (Krook 2017). The book also emphasizes,
importantly, that perpetrators may include both men and women. Although
men as a group benefit most directly from patriarchy, men and women alike
may punish individuals who deviate from gender norms as a means to defend
their own status in the existing system of gender hierarchy (Berdahl 2007; Dovi
2018). This fact is perhaps most evident in the case of family members—like
mothers and mothers-in-law—who seek to prevent women from participat-
ing in political activities. Yet, women in society can also play a central role in
sabotaging and denigrating women who seek leadership roles or campaign to
expand women’s political rights (Chafetz and Dworkin 1987). Violence against
women in politics thus does not imply a simplistic scenario of male perpetra-
tors and female targets, but rather, points to the more systematic and structural
targeting of women who challenge prevailing gender norms.
Intersectionality
Proposing that violence against women in politics is directed at women as

women centers the role of gender, potentially suggesting that it is the main or
only source of abuse. Yet one of the most important contributions in recent
feminist research is the concept of intersectionality, theorizing the ways in
which different facets of identity—like age, class, disability, education, ethnic-
ity, gender identity, race, and sexual orientation—interact to shape life oppor-
tunities and experiences (McCall 2005). While intersectionality has not yet been
incorporated widely into theorizing about violence against women in politics
(Kuperberg 2018), it is strongly present in news coverage and emerging data on
this phenomenon. Practitioner conversations on this topic, moreover, have long
sought to include diverse groups of women (WHRDIC 2015, consistent with

awareness of the intersectional dynamics of violence against women stretching
back at least as far as the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
against Women (UN 1993a).
Two forms of intersectionality shape experiences of violence against
women in politics. The first concerns aspects of identity, in line with traditional
understandings of intersectionality. Analyzing Twitter abuse against female
MPs in the UK, Amnesty International found that women of all backgrounds
were targeted. Yet nearly half the abusive tweets in the sample were directed
at Diane Abbott, the first black woman MP; when she was taken out of the
sample, black and Asian women still received 30% more abuse than their white
counterparts (Dhrodia 2017). In India, Nepal, and Pakistan, the majority of
respondents to a survey identified female candidates who were poor (60–73%),
lower caste (52–68%), or under the age of 30 (55–63%) as the most vulnerable
to violence (Centre for Social Research and UN Women 2014, 65). Data from
the IPU (2018) indicated that female MPs under 40 were more likely than older
MPs to experience psychological and sexual violence. Qualitative evidence,
finally, points to anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and homophobia as additional
elements driving attacks against politically active women.12
A second form of intersectionality involves women’s political views and
activities. In an interview about online violence, British MP Jess Phillips
remarked that the number of threats directed at her “has its peaks and
troughs depending on what I’m talking about . . . If you speak from a feminist
perspective, which I very frequently do, you will suffer from a huge amount
of internet trolling” (Rawlinson 2018). This observation is confirmed by
outspoken feminists in other contexts, who note that gender-based attacks
often escalate after they have proposed bills or appeared on television in
connection with women’s issues13 or written stories supportive of women’s
and LGBT rights (Trionfi and Luque 2019). In Afghanistan, women vocal
on these issues are regularly abused as infidels or Christians (Human Rights
Watch 2009).
In addition to providing cases illustrating intersectional experiences of vio-

lence, this book proposes a theoretical framework that can accommodate an
intersectional lens. This approach centers the role of bias and discrimination
in these acts which, it argues, are rooted in dynamics of structural, cultural,
and symbolic violence against women and other marginalized groups. Because
women from non-dominant groups challenge multiple forms of inequality,
their presence may thus spark an even stronger reaction than the election of
women from dominant groups (Sanbonmatsu 2008). As former MP for the
Scottish National Party, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh,, observed: “I am from a
Scottish-Asian community. I am a Muslim. And I’m a woman. So it’s every-

thing. It has an exponential effect, so people will pile on for different reasons.
Some of them because you are all of these things, and some because you are one
of these things, or two of these things, which makes it so much more difficult to
deal with, because you just wonder where do I start with this” (Dhrodia 2017).
Role of Context
A final consideration raised in emerging debates concerns contextual factors

and their role in shaping incidents of violence. Critiquing conceptualizations in
Latin America, Piscopo (2016) argues that these efforts fail to take into account
elements of the broader political and judicial context, including widespread
state and criminal violence, weak police and criminal justice systems, and party
efforts to deny women access to political power. She therefore calls on scholars
to “resist accepting activists’ problem definition at face value” and “instead
encourage solutions that address the violence and impunity embedded in the
state and in society” (438). From this perspective, violence is the cost of engag-
ing in politics, especially in societies characterized by high levels of crime and
conflict and weak state capacity.
From the very beginning, however, practitioners have been keenly aware of
how features of the social, cultural, economic, and political environment might
exacerbate vulnerability to acts of violence against women in politics. For
Asoka (2012), relevant contextual factors include religious fundamentalism,
militarization accompanied by widespread impunity for law enforcement and
military officers, and authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, to which
IM-Defensoras (2013) add criminal infiltration of public institutions. These
features, individually or collectively, weaken state capacity, leading to increased
levels of impunity—thus reducing the costs of violence for perpetrators and
depressing the likelihood of redress for targets of this violence. In the words of
a female MP in Afghanistan: “I’ve had so many threats. I report them some-
times, but the authorities tell me not to make enemies, to keep quiet” (Human
Rights Watch 2009, 22).
The rise of social media has created new tools of abuse and impunity. The
internet has dramatically expanded opportunities to harass women directly,
while technological innovations have facilitated the creation and circula-
tion of harmful, degrading, and often doctored images to shame and attack
women (Powell and Henry 2017). The decentralized and anonymous nature of
the internet, further, lends important protective cover to perpetrators (Citron
2014). While the internet did not invent sexism, as Jane (2017) notes, it is thus
amplifying it in unprecedented ways. Given the global reach of online technol-
ogies, these developments affect women around the world—and appear likely
to grow in their influence over time.
Despite emphasizing that violence against women in politics is a global phe-

nomenon, this book recognizes the importance of context in shaping women’s
experiences with violence in the political realm. While it does not explicitly
theorize these contextual elements, the framework developed in this volume
draws on the concept of “cultural violence” to pinpoint how violence against
women is normalized in different environments. In short, cultural violence
invokes tropes justifying acts of violence—which are otherwise condemned—
when perpetrated against members of particular groups. These resources vary
across countries in light of differences in the social, economic, and political
norms surrounding gender. Nonetheless, they share the common thread of
being grounded in structural inequalities between women and men, rational-
izing and validating violence against women in the political realm.
PART II
A Theoretical Framework
8
Politics as a Hostile Space
Developing a more robust concept of violence against women in politics

requires, first, defining what it is not. A common criticism of global efforts to
recognize this problem is that it is not a distinct phenomenon: rather, violence is
merely the cost of doing politics (Piscopo 2016). This perspective helps explain
why this issue has remained hidden for so long. As noted in chapter 1, women
often do not speak out about experiences of violence in the political realm
because they normalize violence as part of the political game. Alternatively,
they acknowledge these behaviors as problematic, but believe that others do
not see it this way. They thus remain quiet in order to protect their political
careers or avoid further derision—or simply because they have no one to tell—
because others view such conduct as acceptable in the world of politics.
This cynical understanding of politics as a hostile and dangerous space has
deep roots, infusing both the theory and practice of politics. Some work, how-
ever, questions the status of all forms of political conflict as equally valid. The
literature on political and electoral violence, for example, contends that using
force to achieve political ends poses a threat to democracy and, as such, is ille-
gitimate. More recent efforts focus on violence against three types of political
actors: politicians, activists, and journalists. Despite running largely in parallel
to one another, these debates converge in arguing that violence not only harms
democracy—but also violates personal integrity, undermining human rights.
Politics as War
Metaphors to describe politics often invoke images of war. For some theorists,
engaging in war and politics involves identical skill sets. As Machiavelli (1981
[1532]) writes in his influential political treatise, The Prince: “A prince . . . must
have no other object or thought, nor acquire skill in anything, except war, its
organization, and its discipline. The art of war is all that is required of a ruler”
76 A Theoretical Framework
(87). For others, war and politics exist along a continuum and share the same
logic, as reflected in Clausewitz’s (2018 [1832]) famous dictum, “War is poli-
tics by other means” (40), and Foucault’s (2003 [1976]) reversal, “Politics is
war by other means” (15). Not surprisingly, therefore, for some politicians the
experiences are roughly analogous: as Winston Churchill observed, “Politics is
almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous.”1
This line of thinking, in turn, informs how political interactions, as well as
the nature of politicians as a class, are understood and conceptualized. In the
United States, for example, Howe (1988) notes that political metaphors draw
heavily and systematically on the terminology of war and sports. While observ-
ing that speakers resort to military metaphors “when politics must be portrayed
as ruthless or treacherous” (95), he points out that both sets of metaphors are
destructive in that they imply that negotiation and compromise are forbidden,
requiring that opponents fight it out until the bitter end. According to Puwar
(2004), such views institutionalize metaphorical violence as a “normal” part
of the political game, with displays of aggression and overt conflict in debates
amounting to the “theatrical delivery of violence” to the opposing side (82).
While these interactive conventions are widespread in the political
realm, such behaviors would be largely unacceptable in other professional
contexts (Harris 2001). As Jess Phillips (2017), a British MP, ironically
remarked: “Apparently if you are an MP, you are meant to take abuse and ill-
informed vitriol lying down” (187). Seeking to de-normalize these behaviors,
Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, noted critically: “This is the only
workplace in Canada where abuse is routine. It’s perfectly accepted to have
people yelling at you, making nasty comments to you, while you’re on the floor
of the House of Commons doing your work” (McIntyre and Campbell 2018).
Disadvantaging women as compelling players in the political arena, moreover,
war and sports metaphors typically associate power with brute displays of mas-
culinity (Gidengil and Everitt 1999).
From this perspective, however, politics is not simply tough, aggressive,
and competitive. It is also not governed by rules of morality, fostering duplic-
ity. As Machiavelli (1981 [1532]) counsels: “A man who wants to act virtuously
in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.
Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must learn how not to be
virtuous, and to make us of this or not according to need” (91). Believing that
politics is fraught with “dirty tricks” and “cheap shots” (Cummins 2015) in
turn encourages negative campaigning, highlighting weaknesses of an oppo-
nent’s policy proposals, prior policy failures, or personal failings, rather than
one’s own policy ideas, past accomplishments, or personal strengths (Lau and
Rovner 2009). Although voters perceive some negative information to be use-
ful, like legitimate critiques of policy performance, studies find they are often
turned off by shrill, irrelevant, and ad hominem personal attacks (Kahn and
Kenney 1999).
Politics as a Hostile Space 77
Nonetheless, recent shifts in the political media industry have enhanced

this negativity by creating information “silos” that insulate viewers from expo-
sure to contrary perspectives (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017). In particular, new
“outrage platforms,” like political talk radio, cable news programs, and political
blogs, vilify political opponents through ideologically selective reporting (Berry
and Sobieraj 2014), leading to greater hostility and incivility across political
divides (Mutz 2015). Similar dynamics are evident on social media platforms
like Facebook and Twitter, which many people use as primary sources of politi-
cal news. This unfiltered and non-fact-checked environment gives greater trac-
tion to “fake news” stories, amplifying the negative views that each side of the
political spectrum holds toward the other (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017).
Portraying politics as a cynical, morally empty, and uncivil enterprise fos-
ters views among citizens, in turn, that politics is “synonymous with duplicity,
greed, corruption, interference, and inefficiency” (Hay 2007, 160). A poll con-
ducted in the United States showed, for example, that 85% of voters viewed
Congress negatively; only 9% saw it in a favorable light.2 The growing “demoni-
zation of politicians” (Flinders 2012, 2) has serious democratic implications,
as it does not “promote a discussion about what ails society” or “provide solu-
tions” (Engel 2015, 19). Rather, it erodes citizen trust and mutual respect across
political divides and overlooks the majority of political officials who are sincere
and committed public servants. By these various means, “dirty tricks” and per-
sonal attacks are equated with “politics as usual,” rather than seen as serious
and unacceptable threats to personal dignity and democratic integrity.
Political and Electoral Violence
One longstanding exception to the normalization of hostility and aggression

in politics is work on political and electoral violence. Recognizing that conflict
is a central feature of the political process, this literature argues that clashes
become illegitimate when the aim is to “damage a political adversary” to impose
political aims (Della Porta 1995, 2). Violence is “political” when its “purpose,
choice of targets or victims, surrounding circumstances, implementation, and/
or effects have political significance,” in that they “modify the behavior of oth-
ers” with “consequences for the social system” (Nieburg 1969, 13). It is thus
“motivated by a desire, conscious or unconscious, to obtain or maintain politi-
cal power” (Moser and Clark 2001, 29). Such violence threatens democracy
if it helps one side get “its way through fear of injury or death, not through a
process in which individuals or groups recognize each other in a dialogue or as
rational interlocutors” (Schwarzmantel 2010, 222).
Electoral violence is a sub-type of political violence, distinguished by
its objective to influence the electoral process before, during, or after elec-
tion day (Höglund 2009). Staniland (2014) argues that this violence may be
intra-systemic, operating within the existing system to take over power, or

anti-systemic, seeking to fundamentally alter the political order. It may thus
encompass a wide range of behaviors, from incidents carried out by thugs,
criminals, and mobs to coups, insurgencies, state crackdown, and local eth-
nic clashes. Electoral violence may be directed at a wide range of actors, like
rival candidates, journalists, voters, and poll workers, as well as at facilities
associated with elections, like polling stations. In most cases, perpetrators seek
to reduce uncertainty about electoral outcomes by influencing voter turn-
out, eliminating political rivals, and—in the wake of elections—engaging in
revenge attacks against those who voted for the “wrong” candidate (Söderberg
Kovacs 2018).
Emerging research nuances these strategic accounts by arguing that—at
least in some contexts—electoral violence should also be understood as a polit-
ical and social practice (Birch, Daxecker, and Höglund 2020). In these cases,
violence is widely perpetrated at election time by militia groups and criminal
gangs without specific directives given by political leaders—but rather, stem-
ming from a range of other motives like short-term benefits, personal loyalty,
or private score settling (Söderberg Kovacs 2018). Leaders may tolerate or sim-
ply lack the resources to control this violence, such that it comes to be seen as a
“normal” part of the electoral landscape. In some settings, indeed, democratic
participation and violent practices may merge, with violent acts being seen as
a way of voicing dissatisfaction with the existing order—and thus as a form of
political participation itself (Rasmussen 2018).
Most datasets on political and electoral violence restrict their focus to acts
of physical violence, defined as attacks on people as well as property (Della
Porta 1995; Norris, Frank, and Martínez i Coma 2015). In some countries,
casualty numbers during elections may meet the threshold of civil war in a
matter of weeks (Birch, Daxecker, and Höglund 2020). Yet physical violence is
also a risky strategy, attracting potential retaliation from targets as well as con-
demnation from citizens and international election observers. Consequently,
“harassment, intimidation, and disruption” are often far more common tactics
(Straus and Taylor 2012, 24), selectively focusing on groups seen as most likely
to respond, least likely to protest, and most likely to deliver the intended out-
come, like decreased voter turnout (Söderberg Kovacs 2018).
The vast majority of this literature focuses on “democracy in dangerous
places” (Collier 2009), highlighting electoral violence as a problem confined to
the global South. Most research to date focuses on Africa, where more than
half of states organizing elections in the post–Cold War period have experi-
enced electoral violence (Burchard 2015, 50). Yet most elections around the
world feature some violence, whether physical or non-physical, according to a
dataset of 136 countries holding competitive elections between 1990 and 2012
(Daxecker, Amicarelli, and Jung 2019, 715). Consolidated democracies were
excluded from this study, however, on the grounds that electoral contention and
violence is less “feasible” in these cases (716).
Yet Doan (2007) shows that political intimidation is not a strategy limited
to the global South. Focusing on anti-abortion activism in the United States,
she defines “political harassment” as “persistent verbal or physical collective
challenges intended to change the behavior of others, to have political signifi-
cance, to create a reasonable fear, and to be directed at nongovernmental actors
because of their beliefs” (24). Doan argues that activists find intimidation to be
a cheap and effective way of deterring provision of abortion, compared to pur-
suing legislative reforms aimed at restricting such services. Political harassment,
like acts of physical violence, can thus also serve anti-democratic purposes,
undermining the legislative process and preventing citizens from exercising
their full legal rights.
Violence against Politicians
A more recent wave of activism and research also rejects the notion that hostil-
ity and violence are merely “the cost of doing politics.” Over the last decade,
violence against politicians has received growing attention from practitio-
ners and scholars in a variety of disciplines. An early forerunner was the IPU
Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians. Established in 1976,
this committee receives and pursues complaints regarding human rights viola-
tions suffered by MPs, from kidnapping and murder to detention and exclusion
from political office.
In recent years, the committee has stepped up its global visibility, publish-
ing yearly infographics showing the most common violations, the geographic
distribution of cases, the political affiliation, and—in a new development—
the gender of victims.3 Meeting three times a year, it consists of 10 MPs from
all regions who hold hearings, undertake missions, and observe trials to pres-
sure governments to take action, as well as to achieve redress for affected MPs.
Although its deliberations are confidential, its decisions—containing calls for
action, expressions of concerns, and requests for information—are made pub-
lic on the IPU website.4
At the country level, high-profile incidents have inspired a number of gov-
ernments to begin collecting data on this problem. Efforts in Sweden have been
among the most extensive. The 2003 murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh,
who was stabbed to death while shopping in a department store, sparked a
debate on security risks associated with the Swedish style of politics, where
politicians remain highly accessible to the general public. At the time of
Lindh’s murder, cabinet ministers often traveled without bodyguards, despite
the 1986 murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was killed on the street
while walking home from the cinema with his family (Beckman, Olsson, and
Wockelberg 2003).
In early 2005, the newly created Parliamentary Committee on Threats and
Violence against Elected Officials conducted a survey of national, regional,
and local officeholders. It found that three-quarters of national parliamen-
tarians and one-third of subnational politicians had experienced harassment,
threats, and violence in the course of their mandate. Perpetrators expressed
hate, attempted to influence policy decisions, or sought to force them to leave
politics, leading 53% of MPs and 39% of local and regional politicians to worry
about their security (Blom 2005, 8–10). Since 2012, the National Council for
Crime Prevention has administered a series of follow-up surveys to all Swedish
politicians and found that risk factors for violence and other illicit behaviors
include being younger, a committee chair, a member of local or regional gov-
ernment, or active on social media.5
In 2011, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot together with 18
constituents—six of whom died—at a political meeting in her district. Following
this attempted assassination, the Congressional Research Service published a
report on acts of violence committed against members of Congress and their
staff, seven instances of which had resulted in a member’s death (Petersen,
Manning, and Hemlin 2011, 2). The report also listed laws and procedures in
place to deal with such threats, pointing out that it was a federal crime to assassi-
nate, kidnap, or assault a member of Congress or member-elect, or to endeavor
or conspire to commit such offenses. In 2017, the Congressional Research
Service produced an updated report following a shooting that occurred at a
congressional baseball game practice, during which one member, Steve Scalise,
was critically wounded (Petersen and Manning 2017). After a series of reforms,
members of Congress were entitled to increased allowances to improve secu-
rity at their offices, as well as to apply funds from their political campaigns to
update security systems in their homes.
The 2016 murder of British MP Jo Cox spurred parallel developments
in the UK. Prior to her death, issues of political violence and harassment
had been considered by an All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Electoral
Conduct, which published reports in 2013, 2015, and 2017.6 In response to
Cox’s murder, Parliament and the police established a specialist team to serve
as a point of contact and advice for MPs on security matters.7 In 2017, Prime
Minister Theresa May called on the CSPL to conduct a review on abuse and
intimidation of parliamentary candidates. Considering submissions from vari-
ous stakeholders, the CSPL issued a report several months later in which it
distinguished between “intimidation” and “legitimate persuasion or influence
which takes place as part of the democratic process.” In contrast to the latter,
the former was “intended and likely to cause an individual to withdraw from
a public space” and “have the effect of limiting freedom of expression” (CSPL
2017, 26).
Academic research on violence against politicians has primarily been done

by forensic psychiatrists analyzing the stalking, threatening, and attacking of
public figures. These behaviors include physical attacks; threats; unwanted
approach; loitering; property interference; spurious legal action; distribution
of malicious materials; and inappropriate letters, emails, phone calls, and social
media contacts (James et al. 2016a). Distinct to the political violence litera-
ture, what is “political” about this violence is not its motivation but its target: a
person’s role as a political official is what draws the attacker’s attention. While
perpetrators express a variety of grievances, most are believed to suffer from
mental illness—interrupting the political process, but for reasons distinct from
traditional political confrontations (Meloy, Sheridan, and Hoffman 2008).
Early studies in this vein examined the archives of the U.S. Capitol Police,
which receives evidence and investigates cases of threats and harassment
directed at members of the U.S. Congress. This research noted that threats
were largely uncorrelated with approach (Dietz et al. 1991; Scalora et al. 2002).
Subsequent work thus theorized a distinction between “hunters,” who seek to
physically harm their targets, and “howlers,” who seek to frighten their targets
but rarely follow through with further action. While the former pose physi-
cal risks, the latter inflict mental and emotional distress (Calhoun and Weston
2016). Schoeneman-Morris, Scalora, Chang, Zimmerman, and Garner (2007)
also found that people who wrote letters rather than sending emails were more
apt to initiate personal contact, most likely because postal communications
require more than twice as many discrete steps to complete—indicating a
greater degree of fixation on the target.
More recent work expands this focus to legislatures outside the United
States and gathers data via questionnaires. Prevalence rates are strikingly simi-
lar across studies: between 80% and 90% of respondents reported experienc-
ing at least one form of harassment (Bjørgo and Silkoset 2018; Every-Palmer,
Barry-Walsh, and Pathé 2015; James et al. 2016a; Pathé, Phillips, Perdacher,
and Heffernan 2014). More than one-quarter of Canadian politicians described
these intrusions as “frightening” or “terrifying” (Adams, Hazelwood, Pitre,
Bedard, and Landry 2009, 807). More than 40% of British MPs increased secu-
rity at home and work as a result. One in five changed their daily routines,
one in ten reduced social outings, and 6% took time off work. In addition, 8%
consulted a health professional regarding mental and physical stress related to
the experience (James et al. 2016b, 186). Collectively, these analyses show no
major disparities in terms of the sex, age, party, or length of career of the target
(James et al. 2016a). Rather, “aggressive/intrusive” behaviors tend to be driven
by mental illness, facilitated by the ability of constituents to engage directly
with representatives, with contact information and work schedules widely avail-
able to the general public (Narud and Dahl 2015).
A distinct but related body of research, conducted mainly by historians,
economists, and political scientists, focuses on the determinants and impact
of political assassinations. This work problematizes political convictions and

mental health as key drivers of violence, arguing that most assassins har-
bor multiple motives, including bringing attention to a personal or political
problem, avenging a perceived wrong, or ending personal pain (Ayton 2017).
Examining this phenomenon globally between 1945 and 2013, Perliger (2015)
observes that while these events occur across all regions, political conditions—
like restricted competition and strong polarization—make assassinations more
likely. Although MPs are more likely than other political actors to be killed,
this rarely occurs in more established democracies. Heads of state, in contrast,
are targeted everywhere as symbols of the existing social, economic, or political
order (Iqbal and Zorn 2008).
Individuals with criminal backgrounds, or connections to organized crime,
also commit a large share of these assassinations (Perliger 2015). Their rea-
sons for killing politicians are often not political, but economic. According to
Daniele and Dippopa (2017), organized crime groups target Italian municipali-
ties to gain lucrative contracts for waste management, quarries, and other pub-
lic procurements, as well as a wide range of employment, housing, and welfare
subsidies. A politician’s probability of being a target of violence thus increases
after elections, especially with a change in government, as criminal groups
attempt to “condition” politicians to their will by sending signals of criminal
strength—most commonly through arson and threatening letters, but also
potentially escalating to bombings and homicides. In Mexico, criminal frag-
mentation and political pluralization have destabilized longstanding alliances,
increasing pressures on officials to accept illicit money and enhancing the like-
lihood that politicians will get caught up in intra-cartel battles (Blume 2017).
The democratic impact, in turn, is two-fold: in addition to affecting political
decision-making, these dynamics discourage well-qualified citizens from seek-
ing public office by making a political career less attractive (Daniele 2019).
Violence against Human Rights Defenders
Violence against human rights defenders first began to be recognized as an

issue in the 1970s. The Helsinki Act, proclaimed at the Conference for Security
and Cooperation in Europe in 1975, stipulated human rights as a principle of
international relations for the first time, as states-parties confirmed “the right
of the individual to know and act upon his rights and duties in [the human
rights] field” (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1975, 7). In
1980, Canada initiated a resolution in the UN Commission on Human Rights8
to “encourage and support individuals and organs of society exercising their
rights and responsibilities to promote the effective observance of human rights”
(Wille and Spannagel 2019). A sub-commission presented guiding principles to
this effect in 1984, leading to a decision by the commission to set up a working
group to prepare a declaration on this topic. The first draft appeared in 1987.
However, adoption of the text took more than a decade, with a key point of
contention revolving around the rights of states, as sovereign entities, versus
individuals, as bearers of human rights.
After a compromise was finally reached in 1998, the UN General Assembly
adopted the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, clarifying the appli-
cability of existing human rights norms and standards to human rights defend-
ers themselves. Article 12 confirmed the right to be a defender, stating that
“everyone has the right to participate in peaceful activities against violations of
human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The declaration also articulated two
new rights specific to human rights defenders: the right “to develop and dis-
cuss new human rights ideas and principles and to advocate their acceptance”
(Article 7) and “to solicit, receive, and utilize resources for the express purpose
of promoting and protecting human rights . . . through peaceful means” (Article
13). Article 12 also specifically addressed the problem of violence, stipulating
the right to be protected “against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto
or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a
consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of [these] rights” (UN General
Assembly 1998, 4, 6).
In 2000, the Commission on Human Rights requested that the Secretary-
General appoint a Special Representative on the Situation of Human Rights
Defenders to gather information, enter into dialogue with governments, and
recommend strategies to better protect defenders. Special Representative Hina
Jilani made her first report to the UN General Assembly in 2002. Early on
in her mandate, she expressed concerns that some governments were restrict-
ing the activities of human rights defenders on grounds of security and
counterterrorism—but, in fact, were seeking to conceal their own human
rights abuses and punish the defenders who exposed them (UN Secretary-
General 2003). These discussions highlighted the politically driven nature of
attacks on activists, but also framed these attacks as human rights violations
themselves.
In the ensuing years, regional organizations followed suit in creating their
own mandates and guidelines regarding human rights defenders. In 2001, the
OAS General Assembly passed a resolution creating its own rapporteur on
human rights defenders, with the aim of studying the situation of human rights
defenders in the region and identifying and developing international standards
for their protection. In 2006, the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights issued its first regional report, emphasizing the legal frameworks avail-
able for pursuing claims within the inter-American system. The EU adopted
guidelines on human rights defenders in 2004 to strengthen its ongoing efforts
to promote human rights, focusing on how the EU could intervene to sup-
port and promote human rights defenders at risk. That same year, the African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights established a special rapporteur
on human rights defenders to seek and act upon information on the situation
of human rights defenders in Africa.
Driving these advances were a number of civil society organizations
working on the issue of human rights defenders. Founded in 1961, Amnesty
International began as a network seeking the release of political prisoners, but
soon expanded to upholding the whole spectrum of human rights defenders.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) formed in 1978 as Helsinki Watch to support citi-
zen groups monitoring government compliance with the Helsinki Act. Over the
course of the 1980s and 1990s, it expanded globally and also began to focus on
a broader range of human rights. Both organizations mobilize public opinion
to pressure states, gathering and publishing data to expose government abuses.
A third group, Front Line Defenders, was created in 2001 with the specific man-
date of protecting human rights defenders at risk via advocacy, trainings, and
other forms of practical support, especially related to personal security.
Academic research on human rights defenders is relatively scarce and
relies primarily on data and testimonies collected by NGOs. Landman
(2006), for instance, analyzes annual reports produced by the Observatory
for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint program of the World
Organization against Torture and the International Federation for Human
Rights. He counted 3324 documented violations against human rights defend-
ers in over 50 countries between 1997 and 2003 (129). The most common form
of abuse was arbitrary arrest and detention, followed by threats, harassments,
and summary executions, as well as various forms of judicial harassment. The
main perpetrators of abuse were police officers and members of the judiciary,
although many were also unknown, according to the reports.
Other scholarly work seeks to map the global emergence of the interna-
tional protection regime for human rights defenders. It explores how the term
“human rights defender” has been used in practice (Nah, Bennett, Ingleton, and
Savage 2013). It also identifies gaps in research, for example on the effectiveness
of protection mechanisms and the relationship between repression, activism,
and risk (Bennett, Ingleton, Nah, and Savage 2015). Some contributions also
explore new forms of violence against human rights defenders, including laws
aimed at criminalizing defenders, referencing imperatives related to national
sovereignty, counterterrorism, and cultural and religious norms (Bennett et al.
2015; Van der Vet and Lyytikäinen 2015).
Violence against Journalists
Journalists are not often viewed as political actors, but they play a key role in
political life and violence against them also poses crucial threats to both democ-
racy and human rights. As established in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression . . . and
to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers” (UN 1948, 5). In 1997, UNESCO recognized violence
against journalists as its own specific issue, affecting both individual reporters
and society at large. In Resolution 29, it characterized “assassination and any
physical violence against journalists” as a “crime against society,” as it “curtails
freedom of expression” and “other rights and freedoms set forth in interna-
tional human rights instruments” (1997, 1–2).
The impetus for this work originated with associations of media pro-
fessionals responding to challenges faced by colleagues around the world.
A group of American foreign correspondents formed the CPJ in 1981 in
response to the brutal treatment of fellow journalists by authoritarian govern-
ments. Monitoring press freedom in more than 120 countries, the CPJ takes
action when journalists are censored, harassed, threatened, attacked, jailed,
abducted, or killed for their work. Their full-time staff documents cases, pub-
lishes reports, conducts advocacy, campaigns on behalf of the journalist, and
provides life-saving emergency support. The CPJ also publishes safety adviso-
ries and has developed toolkits on physical, digital, and psychological safety.9
Other organizations were not initially established to address violence
against journalists, but this issue became a logical extension of their earlier
work. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) was founded in 1926
to promote the economic and human rights of journalists. In 1990, the IFJ
began publishing an annual report on the number of journalists and media
staff killed each year; in 1992, it set up a Safety Fund to support journalists
faced with persecution. The International Press Institute (IPI), in turn, was
established in 1950 to protect press freedom and improve the practices of jour-
nalism. In 1997, it introduced Death Watch, a listing of media professionals
targeted because of their profession or who had lost their lives while on assign-
ment. In 2002, IFJ and IPI joined forces to propose the creation of an inter-
national journalism safety body. Launched the following year, INSI provides
training, counseling, and support for journalists, particular those reporting in
conflict zones.
Data collected by these NGOs subsequently fed into discussions at the UN
and beyond. In 2006, UN Security Council Resolution 1738 condemned “acts
of violence . . . against journalists, media professionals, and associated person-
nel in armed conflict,” stipulating that journalists reporting in these contexts
be considered and protected as civilians (UN Security Council 2006, 2). The
following year, a UNESCO (2007) report on press freedom expanded the focus
beyond conflict zones, noting that a majority of journalists killed over the past
decade worked in non-conflict contexts, and had typically been targeted “for
reporting news that is not popular with those who have power, money, or guns”
(6). Stating that “being a journalist has never been more dangerous” (4), the
report called for an end to impunity for such crimes, which it saw as rooted in a
lack of political will to investigate cases—or deliberate efforts to hide the truth.
Following a Decision on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity

in 2008, subsequently renewed every two years, the UNESCO Director-General
convened a series of meetings to develop a UN Plan of Action on the Safety of
Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. Adopted in 2012, the plan noted “dis-
quieting evidence of the scale and number of attacks against the physical safety
of journalists and media workers” (UNESCO 2012, 1) and called for a coordi-
nated response across international, state, and civil society sectors to prevent,
protect against, and prosecute attacks against journalists.
The UN General Assembly took note of the Plan of Action in a resolution
the following year. Reflecting an expanded understanding of this phenomenon,
it condemned “all attacks and violence against journalists and media work-
ers, such as torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and arbi-
trary detention, as well as intimidation and harassment in both conflict and
non-conflict situations.” The resolution also proclaimed November 2 as the
International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists and called
on member states to “promote a safe and enabling environment for journal-
ists to perform their work independently and without undue interference” (UN
General Assembly 2013a, 3).
In 2013 and 2014, UNESCO piloted a set of journalists’ safety indica-
tors to monitor journalist safety and impunity at the global and national
levels. It also set up a mechanism to monitor the status of judicial inquiries
into the killing of journalists, requesting updates from member states for
reports published every two years. In 2015, the UN Statistical Commission
designated UNESCO as a contributing agency for data on Indicator 16.10.1
of the Sustainable Development Goals, capturing the “number of verified
cases of killing, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention
and torture of journalists, associated media personnel, trade unionists
and human rights advocates in the previous 12 months.”10 In the ensuing
years, these various UN bodies have continued to track fatalities as well
as strengthen normative commitments. In 2017, the Secretary- General
advanced these efforts by setting up a network of focal points across the
UN system, tapping 14 agencies to coordinate their efforts to deal with
cases of attacks against journalists.
Other recent innovations in global debates include a growing focus on the
problem of online violence. In 2016, IPI launched OnTheLine, a project to
monitor online harassment of journalists with the goal of exposing and coun-
tering threats against press freedom and free expression in the digital sphere.
This initiative identifies four categories of online violence: threats of violence,
like death threats; abusive behavior, including sexual and other harassment,
smear campaigns, and posting of defamatory or false materials; technical inter-
ference, like use of malware or hacking of accounts and personal information;
and improper legal threats, including threats of criminal or civil action or spu-
rious takedown requests.11
In late 2018, these various issues gained further recognition when Time
magazine named journalists who had faced violence in the course of their work
as the collective Time Person of the Year. Arguing that informed citizens were
essential to democratic governance, the editors characterized attacks on jour-
nalists as a “war on truth,” criticizing attempts by political leaders to frame
media professionals as the “enemy of the people.” Among other examples, they
mentioned Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist killed in the Saudi embassy
in Istanbul in October 2018, and Maria Ressa, editor of the online news site
Rappler in the Philippines, who was charged with tax fraud, which carries a
lengthy prison sentence, in an effort to prevent her reporting (Vick 2018).
Studies of this topic are largely written by current or former journal-
ists. One exception is an early book by a historian who suggests that violence
against the press is a recurring theme in U.S. history—so integral to the “cul-
ture of public expression,” he argues, that violent acts should be understood as
“systemic rather than episodic” (Nerone 1994, 9). He identities four patterns
in this violence over time: individual violence, violence against ideas, violence
against groups, and violence against the media as an institution. Historically,
he finds, these acts tend to surface in attempts to preserve traditional values
in the face of change—an example being violence against African-American
newspapers after the Civil War and during the civil rights era, as the status of
blacks in U.S. society began to improve.
More recent work parallels the development of global practitioner discus-
sions, focusing initially on dangers faced by reporters in war zones—and then
expanding to consider challenges encountered by actors within the profession
at large. Tumber and Webster (2006) argue that, while frontline journalism has
always entailed safety risks, this work is growing more difficult and dangerous,
affecting reporters’ physical and mental health. This is because most journalists
killed today in conflict zones are deliberately targeted, often in reprisal for their
reporting, rather than dying as a result of cross-fire. These dynamics are exacer-
bated by shifts in how journalists are viewed by combatants, especially terrorist
groups: previously treated as neutral observers with civilian status, reporters
are now often seen as legitimate—and, indeed, desirable—targets. Kidnapping
or killing a journalist can attract political attention, while also intimidating
others in an attempt to control the news narrative (Cottle, Sambrook, and
Mosdell 2016).
Changing digital technologies have spawned new risks. Opportunities to
create and spread “fake news” position journalists as even less politically neu-
tral. At the same time, new technologies have made it easier to identify targets
and communicate threats and intimidation. Journalists working on sensitive
topics—like human rights, war and international affairs, politics, and inves-
tigative reporting—are particularly vulnerable to these forms of aggression
(Parker 2015). This is especially true in contexts with rising “nationalist senti-
ment antagonistic to critical journalism” (Ellis 2017, 57), where governments
and coordinated armies of trolls may work together to chill online speech. The
aim, as Luque Martínez (2015) points out, is not only to intimidate targeted
journalists away from covering certain topics—it is also to damage the victim’s
credibility as a reporter. In these ways, violence against journalists not only
threatens freedom of speech and citizens’ right to information but also inflicts
potentially devastating personal and professional consequences.
9
A Distinct Phenomenon
A growing body of activism and research challenges the normalization of

conflict and hostility in political life, arguing that some forms of antagonism
do not promote but in fact undermine democracy and human rights. Despite
important overlaps, this literature does not suffice on its own to adequately
conceptualize the phenomenon of violence against women in politics. First,
most iterations overlook the role of gender and other identities in shaping inci-
dents of violence (Bardall 2011; Bjarnegård 2018). When sex is included as a
variable, its importance is typically downplayed as minor or irrelevant (James
et al. 2016a). Second, these frameworks tend to limit their focus to one dimen-
sion of democracy: the representation of different political parties or policy
positions (Staniland 2014).
Prevailing understandings of political violence, however, provide a useful
foundation for theorizing various forms of violence experienced by politically
active women around the world. Some of these attacks fall squarely within
existing frameworks, with women being targeted for their political views
in both gendered and non-gendered ways. However, women may also face a
second, qualitatively distinct form of violence. Rather than being an inciden-
tal feature, gender is central to the logic of this violence, shaping its origins,
manifestations, and outcomes. The purpose is not policy marginalization, but
group-based political exclusion—affecting a second dimension of democracy,
the participation of different social groups in political decision-making. While
only recently recognized and named as a problem, this form of violence poses
threats to democracy, human rights, and gender equality.
Violence in the Political Sphere
Emerging academic research on violence against women in politics differs

sharply on how to theorize and empirically analyze violence experienced by
women in the political sphere. One approach elides these forms of violence,
distinguishing only between gendered motives, forms, and impacts (Bardall,
Bjarnegård, and Piscopo 2019). This work stresses the need to compare women
and men and generally finds few differences in their experiences (Bjarnegård
2018). An alternative perspective theorizes two separate phenomena—violence
in politics and violence against women in politics—which can nonetheless
overlap and intersect in individual cases (Krook and Restrepo Sanín 2016b,
2020). Contrary to the first account, this approach does not frame these con-
cepts as competing hypotheses; rather, these phenomena can co-exist, both in
the broader population of cases and in the context of a specific woman’s own
experiences.
These debates echo controversies that have long waged within the literature
on gender-based violence. Focusing on the lived realities of women in battered
women shelters, feminist constructions have largely viewed domestic violence as
a form of patriarchal control exercised by male perpetrators over female victims.
However, a counter-narrative on family violence soon materialized, reframing
the problem as a case of human violence in which men and women were equally
likely to be both perpetrators and victims (Berns 2001). A common response on
the part of gender scholars has been to criticize the data used to support these
latter claims, noting that apparent gender symmetry is rooted in both dubious
coding decisions and gendered norms of behavior that lead women and men to
under-and over-estimate—in opposite directions—the frequency with which
they use or are on the receiving end of violence (Kimmel 2002).
Johnson (1995) takes a different approach, questioning whether—given
these divergent findings—researchers are in fact studying the same phenom-
enon. He points out that the family violence literature analyzes a wide range of
domestic conflicts, including occasional violent outbursts from husbands and
wives—the vast majority of which do not escalate to become life threatening.
Using data from national samples composed of equal numbers of women and
men, these studies uncover only small gender differences in both the use and
receipt of violence. Most of these incidents, moreover, arise in the context of
everyday conflicts, the prevalence of which is shaped by the degree to which
they are embedded within a broader violence-prone culture.
In contrast, feminist advocacy and research is concerned with what Johnson
(1995) calls “patriarchal terrorism,” or systematic violence perpetrated by men
to control women. These acts may involve physical violence but also “coer-
cive control,” consisting of psychological threats, subordination, and isolation
(Stark 2007). Collecting data from domestic violence shelters, this work uncov-
ers highly disproportionate gender ratios, with 97% of victims being female
and nearly all perpetrators being male (Johnson 1995, 285). Because the aim
of this violence is to control women, targets often live under constant fear of
escalation, with little recourse as their mistreatment is rooted and justified by
patriarchal traditions of the family.
A Distinct Phenomenon 91
Although these two approaches are typically framed as alternative hypoth-

eses, Johnson (1995) argues that divergent sampling decisions have given
researchers access to two largely non-overlapping populations experiencing dis-
tinct forms of violence. While family violence scholars cast conclusions from
shelter populations as invalid because they do not constitute a random sample,
national studies are also skewed as those affected by patriarchal terrorism—on
both the giving and receiving ends—are highly unlikely to participate in such a
survey. A single research design, therefore, does not suffice to study these two
phenomena at the same time. These insights, in turn, support the notion that
there may also be two types of violence in the political sphere: violence in poli-
tics, targeting male and female political actors in gendered and non-gendered
ways; and violence against women in politics, directed specifically at women as
a group to drive them out of the political realm.
VIOLENCE IN POLITICS
Existing frameworks in political science help elaborate how these two phe-
nomena are related but distinct. Pitkin (1967) theorizes four types of political
representation, each of which reflects only a partial view. She observes that
“substantive representation,” however, is often what most thinkers understand
by the term, referring to “an activity in behalf of, in the interest of, as the agent
of, someone else” (113). Phillips (1995) describes this as the “politics of ideas,”
where “representation is considered more or less adequate depending on how
well it reflects voters’ opinions or preferences or beliefs” (1). This concept of
representation drives concerns about political and electoral violence, as well as
violence against politicians, human rights defenders, and journalists. Such acts
are problematic because they use force to enable one set of political preferences
to prevail over the others, violating citizens’ ability to make free and informed
choices about political alternatives.
Violence in politics, proposed here as a collective term for these dynam-
ics, can affect women and men, with gender playing a relatively small role
even when women are specifically targeted. The 2007 assassination of Benazir
Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, falls into this category. Killed as
she waved from her car while leaving a political rally, circumstances surround-
ing her death—and the ensuing police investigation—raised questions about
who was ultimately responsible. A UN fact-finding mission noted the distinct
lack of data for evaluation: the crime scene was hosed down within an hour of
the attack, only 23 pieces of evidence were collected, and an autopsy on the
body was refused (UN Commission of Inquiry 2010).
Due to the botched police investigation, many theories flourish regarding
her assassins and their potential motivations. Government officials attributed
the attack to Al-Qaeda. Bhutto did have concerns that Al-Qaeda and members
of the Pakistani Taliban might seek to harm her, based on her strong stance
against religious extremism, as well as her support for the U.S. approach to
combatting terrorism. During her last months in Pakistan, however, she came
to view the government and the military and intelligence communities as the
main threats to her safety. She was convinced, further, that threat warnings
passed to her by these agencies aimed to intimidate her to stop campaigning
(Farwell 2011). All of the potential suspects, therefore, appeared to be driven
primarily not by gender but by questions of policy and political power.
In terms of the broader context, moreover, Bhutto was not the first politi-
cal figure in Pakistan to die in an untimely fashion. Her father, Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto, who served as president and as prime minister, was executed in 1979.
Even more tellingly, Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was
assassinated in 1951—in the same park Bhutto was leaving as she was killed.
When Bhutto arrived at the hospital after the suicide bombing, the staff was
busy treating victims of a shooting at a rival candidate’s rally earlier that day
(UN Commission of Inquiry 2010). Violence is thus a core feature of politics
in Pakistan, affecting a wide range of politically engaged actors from ordinary
citizens to high-level political leaders.
Violence in politics can also take gender-differentiated forms, with women
and men targeted for their political affiliations in different ways (cf. Bardall,
Bjarnegård, and Piscopo 2019). In Zimbabwe, members of President Robert
Mugabe’s party, the Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF), engaged in an organized and sustained rape campaign against
supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Testimonies
gathered by AIDS-Free World (2009) following the 2008 presidential elec-
tions revealed that members of Mugabe’s youth militia abducted, beat, and
gang raped hundreds, if not thousands, of women associated with the MDC,
arriving at their homes singing ZANU-PF songs or wearing party t-shirts.
The Research and Advocacy Unit (2011), a local NGO, conducted surveys of
women around the country and found that “politically motivated rape” aimed
at “instilling fear, humiliating, and effecting total disengagement in politics on
the part of women, men, sons, and male relatives who had dared openly or
indirectly to express their partisan affiliations” (19–20).
Men can also be attacked in gendered ways. Following the contested 2007
elections in Kenya, a large number of men from the Luo ethnic group, who were
presumed to support Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement, were
forcibly circumcised by supporters of Mwai Kibaki, a member of the Kikuyu
ethnic group and the Party of National Union. This sexualized violence sought
to emasculate members of the opposition and was rooted in a broader context
of suspected election rigging by the ruling party (Auchter 2017). Following a
different line of attack, the former Malaysian deputy prime minister turned
opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, was charged and put on trial numerous
times for sodomy in an attempt to destroy his reputation (Abbott 2001), cul-
minating in imprisonment in 2015 as part of a broader crackdown on human
rights defenders. The aim of these acts, while taking gendered forms, is to pun-
ish or exclude on the basis of political opinions.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN POLITICS
A second major form of political representation, according to Pitkin (1967),

is “descriptive representation,” which focuses on “being something rather than
doing something” (61). Phillips (1995) labels this the “politics of presence,”
where fairness requires that political institutions reflect “a more adequate rep-
resentation of the different social groups that make up the citizen body” (6).
Protecting the integrity of this form of representation is the purview of efforts
to tackle violence against women in politics. These acts infringe upon basic
political rights, seeking to exclude members of certain demographic groups
from participating in the political process.
Women are not the only group that has experienced violence targeting their
descriptive representation. In 1976, the U.S. National Association of Human
Rights Workers created a Special Committee on the Status of Minority Elected
Officials. Its first task was to examine political harassment in the decade since
passage of the Voting Rights Act protecting the political rights of African
Americans. The resulting 300-page report found that “over half of the 16 mem-
bers of the Congressional Black Caucus; three of four Black State Executives;
dozens of Black State Legislators; at least 20 Black Mayors; and unknown
numbers of other local officials” (Warner 1977, 11) had faced police and intel-
ligence community surveillance, spurious legal investigations and tax audits,
false accusations in the media, withholding of funding for their communities,
and death threats to themselves or family members.
Interpreting these acts as “resistance to the intrusion of Blacks on the pre-
rogatives of white values, white power, and white control,” the report observed
that the aim seemed to be “to make the position of an elected official so frus-
trating, so unattractive, so anguish-filled, and so intolerable that Blacks quit, or
refrain from running for re-election, or decline to seek office in the first place”
(Warner 1977, 11, 18). In the late 1980s, the issue surfaced again following
the growing mobilization of black voters. In surveys, between one-third and
one-half of African Americans believed that black leaders were being singled
out for repression by government authorities. This claim was backed up by
data showing that black officials at all levels of government were five times
more likely than white officials to have been investigated by the Department of
Justice (Musgrove 2012, 2, 6).
Distinct from efforts to prevent people from participating due to their
political opinions, this type of violence aims to exclude individuals based on
their descriptive group membership. Rather than suppressing political compe-
tition, it expresses bias and discrimination, calling into question the rights of
these groups to take part in politics at all. Female politicians have long been
aware of this distinction, even when they lacked a word to capture it. As Ross
(2002) finds in interviews with political women in Australia, South Africa, and
the UK: “Women are more than ‘happy’ to be targeted as individual members
of an opposing side, as fair game in the war of attrition which is regularly car-
ried out on the floors of debating chambers around the world, but object to the
use of their sex as the primary weapon of assault” (193). Along similar lines,
Diane Abbott, a British MP, explained that, in these cases, “people are not
engaging in debate or scrutiny but just showering you with abuse: that you’re a
nigg*r; that you’re a prostitute; threats against your safety. It’s just abuse which
has no political content” (Dhrodia 2017).
Acts of violence against women in politics, however, need not take obviously
gendered forms: gender motivation, not gender differentiation, is the defining
feature of this phenomenon. The 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the
first female president of Brazil, illustrates the diversity of tools that may be
mobilized to delegitimize women’s rights as women to serve as political leaders.
On their face, impeachment proceedings do not appear to constitute a form of
“violence.” In this case, however, a deeper probe reveals a process permeated
with expressions of bias against women in political roles.
Signaling that they did not accept a female leader, those who promoted and
voted in favor of impeachment, including conservative media outlets, refused to
call Rousseff by her preferred form of address, presidenta, the feminine form of
the word “president.” Instead, they persisted in using presidente, the masculine
form, reinforcing associations between men and leadership—and thus marking
her as clear interloper in this realm. News magazines supportive of impeach-
ment, further, portrayed her as hysterical, a common trope used against powerful
women, while other opponents placed stickers of Rousseff with her legs spread
apart around gas tank openings on their cars, sexually violating her image every
time they filled up. On the floor of the Chamber of Deputies, lastly, mainly male
legislators held up signs saying Tchau, Querida! (Bye-Bye, Sweetheart!), taunting
her in degrading and gendered terms as they voted for her impeachment.
Rousseff, for her part, championed gender equality, expanding the gov-
ernment’s work to end violence against women and support women’s finan-
cial autonomy. She also appointed far more women to cabinet positions than
previous presidents and elevated the secretariat on policies for women to a
full-fledged ministry (Jalalzai and dos Santos 2015). The main protagonists
in the impeachment campaign, in contrast, were well-known for their sexism
and misogyny, including Eduardo Cunha, who had sponsored numerous bills
against women’s and LGBT rights, and Jair Bolsonaro, who led a campaign
against “gender ideology” and promoted rape culture on the floor of parlia-
ment (Biroli 2016). Michel Temer, Rousseff’s former vice president who became
acting president on her suspension, appointed the first all-white, all-male cabi-
net since the military dictatorship and discontinued the majority of policies for
women initiated under Rousseff and her predecessor (Rubim and Argolo 2018).
The reaction of Brazilian women suggests, moreover, that a substantial

portion believed the impeachment was motivated by gender bias. One activist
wrote that “almost all feminists agree that her impeachment was sexist and dis-
criminatory,” with thousands of women coming together to express solidarity
with Rousseff in a “confrontation with the patriarchy, with male chauvinists”
(Hao 2016). Female politicians echoed this message. Senator Regina Sousa
remarked during the trial that “the message they are sending in this process is
also directed at all women” (Amorim 2016). Rousseff acknowledged this sup-
port during her speech at the trial: “Brazilian women have been, during this
time, a fundamental pillar for my resistance . . . Tireless companions in a battle
in which misogyny and prejudice showed their claws” (Rousseff 2016).
Finally, ample evidence indicates that Rousseff was punished according
to a gendered double standard. Her stated offense was to use funds from the
central bank to conceal a budget deficit before the 2014 elections. This bud-
getary practice, known as pedaladas fiscais, was made illegal in 2000, but was
employed by two previous male presidents without penalty. Moreover, many
legal experts agreed it did not amount to a “crime of responsibility,” the only
type of crime that justifies removing an elected president (Encarnación 2017).
Further, over 100 deputies were themselves under formal investigation for crim-
inal activity at the time of the impeachment. Rousseff, in contrast, stood out as
one of the cleanest politicians in Brazil (Chalhoub, Collins, Lllanos, Pachón,
and Perry 2017). Factors driving Rousseff out of office thus stemmed far less
from differences of political opinion than views that women are illegitimate
participants in the political realm.1
EMPIRICAL OVERLAPS AND INTERSECTIONS
Previous work has struggled to distinguish these phenomena for several rea-
sons. First, politically active women may experience both forms of violence.
These incidents may transpire separately, with attacks focusing on a woman’s
political views at one moment and their female identity at another. Forms
of violence may also co-occur, discrediting women’s political views by ques-
tioning their right as women to participate at all. In July 2019, for example,
President Donald Trump went on Twitter to criticize “ ‘Progressive’ Democrat
Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments
are a complete and total catastrophe” for “viciously telling the people of the
United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our gov-
ernment is to be run.” He went on to tell them to “go back and help fix the
totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”2 Although
he did not mention them by name, most observers believed he was referring to
four women of color elected in 2018: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar,
Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib. As the “public faces of the shift toward a
more diverse Congress,” these women have been targeted repeatedly by Trump
and conservative media outlets—skeptical of their policies and their descrip-

tive backgrounds—with “aggressive and extensive calls to shut up and go away”
(Chittal 2019).
Attacks against teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg follow a similar
logic, mocking her calls to address climate change by criticizing her as “deeply
disturbed,” an “arrogant child,” and a “teenage puppet.” Noting that most
of her detractors are older, white, conservative men, Gelin (2019) argues that
their hostility is rooted in beliefs that the real threat is not to the environment
but to “a certain kind of modern industrial society built and dominated by
their form of masculinity” (Anshelm and Hultman 2014, 85). Close associa-
tions between women and the environment drive—and in detractors’ minds,
justify—these reactions: “Environmentalists are female and/or effeminate, and
therefore can be dismissed out of hand as stupid or crazy or driven by irrational
emotion . . . Women are so worthless in their eyes, it appears, that no amount
of evidence will ever make women’s arguments hold merit” (Marcotte 2019).
Second, most of the available data for studying these dynamics cap-
tures both forms of violence simultaneously. Studies of online violence, for
instance, typically employ automated algorithms to identify and analyze
abusive tweets. Visualizations accompanying a story on the abuse of U.S.,
Australian, and British politicians show how this data may reflect a mix of
political and gender content. Abuse of Hillary Clinton commonly drew on
gendered slurs, like bitch, cunt, and whore, but to a lesser extent also included
terms like lying, stupid, and corrupt. In contrast, tweets directed at her rival
Bernie Sanders tended to call him an idiot or moron, followed by a range of
gender-neutral expletives. A side-by-side comparison of tweets sent to Julia
Gillard and her opponent Kevin Rudd indicated more qualitative differences,
with abusive language directed at Gillard being more “personal, vitriolic, and
sexual,” even when phrased in a party-political way (Hunt, Evershed, and
Liu 2016).
Third, some women are attacked both as women and in response to their
women’s rights advocacy (Biroli 2018; Mantilla 2015). In Argentina, women
supporting decriminalization of abortion have been physically attacked when
wearing a green handkerchief—a symbol of the campaign—on their wrists,
necks, or bags. In accounts collected by Amnesty International (2018a), one
woman described being slashed in the face with a razor by two young men
who yanked the green handkerchief off her backpack, while another was sur-
rounded by a group of men who shouted “you are an abortionist, we are all
going to rape you and afterwards you will abort it” (15–16). Numerous activ-
ists and journalists also reported being harassed online with threats, insults,
and derogatory terms like “prostitute,” including one whose home was later
raided by police who took everything related to the fight for abortion. Amnesty
denounced these as methods seeking “to silence, censor, and oppress women
human rights defenders” (15).
With clearer concepts, nevertheless, these overlaps and intersections can

be disentangled to distinguish acts directed at women for political reasons from
those seeking to exclude them as women from participating in political life.
Identifying instances of both phenomena is important, as both involve viola-
tions of electoral and personal integrity (Bjarnegård 2018), undermining—in
turn—both democracy and human rights. Violence against women in politics,
however, also poses a third threat—to gender equality—that is not yet widely
recognized or understood. While largely hidden, the denigration of women per-
meates the origins, manifestations, and outcomes of these acts, providing deep
roots for legitimizing and normalizing their political exclusion.
Defining Violence against Women in Politics
Campaigns to stop violence against women in politics name a phenomenon

that, until recently, has largely been ignored or naturalized as the “cost of doing
politics” for women seeking to be politically active. These gendered dynamics
work at three levels: structural, cultural, and symbolic. Theorized by disparate
scholars and corroborated by a wide range of studies, they work together to
create, justify, and reinforce women’s secondary status. Deeply embedded in the
fabric of society, these forces explain why violence against women in politics
remains largely hidden from view—and reveals the implications of allowing
these exclusionary tendencies to continue unchallenged.
STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE
Gender inequality begins with structural violence, the stratification of access to

basic human needs based on ascriptive group membership. Built into the social
structure, it enacts harm in the form of unequal life chances (Galtung 1969),
“mark[ing] some people as deserving worse treatment, or even mark[ing] some
people as less human” (Price 2012, 6). Creating and legitimating patterns of
hierarchy and inequality, structural violence denies marginalized groups oppor-
tunities for emotional and physical well-being, effects that are exacerbated for
those who are members of multiple marginalized groups (Anglin 1998).
In contrast to direct personal violence, which can be clearly recognized and
denounced by victims, structural violence is a “silent” form of injustice which
appears “as natural as the air around us,” so that the “object of structural vio-
lence may be persuaded not to perceive this at all” (Galtung 1969, 173). Frye
(1983) describes these dynamics of oppression using the analogy of a bird cage.
She notes that an observer looking only at one wire of the cage would be unable
to see why a bird could not just fly around it whenever it wanted to go some-
where. Viewing the cage from a distance, however, reveals the system of wires,
explaining why the bird is confined and cannot move freely. While structural
violence is largely invisible, therefore, it nonetheless “leaves marks not only on

the human body but also on the mind and the spirit” (Galtung 1990, 294).
Manne (2018) argues that, in the case of women, these dynamics constitute
“sexism,” an ideology establishing and rationalizing a patriarchal social order.
Like theorists of structural violence, she points out that gendered norms of
behavior have a “coercive quality” that seek to remain “implicit,” yet engage
“a long list of mechanisms in service of this goal,” including the socialization
of women to accept these norms, narratives about the inherent nature of sex
differences, and the depiction of care work as rewarding (as long as it is per-
formed by women). The “seamless appearance” of sexism is “almost inevitably
deceptive,” however, as “hostile, threatening, and punitive norm-enforcement
mechanisms” are always standing by “should these ‘soft’ forms of social power
prove insufficient for upholding them” (46–47).
Structural violence affects the terms of women’s political engagement by
imposing what feminists call the “public/private divide,” associating men with
the public sphere of politics and women with the private sphere of the home.
This divide informs political theories as well as broader social practices, val-
orizing men and masculine attributes in public leadership (Katz 2016) while
delegitimizing women’s rights and opportunities to move around in public
spaces (Elshtain 1981; Landes 1988; Pateman 1988). This gender divide is so
foundational to existing concepts of politics, according to Okin (1979), that
there is no way to “include women, formerly minor characters, as major ones
within the political drama without challenging basic and age-old assumptions
about the family, its traditional sex roles, and its relation to the wider world of
political society” (286).
Consequently, when women do gain access to the public sphere, they con-
front a set of expectations that cast them as interlopers in a space governed and
occupied by men (Puwar 2004). This sense of intrusion is captured by Winston
Churchill’s response to Nancy Astor, the first female MP, when she asked why
he behaved so terribly toward her. Revealing a view of the British parliament
as a protected male space, he replied: “When you came into the House I felt
that you had entered my bathroom and I had no sponge with which to defend
myself.”3 Eagly and Karau (2002) locate the source of this sense of ill ease in
a perceived mismatch between traits stereotypically ascribed to women (warm,
polite, and yielding) and those associated with men and good leaders (assertive,
decisive, and confident). This results in what Lazarus and Steigerwalt (2018)
label “gendered vulnerability,” leading to ongoing challenges from political
opponents and constant calls for women in politics to prove their worth due
to their sex.
A sense of male entitlement to public space, however, is not merely a chal-
lenge faced by women seeking to enter formal politics. Structural violence
restricts women’s free movement as well as their voice in the public realm more
generally. Data from WomanStats show that women do not enjoy full freedom
of movement in public spaces in any country in the world. Women are typically
harassed, or need permission from their families or male escorts, to enter and
move in public—with restrictions on their movement even regulated by law in
some cases. The upshot is that in only a handful of cases do women enjoy high
levels of physical security; rather, the vast majority of women globally face low
or non-existent levels of physical safety.4
Exploring gender dynamics of public harassment, Gardner (1995) thus
observes that women are “situationally disadvantaged in public places,” lacking
the “same sense of freedom, entitlement, and righteousness that men exhibit”
(16, 9). She identifies three common abuses that are used as a form of social
control: exclusionary practices, which forbid or discourage women from enter-
ing some or all public spaces; exploitative practices, which involve freedoms
and intrusions—like touching, pointing, and staring—directed at women that
deprive them of the privacy that men enjoy; and evaluative practices, which
subject women to the opinions of strangers—like sexualized comments, terms
of endearment, or assessments of their attractiveness—in contexts where such
evaluation is normally not warranted. Because women who move in public
spaces violate gender norms governing the public and private spheres, they are
viewed as “fair game” for sexual and other forms of gender-based harassment
(Mantilla 2015; Segrave 2014).
CULTURAL VIOLENCE
Cultural violence taps into and justifies structural violence, making “direct and
structural violence look, even feel, right—or at least not wrong” (Galtung 1990,
291). It invokes cultural tropes and norms changing “the moral color of an act
from red/wrong to green/right or at least to yellow/acceptable.” This dynamic
creates a double standard tolerating and legitimizing violence—which is other-
wise deemed unacceptable—when it is perpetrated against members of particu-
lar groups. Through these tools, Galtung explains, “culture preaches, teaches,
admonishes, eggs on, and dulls us into seeing exploitation and/or repression as
normal and natural, or into not seeing them . . . at all” (295). The exact mani-
festations of cultural violence vary across contexts, drawing on ideas denigrat-
ing women—and other marginalized groups—in religion, language, ideology,
and other cultural domains (Galtung 1990; Jenkins 1998). These tools exist,
however, in every society, including those that view themselves as “advanced”
in areas of gender equality.
System justification tendencies drive members of both dominant and mar-
ginalized groups to naturalize and perpetrate cultural violence. According to
this perspective, people defend existing social, economic, and political arrange-
ments, even when these conflict with their self-interests, due to widespread
beliefs that the prevailing system—by the mere fact that it exists—is good
and desirable (Eidelman, Crandall, and Pattershall 2009). Doing so provides
emotional benefits by reducing “uncertainty, anxiety, guilt, dissonance, frustra-

tion, and moral outrage brought on by social inequality and other potential
system deficiencies” (Jost and van der Toorn 2011, 652).
As a result, those who offer alternative accounts testifying to injustice
often experience what Stark (2019) terms epistemic and manipulative gaslight-
ing. The first calls into question a speaker’s status as a knower, refusing to listen
to and discrediting their testimony. The second involves ridiculing or attacking
the speaker, attributing their “misinterpretations” to personal failings. By these
mechanisms, gaslighting leads individuals “to doubt not only their ability to
discern harm but their standing as one who is owed better treatment” (231).
Cultural violence with respect to women in politics is rooted in, and seeks
to reinforce, ideas about the public/private divide—and thus the gender norms
this divide creates and upholds. Denigrating and disparaging women who enter
the public sphere, these cultural tropes warn other women to stay away or else
face similar degrading treatment. While cultural violence can vary across coun-
tries, many of these tools are—in fact—strikingly similar in content, focus-
ing on the dubious morality, character, and worthiness of women who dare
to engage in public life. Invoking these negative frames and stereotypes has
implications for women’s full and equal participation, as well as their ability to
speak out about violence against women in politics.
“Sexuality-baiting” is a common tactic, “using ideas, or prejudices, about
women’s sexuality to intimidate, humiliate, embarrass, or stifle the expres-
sion of women” (Rothschild 2005, 42). It centers on the female body, pass-
ing judgment on a woman’s presumed sexual behavior, or commenting on her
physical appearance, to undermine her credibility or intellectual contributions
(Sobieraj 2018; Spender 1982). Sexual shaming slurs like dyke, slut, and whore
(Levey 2018) portray women engaged in politics as unattractive creatures who
have failed in their feminine roles and want to be men (Gullickson 2014) or as
immoral women who have exchanged sexual favors for entry into the public
sphere (Hipkins 2011).
Other gendered insults, like bitch and cunt, are silencing slurs, reflecting the
idea that women should be seen and not heard (Levey 2018). Analysis of the
term bitch suggests that it refers to a woman who is “disposed to be more bois-
terous, more assertive, more self-concerned . . . than is appropriate for a woman/
than a woman ought to be” (Ashwell 2016, 235). Suggesting it is used as a default
term for describing ambitious women in public life, Anderson (1999) argues
that the term bitch serves as a “tool of containment” in U.S. politics by invok-
ing “the myth of women’s power as unnatural and threatening” (602). These
slurs tap into broader gender stereotypes framing women as too emotional to
be leaders (Brescoll 2016), reinforced by photos frequently published of female
politicians showing them with “their mouths open, unrestrained: mid-yell,
spittle-flecked, the very act of making a loud noise a sign of their ugly and
unnatural personalities” (Traister 2018, 54).
Additional forms of cultural violence are slightly more subtle, yet none-
theless exert a powerful effect in devaluing women as worthy and autono-
mous human beings. Androcentric grammar rules, for example, relegate
women to a secondary and inferior place in society, with false generics like
“man” and “mankind” not only reflecting a history of male domination but
also actively encouraging its perpetuation (Gastil 1990). In rendering women
invisible, gender-exclusive language, moreover, signals that women do not
belong in a particular environment (Stout and Dasgupta 2011). Concerned
about this dynamic, Laura Boldrini, the new President of the Italian Chamber
of Deputies, circulated a letter asking her colleagues to call officeholders by
the appropriate gendered forms. When some criticized her efforts as “frivo-
lous,” she responded: “Language is not only a semantic issue, it is a concept,
a cultural issue . . . When you are opposed to saying la ministra or la presi-
dente it means that culturally you are not admitting that women can reach top
positions”(Feder, Nardelli, and De Luca 2018).
Cultural violence can also include common mechanisms for deflecting
scrutiny for sexism, such as characterizing abusive and misogynistic language
as “free speech” (Mantilla 2015), “just a joke” (Bemiller and Schneider 2010),
or “locker room talk” (Harp 2018). Accepting these excuses at face value fur-
ther expands the range of gender-based insults and aggressions seen as normal
and routine (Phillips 2015). Combined, the various sexist tropes constituting
cultural violence against women have a formulaic and even “quasi-algebraic
quality” (Jane 2017, 34), derogating women in “overwhelmingly impersonal,
repetitive, stereotyped” ways. As a result, perpetrators often “sound like the
exact same [person] . . . speaking to the exact same woman.”5
SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE
Cultural violence, in turn, produces symbolic violence, “a subtle, euphemized,

invisible mode of domination” (Krais 1993, 172), which seeks to put marginal-
ized people who deviate from prescribed norms back “in their place.”6 Although
the concept can be applied to understand various axes of inequality, Bourdieu
(2001) views masculine domination as the quintessential form of symbolic
violence, with “society organized through and through according to the prin-
ciple of the primacy of masculinity” (82). Symbolic violence both enacts and
legitimizes hierarchy via “misrecognition,” whereby members of “dominated
[groups] apply categories constructed from the point of view of the dominant
to the relations of domination” (35). Women, in this case, are socialized to
accept a hierarchy between men and women as “common sense,” as the “autho-
rized perspective” on the world (Bourdieu 1991, 239–240). Symbolic violence
thus reinforces structural inequalities, further naturalizing gender hierarchy.
Manne’s (2018) concept of “misogyny” provides insight into how these
dynamics work with respect to women in public life. She argues against naïve
conceptions presenting misogyny as a property of individuals who hate “any and

every woman simply because they are women.” Rather, she suggests, misogyny
is “a property of social systems” where women “face hostility of various kinds
because they are women in a man’s world . . . failing to live up to patriarchal stan-
dards” (32–33). Misogyny thus polices “women quite selectively, rather than
targeting women across the board” (34). This system-defending function means
that both men and women may harass or demean those who challenge prevail-
ing gender norms in order to “protect or enhance [their] own sex-based status”
(Berdahl 2007, 641). Backlash against female leaders thus not only reinforces
gender stereotypes, but can also reward male and female perpetrators psycho-
logically, increasing their self-esteem (Rudman and Fairchild 2004).
While symbolic violence against women in politics can be perpetrated by
both women and men, some manifestations are clearly driven by “aggrieved
entitlement,” a sense among some men that, as a result of feminism and femi-
nists, they are “failed patriarchs” or “deposed kings” (Kimmel 2017, 118).
According to scholars of masculinity, manhood is a “precarious state requiring
continual social proof and validation” (Vandello, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford,
and Weaver 2008, 1325), and displays of aggression form part of “men’s cultural
script for restoring threatened gender status” (Bosson, Vandello, Burnaford,
Weaver, and Wasti 2009, 623). One result is what Sheffield (1989) calls “sexual
terrorism,” the mobilization of fear by men through both “actual and implied
violence” to control and dominate women (483).
Actions to put women back in their place need not be restricted to the
physical realm, however. Symbolic violence is also present when women are
sexually objectified and degraded through visual images circulated in online
and other public spaces (Anderson 2011), which dehumanizes them in an
attempt to render them less worthy of respect (Heflick and Goldenberg 2009).
Other forms include efforts to silence women’s voices and question their right
to speak in public more generally. In 2013, Caroline Criado-Perez (2016), a
British activist and journalist, received a wave of threats and insults in response
to her advocacy. When analyzing the content of the abuse, she observed: “thou-
sands of threats I received . . . focused on my mouth, my throat, my speech. The
message was simple and clear: these men very much wanted me to stop talking”
(13). This form of backlash does not stem from policy content, according to
Beard (2017): “It is not what you say that prompts [the abuse], it’s simply the
fact that you’re saying it” (36–37).
Symbolic violence also takes many more subtle guises, undermining
women’s effectiveness and feelings of acceptance in male-dominated spaces.
Ås (1978) identifies five “domination techniques” used against women who
enter male-dominated institutions: making invisible, where women are forgot-
ten, overlooked, or ignored; ridiculing, where women’s efforts are scorned or
women are treated as incompetent or useless at tasks that do not conform with
traditional female gender roles; withholding of information, where women are
not invited or are denied access to meetings where key decisions are made; dou-
ble punishing, where women are criticized for being wrong regardless of what
they do or do not do; and heaping blame and putting to shame, where women
are told that they are not good enough despite being denied the information
needed to succeed.7 These forms of “selective incivility” violate workplace
norms of mutual respect, but ambiguity in their intent to harm the target—
due to the possibility that offenders may simply be rude individuals—makes it
possible to rationalize these behaviors as unbiased, despite disproportionately
affecting women and people of color (Cortina, Kabat-Farr, Leskinen, Huerta,
and Magley 2013).
Microaggressions perform a similar function in reinforcing gender and
other hierarchies, although in some cases, perpetrators may not even be aware
they have engaged in a demeaning exchange with the target. Sue (2010) defines
these as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmen-
tal indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile,
derogatory, or negative . . . slights and insults to the target person or group” (5).
Their pervasiveness in everyday conversations means that microaggressions are
often dismissed as innocent or innocuous, despite their demeaning messages.
Examples include sexist language and jokes, as well as automatic assumptions
about the inferiority of women—whether intellectual, temperamental, or phys-
ical. As Rebecca Solnit observes: “Men explain things to me, and other women,
whether or not they know what they’re talking about,” a dynamic which “trains
us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported over-
confidence.” Due to symbolic violence, therefore, women often have to fight
“simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in pos-
session of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being.”8
10
A Bias Event Approach
Violence against women in politics is fundamentally distinct from violence

in politics: whereas the latter entails acts directed at women for their political
views, the former involves efforts to exclude women as women from participat-
ing in public life. While both phenomena may take gendered and non-gendered
forms, violence against women in politics is specifically motivated by bias
against women assuming political roles. It simultaneously justifies and obscures
itself by mobilizing structural, cultural, and symbolic violence framing women
as second-class citizens who do not—and should not—engage in political
activities.
Despite a clear analytical distinction between these two concepts, iden-
tifying cases of violence against women in politics is not a straightforward
task. Documenting violence against women in general is notoriously diffi-
cult, because women often hesitate to report cases of gender-based violence.
This under-reporting occurs for many reasons, including feelings of shame
and stigma, fears of retaliation, and beliefs about widespread impunity for
perpetrators (Palermo, Bleck, and Peterman 2014). Proving that gender is a
motivation is also complex, given that men may also experience violence in
the political realm (Bjarnegård 2018)—and the fact that women themselves
are highly diverse, with their experiences potentially informed by other axes of
privilege and discrimination (Kuperberg 2018).
The literature on hate crimes, however, provides a means for overcoming
this impasse and, in turn, for developing an empirical strategy for identifying
cases of violence against women in politics. Hate crime laws impose a higher
class of penalties when a violent crime targets a victim due to perceived social
group membership. These crimes are deemed to be more severe because, in
addition to the crime in question, they involve group-based discrimination. To
facilitate the detection of such cases, existing legal frameworks provide a range
of possible actions that could indicate that bias was a driving factor behind a
particular incident. Adapted and expanded, these insights point to six criteria
A Bias Event Approach 105
for adjudicating whether a case is, or is not, an instance of violence against

women in politics.
Methodological Challenges
Studying, as well as organizing to address, violence against women is challeng-

ing, given that this violence is highly normalized in many societies. Rather than
being seen as a problem in need of intervention, violence against women is
often framed as a male or familial prerogative, a socially sanctioned way to
subjugate and exercise control over women (O’Toole, Schiffman, and Edwards
2007). Interviewed in 2019, Gloria Steinem, a leader of the U.S. feminist move-
ment in the 1960s and 1970s, captured this notion when she observed: “We
didn’t have the phrase sexual harassment until I was in my 40s—it was just
called ‘life.’ ”1 Various political dynamics, further, disincentivize speaking out
in the case of violence against women in politics, including the desire for a
political career or feelings of loyalty to a particular political party.
In addition to these challenges, recent advances in scholarship raise ques-
tions about the centrality of “gender” in explaining incidents of violence against
women. Some scholars argue that robust research requires comparing women’s
and men’s experiences side-by-side in order to establish whether women are in
fact being treated differently (Johnson 1995). Other work highlights the role of
intersectionality—interactions between gender and other forms of exclusion
based on factors like race, class, and sexuality—in shaping women’s experi-
ences. This perspective suggests that gender may not be the only, or even the
most important, form of bias driving patterns of exclusion (McCall 2005;
Weldon 2006).
UNDER-REPORTING
Data on violence against women in politics has only recently become avail-
able because, lacking a “name,” the issue remained under-theorized and under-
recognized as a “problem.” Despite progress, this phenomenon remains hidden
from view in many contexts around the world, in great part because many
women still hesitate to speak out—and those who do call out violence are often
not believed. Reasons for under-reporting are multiple but collectively contrib-
ute to ongoing silence around this issue, undermining a fuller understanding of
its scope and impact on women’s political engagement.
For some women, the barrier is cognitive: they normalize violence as part
of the political game and thus do not view themselves as “victims” when tar-
geted for gendered reasons. Rather, like survivors of gender-based violence
more generally, they cope with the violence perpetrated against them by ratio-
nalizing it, defining it as tolerable or normal, “forgetting” it, or refusing to
acknowledge it (Ferraro and Johnson 1983; Kelly 1988). Speaking at the launch
of an initiative to support women seeking public roles in 2014, for example,
Hillary Clinton endorsed Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice that women in politics
should toughen up and “grow skin like a rhinoceros.”2
Other politically active women appreciate that violence is not acceptable,
but they opt to stay quiet for strategic reasons. Female politicians in vari-
ous contexts are frank about the fact that speaking out would be a form of
“political suicide” (Krook and Restrepo Sanín 2020, 6). In some cases, this is
because the perpetrators are members of a woman’s own political party. In
pilot studies carried out by NDI in Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Tanzania, and
Tunisia, more than half of female respondents reported they had experienced
at least one form of violence at the hands of their party colleagues (NDI
2018, 21).
One tactic for overcoming these types of under-reporting difficulties is to
avoid the word “violence,” which can give rise to varied subjective interpreta-
tions, in favor of posing questions about a list of specific acts (UN Department
of Economic and Social Affairs 2014). Another is to ask about violence expe-
rienced by female colleagues, on the intuition that some women might dis-
close their own lived realities if they can disguise it as belonging to a friend.
Alternatively, as part of female political networks, they may be privy to infor-
mation affecting the broader community of women—even if they themselves
are not personally affected (Cerva Cerna 2014).3 Employing both approaches,
the IPU (2016b) finds that violence against female parliamentarians is wide-
spread, both among the women interviewed and across their broader universe
of female colleagues.
GENDERED COMPARISONS
A second set of challenges revolves around establishing gender as a motiva-

tion for violence. Recent calls to take gender seriously in political analysis pro-
pose that a robust and scientific approach requires studying men and women
together. One reason is that doing so recognizes that men also have a gender
and like women, may experience the world in highly gendered ways (Bjarnegård
2018). Some male politicians, indeed, have been targeted for gender-based
attacks. Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to hold public office in the
United States, was assassinated in 1978 by an anti-gay colleague. In Malaysia,
opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was put on trial for sodomy in an effort to
destroy his reputation (Abbott 2001). Another reason, according to scholars
who endorse this perspective, is that directly comparing men and women is
the only way to ascertain gender differences (Bardall, Bjarnegård, and Piscopo
2019). A review by IFES of its electoral violence data finds, for example, that
men experience physical violence while women are more likely to face psycho-
logical violence (Bardall 2011).
Emphasizing that gender- based political violence also occurs to men,

however, risks falling down a slippery slope into theorizing a false symmetry
between men’s and women’s experiences. Normative associations between men
and the public sphere mean that men do not face challenges to their presence
in politics as men. In the two cases just described, Milk and Ibrahim were not
targeted in an attempt to exclude all men from political office; cultural tropes
were mobilized, rather, to argue that they were not “real men.” In contrast,
women potentially face two forms of violence in the political sphere: violence
in politics, which is issue-based, and violence against women in politics, which
is identity-based. Consequently, women may face attacks that are politically
motivated as well as those that are gender motivated—and, in some cases, expe-
rience both types of violence simultaneously or sequentially.
Gendered comparisons, therefore, can assist in analyzing a subset—but not
the full range—of dynamics in focus here. Comparative studies, notably, can
provide insight into gendered patterns in the content and prevalence of vio-
lence in politics. This might include illuminating the gendered scripts, like rape,
which are activated to intimidate women for political reasons. This approach
can also reveal whether men or women are equally or differentially targeted
for political violence. This could nuance observations like one made in a recent
study of mafia assassinations of Italian mayors (Daniele 2019), observing that
all victims were male—and, in turn, implying that men were particularly vul-
nerable to political murder. This disparity more likely stemmed, however, from
the fact that women were severely under-represented in these positions, making
maleness per se a less-than-decisive factor in instigating this violence.
Juxtaposing men’s and women’s experiences, in contrast, provides no lever-
age for understanding violence against women in politics—a problem uniquely
faced by women in the political realm. Politicians, at least in some contexts,
appear to grasp this difference. During parliamentary debates on abuse and
intimidation in public life in 2017, British MP Martin Whitfield—together with
several other male MPs—explicitly rejected notions of equivalence. While he
had faced political abuse of his own, he stated: “I fully accept that my experi-
ence . . . is but a mere toe in the water compared with the vile abuse received
by other . . . Members, especially women.”4 Dogmatic insistence on gendered
comparisons thus may not advance knowledge, but instead produce potentially
confused and misleading results.
Intersectionality
The emphasis on violence against women in politics, finally, seems to suggest
that gender is the only source of abuse. Yet patriarchy is inextricably embed-
ded in other forms of hierarchy and domination (Hunnicutt 2009), amplifying
mistreatment of women who are also members of other socially and politi-
cally marginalized groups. Feminists use the term intersectionality to describe
these dynamics, theorizing how different facets of identity—including race,
ethnicity, class, or sexuality—interact to shape life opportunities and experi-

ences (McCall 2005). These effects are multiplicative, not additive, and thus
other dimensions of exclusion cannot simply be subtracted to identify or focus
on the gender dimension alone (Hancock 2007).
While the concept of intersectionality has not yet been incorporated
widely into theorizing about violence against women in politics (Kuperberg
2018), emerging data on this phenomenon points to the importance of other
axes of inequality in determining the types of women who may be particu-
larly targeted. An analysis of Twitter abuse against female MPs in the UK,
for example, finds that nearly half of the abusive tweets identified in the sam-
ple were directed at Diane Abbott, the first black woman to be elected to the
British parliament. When Abbott was taken out of the sample, black and Asian
women still received 30% more abusive tweets than their white counterparts
(Dhrodia 2017).
These interactions are not limited to gender and race. Survey respondents
in India, Nepal, and Pakistan identified female candidates who were poor (60–
73%), lower caste (52–68%), or under the age of 30 (55–63%) as the most vul-
nerable to violence (Centre for Social Research and UN Women 2014, 65). The
IPU (2018) similarly finds that female MPs under 40 were more likely than
older MPs to experience psychological and sexual violence. Qualitative inter-
views, as well as news coverage, point further to anti-Semitism, Islamophobia,
and homophobia as additional forms of inequality driving attacks against
politically active women.5
The intersectional nature of this violence, however, does not undermine
bias against women as a key driver. Rather, it substantiates the intuition that
structural, cultural, and symbolic violence—against women and members of
other marginalized groups—lie at the heart of this phenomenon. Because the
election of women from non-dominant groups challenges multiple forms of
inequality, their political presence may spark an even stronger reaction than
the election of women from dominant groups (Sanbonmatsu 2008). Centering
these three forms of violence also explains why women who challenge gender
roles in multiple ways—by being outspoken feminists6 or ascending to leader-
ship positions—also appear to be targeted for more numerous and more vitri-
olic attacks (Davies 2014; IPU 2018; Rheault, Rayment, and Musulan 2019).
A Bias Event Approach
Concerns about under-reporting, gendered comparisons, and intersectional-

ity suggest that it may be impossible to study—and know the full extent of—
violence against women in politics. Further, bias against particular groups is
often highly naturalized as a result of the deep roots of structural, cultural,
and symbolic violence in everyday habits, expectations, and interactions. As a
result, perpetrators may not be consciously aware of their prejudice, and tar-
gets may accept mistreatment as simply the normal course of affairs.
Work on hate crimes, however, offers a way forward, as it explicitly seeks
to develop tools to ascertain whether bias against particular groups was a moti-
vating factor behind a given crime. Nevertheless, emphasizing only unlawful
behaviors is limited, given that not all acts of violence against women in politics
constitute crimes. Additionally, as national criminal statutes vary considerably,
restricting the focus only to unlawful activities would result in the same act
being deemed a case of violence against women in politics in one country, but
not in another. Consequently, this book adapts insights from this literature to
present an approach centered on “bias events,” actions of both a criminal and
non-criminal nature driven by bias against women in political roles, drawing
and building on existing legal guidance for identifying hate crimes.
FROM HATE CRIMES TO BIAS EVENTS
The concept of hate crimes offers guidance for thinking in more concrete terms
about the origins, means, and effects of violence against women in politics.
While people have long been selected as targets of violence due to perceived
group membership, in recent decades a growing number of countries have
enhanced the criminal penalties for illegal acts motivated by group-based dis-
crimination (Hodge 2011). Because they are group-based, these actions can-
not simply be explained away as the actions of “mean-spirited bigots” against
a specific individual. Rather, hate crimes target the group as a whole, using
“intimidation and control . . . against those who seem to have stepped outside
the boxes that society has carefully constructed for them . . . to reaffirm the pre-
carious hierarchies that characterize a given social order” (Perry 2001, 2, 10).
Hate crimes thus send a message about the inferiority of the targeted
group to members of the group as well as to society at large (Kauppinen 2015).
They also communicate to group members that, because the crime was group-
and not individual- based, they could have easily been victims themselves.
Corroborating these vicarious effects, Perry and Alvi (2011) find that members
of the affected group often experience shock, anger, and fear following hate
incidents, prompting them to change their daily behaviors despite not being
directly victimized. Although some critics argue that hate crime legislation pun-
ishes “improper thinking,” violating free speech (Jacobs and Potter 1997), these
“message crimes” seek to deny equal rights to group members—including their
opportunities to exercise their own free speech (Iganski 2001; Mantilla 2015).
Hate crime laws often list a variety of categories of bias, including race,
color, national origin, and religion. Other characteristics appear less frequently,
like gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and disability (Hodge
2011). Various reasons explain why gender was excluded at the outset and even
today, is less recognized than other forms of identity in hate crime legislation.
One relates to structural and cultural violence naturalizing the mistreatment of

women, viewing violence against women in a different, and often less serious,
light (McPhail 2002). Some argue, indeed, that violence against women is so
pervasive that prosecuting it would overwhelm the court system and make gath-
ering statistics too cumbersome (Hodge 2011). A second justification points to
laws on violence against women, asserting on this basis that incorporating gen-
der into hate crimes statutes is unnecessary (Walters and Tumath 2014).
Perhaps the greatest challenge, however, relates to the word “hate.” Early
work defined “hate” as a form of “animus” expressed toward members of par-
ticular groups. Yet perpetrators of violence against women rarely, in fact, hate
all women (Gerstenfeld 2004). In addition, as work on femicide observes, many
emotions fuel gender-based violence, including “hatred, contempt, pleasure, or
a sense of ownership of women” (Caputi and Russell 1992, 15). These concep-
tual difficulties have given way to a complementary “discriminatory selection”
model of hate crimes, highlighting that “it is irrelevant why an offender selected
his victim on the basis of race or group; it is sufficient that the offender did so”
(Lawrence 1999, 30).
Following this logic, Weisburd and Levin (1994) advocate using the term
“bias crime,” arguing that it more accurately captures the discriminatory,
group-based, hierarchical component driving these crimes. In these civil rights
violations, they argue, the hateful intent of the perpetrator is less important
than the discriminatory use of violence against those who are seen as “trans-
gressors” against their “proper role” in society (36). While offenders gain “per-
sonal validation and a sense of power and domination . . . from brutalizing
those they perceive as worthy of degradation,” the attack is ultimately group-
based, “stripping [victims] of their individual identities and treating them as a
stereotype, a projected image of the attackers’ prejudice” (25). As such, indi-
vidual cases of bias-motivated violence can infringe upon the civil rights of an
entire group.
In the case of violence against women in politics, however, retaining a focus
on “crimes” is also too limited. One way to resolve this dilemma is to include
“hate incidents,” which police in England and Wales define as “any non-crime
perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice
or hate” (Ask the Police 2018). Putting these elements together, this book pro-
poses “bias events” as an umbrella concept encompassing both criminal and
non-criminal forms of violence against women in politics.
This approach has several advantages over existing hate crimes frame-
works. First, it avoids unduly restricting the focus to criminal behaviors, rec-
ognizing that legal standards vary across countries, as does state capacity to
enforce laws. Second, it decenters the state and the police as the only actors
involved in making judgments about bias events, opening the way for political
parties, civil society, and international organizations, among other actors, to
identify and take steps to tackle violence against women in politics. Third, a
bias event approach displaces a focus on perpetrator intentions—which can be

misunderstood or denied—to give voice to the perspectives and experiences of
victims and society at large.
CRITERIA FOR DETECTING GROUP BIAS
Passage of hate crime legislation raises questions about how to determine

whether bias played a role in motivating a particular crime. Offering guidance
to local law enforcement, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) notes
that it is difficult to ascertain an offender’s subjective motivation. As such, it
counsels that a crime should be deemed to be driven by bias “only if investiga-
tion reveals sufficient objective facts to lead a reasonable and prudent person
to conclude that the offender’s actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by
bias” (FBI 2015, 4). To this end, it lists potential sources of evidence that might
be collected and analyzed to make these determinations. Reaching a finding
of bias does not require that all categories of evidence be satisfied, but rather,
that investigators consider the body of evidence as a whole to weigh whether,
on balance, bias played a role in motivating the crime. Group-based bias need
not be the sole motivation, but simply a substantial factor in victimization
(Weisburd and Levin 1994).
Five of these criteria are relevant for establishing the presence of bias
against women in political roles.7 First, the offender made oral comments, writ-
ten statements, or gestures indicating bias. In some cases, this message may be
direct. When campaigning for parliament in 2005, for example, Afghan MP
Fatima Aziz reported: “I received a night letter [a letter left at her home late at
night] that said if you love your life and your children you must remove yourself
from politics, it is not right for you, you are a woman” (Human Rights Watch
2009, 27). Other instances might entail using sexist or sexualized language and
body language—in-person, in print, or online—objectifying or otherwise deni-
grating women. As the share of women in the British parliament grew in the
late 1990s, men in the Conservative Party reportedly used gestures to ridicule
and intimidate their female colleagues, including—in the words of one female
MP—“put[ting] their hands out in front of them, as if they were weighing up
melons” (Puwar 2004, 87).
Second, the offender left bias-related drawings, symbols, or graffiti at the
scene. In these cases, perpetrators might post degrading images of politically
active women, or paint sexist insults on campaign posters, homes, or offices.
Speaking at an event on online harassment in 2016, for instance, former Texas
state senator Wendy Davis shared that she decided to delete social media from
her phone after digitally altered pictures of her in sexual positions began to
flood her Twitter and Facebook streams (Bowles 2016).
Third, the victim was engaged in activities related to his or her identity group.
Political women in this scenario might be outspoken feminists, but they may
also simply have sought to speak up for women. One prominent feminist politi-
cian, British MP Jess Phillips, has written extensively about the abuse she faces,
particularly online, after seeking to advance feminist issues in parliament. In
a recent book, she writes: “Every day I receive threats. They range from death
and rape to warnings of unemployment. Plots to deselect me and others like me
from our seats in the House of Commons are the most common” (Phillips 2017,
7). Drawing a direct line to her feminist activism, she attributes these threats to
“a perceived imbalance in the established power structure . . . . A woman with
power is intolerable to them” (8, 213).
Fourth, the offender was previously involved in a similar incident or is a
hate group member. In this context, the perpetrator might have harassed other
politically active women, or might participate in men’s rights networks or
other groups seeking to defend patriarchy. Members of two far-right political
parties in Italy, the Five Star Movement and the Northern League, have been
relentless in targeting Laura Boldrini, a feminist MP who served as president
of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, and Cécile Kyenge, the first black cabi-
net minister who had immigrated from the Democratic Republic of Congo
to Italy in 1983. In 2019, Kyenge won a defamation suit against Northern
League leader Roberto Calderoli, who compared her to an orangutan during
a 2013 party rally; in 2017, another League politician, Mario Borghezio, was
ordered to pay a fine of 50,000 euros for making other racist remarks against
her (Giuffrida 2019).
Fifth, a substantial portion of the community where the event occurred per-
ceived that the incident was motivated by bias.8 Evidence for this might include
speeches, opinion pieces, or demonstrations—especially by other women—
which explicitly attribute the attack to a woman’s gender. Following the death
of British MP Jo Cox in 2016, female MPs were quick to view her murder
through a gender lens. Diane Abbott stated: “It is hard to escape the conclu-
sion that the vitriolic misogyny that so many women politicians endure framed
the murderous attack on Jo” (Hughes, Riley- Smith, and Swinford 2016).
Publishing numerous editorials in the ensuing months, Jess Phillips wrote that
“for me and for many of my colleagues—particularly female MPs—fear has
also become real and present” (Phillips 2016b). These perceptions were echoed
by male politicians. Calling for these threats to be taken more seriously, MP
Chris Bryant remarked: “I think women MPs, gay MPs, ethnic minority MPs
get the brunt of it” (Mason 2016).
Not all acts of bias are so transparent, however. In cases of uncon-
scious bias, people believe they are not prejudiced—but nonetheless think
or act in biased ways. Unconscious bias may take the form of microaggres-
sions: everyday indignities that, while often unintentional, may communi-
cate hostile, derogatory, or negative views toward members of certain groups
(Sue 2010). In other cases, people may seek to mask prejudiced views by
claiming other forms of wrongdoing on the part of the target. One exam-
ple is “judicial harassment,” whereby individuals are targeted with baseless
legal charges that divert time, energy, and resources away from their work
(Frontline Defenders 2018). To detect these forms of bias, this book adds
a sixth and final criterion: the victim was evaluated negatively according a
double standard.
In the context of violence against women in politics, these double stan-
dards might entail attacking politically active women in ways and for reasons
not used against men who are politically engaged. Drawing on the concept
of “aversive racism,” whereby people who explicitly espouse egalitarian prin-
ciples may also unconsciously harbor negative feelings and attitudes about
blacks, Price (2016) theorizes that “aversive sexism” may help explain at
least some negative and visceral reactions to Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign. According to her, one scenario fitting this pattern is “holding
things against Hillary Clinton for which you have forgiven other politicians,
particularly men.”
An example she gives is rabid critiques of Hillary’s verbal support for Bill
Clinton’s racially targeted crime bill in the 1990s—a bill not only signed by
Bill, but also voted into law by her 2016 primary opponent, Bernie Sanders,
and many members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Thus, while the men
directly responsible for the law are permitted to move beyond this negative leg-
acy, Hillary Clinton remains tarnished. To avoid aversive sexism, Price recom-
mends asking: “Am I judging this woman candidate in ways that no candidate
could ever measure up?” Being more aware of such dynamics, she suggests, will
enable female candidates to be judged fairly, rather than based on “ingrained
and implicit gender biases.”
Applying these six criteria involves placing particular acts in their
broader context, using information about their content, targets, perpetra-
tors, and impact. A bias event approach thus reserves judgment until further
investigation, rather than assuming that every aggression against a politi-
cally active woman does—or does not—stem from bias. While some cases
will be straightforward, many will be ambiguous, with potentially conflict-
ing or competing sources of information. Like the FBI framework, however,
this approach does not require that all six criteria be met in full: instead, it
draws holistically on these six criteria for guidance to consider whether, on
balance, the available data would support a finding of bias against women in
political roles.
This approach goes far in resolving the three methodological challenges
listed earlier. First, conducting the analysis does not call for the perpetrator or
victim recognize the act as an instance of violence against women in politics.
Second, this approach is case-centered and thus does not require comparisons
with other populations to establish that sexism and misogyny played a role.
Third, attention to bias as a larger category enables intersectional experiences

to be taken into account, whether this involves acts that are simultaneously sex-
ist and homophobic, for example, or a collection of events that are individually
sexist and racist. In so doing, a bias event approach also presents a framework
for ascertaining bias against members of other marginalized identity groups.
By emphasizing the need for investigation, finally, this approach opens up the
possibility that some incidents against politically active women may not be
attributable to bias.
11
A Continuum of Violence
Research on political and electoral violence focuses on acts of physical vio-

lence, defined as attacks on people as well as property (Della Porta 1995;
Norris, Frank, and Martínez i Coma 2015). Work on violence against women,
in contrast, highlights a broad spectrum of violent behaviors, using the con-
cept of a “continuum” to connect diverse manifestations of aggression against
women (Kelly 1988). Addressing these divergent emphases— including the
consequences of adopting different definitions of “violence”—is necessary for
developing a shared vocabulary on violence against women in politics and, in
turn, generating a typology of its various forms.
Defining “Violence”
The problem of violence is a central concern across the social sciences, but
despite being “cardinal to a proper understanding of political life,” as a con-
cept it “remains elusive and often misunderstood” (Bufacchi 2005, 199). Some
scholars, indeed, deem it “essentially contested,” or “notoriously difficult to
define because as a phenomenon it is multifaceted, socially constructed, and
highly ambivalent” (De Haan 2008, 28). According to Bufacchi (2005), these
ambiguities stem from a conflation of the Latin roots for “violence” (violen-
tia = vehemence, a passionate and uncontrollable force) and “violation” (vio-
lare = infringement). Further, most attempts to define “violence” share two
assumptions: violence is motivated by hostility and a willful intent to cause
harm, and violence is—legally, socially, or morally—deviant human activity
(De Haan 2008).
Capturing variations in the “evaluative character” and “emotive mean-
ing” of the concept (De Haan 2008, 36), Bufacchi identifies two approaches.
A minimalist conception of violence as force focuses on the deliberate inflic-
tion of physical injury, highlighting the intentions of agents committing acts of
violence at single moments in time. In contrast, a more comprehensive view of

violence as violation recognizes a wider range of transgressions, privileging the
experiences of victims and the “ripples of violence” affecting survivors, their
families, and their communities over time (Bufacchi 2005; Bufacchi and Gilson
2016). Nagengast (1994) develops a related contrast between reifying violence
as a category that is either present or absent within a society and theorizing it
as a set of practices, discourses, and ideologies involving the exercise of power.
Choosing between these definitions is not a trivial matter. For De Haan
(2008), drawing lines around what counts—and does not count—as an instance
of violence has “significant normative import because the definitional debate
is, in effect, a debate over which borderline cases ought to be subjected to the
same sort of negative appraisal as the paradigms” (36). Opting for one con-
ceptualization over another also raises tangible practical concerns regarding
how data on violence is collected. It affects, in turn, the quantity and quality
of services provided to victims—whose needs may or may not be met, depend-
ing on the range of acts recognized as meeting the threshold of “violence”
(DeKeseredy 2011).
MINIMALIST DEFINITIONS
Reviewing approaches taken in a variety of disciplines—measuring politically

motivated violence, economically motivated violence, socially conditioned vio-
lence, and interpersonal violence—Krause (2009) observes that most scholars
select narrow definitions centered on the purposeful or threatened use of physi-
cal force to cause death or bodily injury. Coady (1986, 4) prefers a focus on the
infliction of physical harm because, he claims, it reflects the “normal or ordi-
nary understanding of ‘violence.’ ” Collecting data on physical violence also
permits cross-national comparisons, some scholars suggest, because the mean-
ing of physical acts is universally recognized. In contrast, other forms are more
contested, as they may be socially sanctioned, legitimized, and institutionalized
(De Haan 2008; Krause 2009).
This perspective places strong emphasis on intentionality, arguing that to
be classified as “violent,” an act must not only be physically destructive, but
must also be done deliberately by the agent and be unwanted on the part of the
target (Bufacchi 2005). Psychological violence can be included in this defini-
tion, according to Coady (1986), only to the extent that it has “overpowering
effects” and could be viewed as involving the application of force (16). Seeking
to forge a compromise, Saltzman (2004) lists five forms of maltreatment against
women: physical violence, sexual violence, threats of physical and/or sexual
violence, stalking, and psychological/emotional abuse. She suggests that the
phrase “violence and abuse against women” be used as a collective term for
these five elements, with “violence against women” being applied more restric-
tively to refer to the first three components only.
A Continuum of Violence 117
COMPREHENSIVE DEFINITIONS
While minimalist conceptions help delineate clear boundaries around what

constitutes an act of violence, other scholars argue that limiting the focus to
intentional physical acts ignores other important dimensions of violence and
trivializes the experiences of many victims (Bufacchi 2005; DeKeseredy 2011).
Garver (2009 [1968]) observes that violence cannot simply be equated with the
use of force, because “whenever you do something to another person’s body
without his consent you are attacking not just a physical entity—you are attack-
ing a person” (174). Psychological violence, in his view, is often more injurious
than physical violence—and takes longer to heal—because it violates a person’s
autonomy, dignity, self-determination, and value as a human being.
Bufacchi (2004) develops this account by drawing on Rawls (1971), who
proposes that the most important “primary good” is self-respect, consisting
of a sense of one’s own value and confidence in one’s abilities. The reason why
violence is “bad,” from this perspective, is because it is “degrading, more so
than death. It destroys a person’s self-confidence, it diminishes the sense of
a person as a person, and it deprives a person of their self-esteem” (Bufacchi
2004, 175). “Violation of integrity,” in the sense of the wholeness or intact-
ness of the self, “is the essence of an act of violence, not the injury, suffering,
or harm” (Bufacchi 2007, 43). Thus, while an attack on a person’s self-respect
“may be more difficult to perceive than an assault of a more physical nature,”
Bufacchi (2004, 175) argues, “it is not less real.”
Adopting a more comprehensive approach to understanding violence prob-
lematizes the importance of intentionality, centers the experiences of survivors,
and expands its temporal and personal effects. As discussed in c hapter 9, struc-
tural, cultural, and symbolic violence serve to normalize the exclusion and mis-
treatment of women, both promoting and legitimizing gender inequality. Given
this context, perpetrators are often not even aware of the inappropriateness of
their actions. Focusing on the dynamics of sexual harassment, for example,
Bargh and Raymond (1995) note that alleged harassers often acknowledge
the behaviors attributed to them, but rarely ascribe them the same meaning or
importance. Denying that they intended to cause distress, men who are accused
of harassment instead assign their actions more acceptable motives, like paying
the woman a compliment. Cognitive processes linking power and sex, they the-
orize, explain why some men “just don’t get it” and assume erroneously—and
perniciously—that the women they harass are in fact attracted to them (87).
Bing and Lombardo (1997) address the implications, in turn, of adopt-
ing an “initiator frame” rather than a “victim frame” in discussions of sexual
harassment. An initiator frame, they propose, tends to privilege the viewpoint
of the alleged harasser and shift the responsibility to the recipient. It does so
by emphasizing admirable qualities of the harasser and impugning the motives
of the accuser or explaining away the incident as a misunderstanding. A vic-
tim frame, in contrast, considers the harm done to the target of harassment,
regardless of whether a specific legal threshold has been met. The intentions of
the harasser—whether conscious or unconscious—are irrelevant to determin-
ing the degree of harm. Because victim frames have rarely been applied to legal
discussions of sexual violence, however, laws typically reflect and construct
very limited definitions, minimizing what targets experience as abusive—and
reinforcing perceptions that violence only involves actions resulting in bodily
harm (Kelly and Radford 1990).
Adopting the perspective of survivors, in contrast, alters and expands con-
ceptualizations of violence against women. From a series of focus groups with
battered women, Smith, Smith, and Earp (1999) find that—distinct from mea-
sures focused on discrete events of male behavior—women experienced batter-
ing as enduring, traumatic, and multidimensional. As a result, women do not
approach partner assault as episodic—but instead view it as an ongoing threat
requiring active and continuous coping strategies. Research in social psychol-
ogy has made a similar shift, noting that most theorizing on prejudice analyzes
people holding prejudiced beliefs. Studying the target’s perspective, however,
permits closer examination of how they perceive they have encountered dis-
crimination, how it influences their feelings and behaviors, and how they act
to minimize the impact of prejudice on their lives (Swim and Stangor 1998).
Focusing on experiences of violence, in turn, challenges the notion that acts
of violence have discrete temporal and personal boundaries. This experience
can encompass what a person feels before, during, and after a violent act, all
of which can make targets feel vulnerable and inferior to perpetrators, under-
mining their sense of self-respect and self-esteem (Bufacchi 2007). Indeed, the
traces of a violent act may never fully disappear, with lingering “ripples of
violence” affecting survivors, their families, and their communities for years
to come (Bufacchi and Gilson 2016, 34). Violations of personal integrity are
thus not necessarily limited to individuals either, creating broader human rights
challenges within the framework of structural inequalities.
Violence as a Continuum
Adopting a comprehensive perspective on “violence,” feminists have developed

a series of analogies to facilitate the recognition of different forms of violence,
connecting these diverse manifestations as well as highlighting their interac-
tive effects. In academic research, the most well-known formulation is Kelly’s
(1988) concept of a “continuum of violence,” a term she uses to denote the
common character, as well as sometimes indistinguishable nature, of different
types of violent events. Feminist activists have developed two main visual rep-
resentations of this idea: the iceberg, depicting sexual coercion as the “tip”
with a broad range of other violent behaviors hidden below the water line; and
the power and control wheel, portraying violent behaviors as the spokes of a
wheel connecting power and control to acts of physical and sexual violence.
Collectively, these models theorize a spectrum of violent acts that not only
shade into each another but also inform and reinforce one another.
LINKED DIMENSIONS
In early work, Stanko (1985) criticizes tendencies to view violence and intimi-
dation against women as separate phenomena, with incidents affecting only
individual women. Doing so, she argues, treats “each assault as an aberra-
tion or a random occurrence—a ‘personal’ problem.” She highlights the need
instead to “link them together” to expose a “flood of common experiences”
that are neither “random” nor “isolated” (18). Kelly (1988) proposes think-
ing about these connections in terms of a “continuum,” inspired by women
she interviewed who defined a wide range of behaviors as “sexual violence,”
some reflected neither in legal codes nor in analytical categories used in prior
research. The eleven forms emerging in her study comprised threats of violence,
sexual harassment, pressure to have sex, sexual assault, obscene phone calls,
coercive sex, domestic violence, sexual abuse, flashing, rape, and incest. While
linking these acts, Kelly refuses to rank them, arguing that with the exception
of violence resulting in death, the “degree of impact cannot be simplistically
inferred from the form of sexual violence women experience.” Rather, all forms
of violence are serious, making it “inappropriate to create a hierarchy of abuse
within a feminist analysis” (76).
The limits of legal frameworks in recognizing a spectrum of violence
became especially obvious during the #MeToo movement. As Wexler,
Robbennolt, and Murphy (2019) note, women use the #MeToo hashtag to tes-
tify to a wide range of acts, including “workplace behavior that would not vio-
late criminal or civil laws, workplace conduct that was abusive but not sexual
or sexist in nature, and sexually violative or sexist behavior in nonworkplace
settings” (5). While legal interpretations have evolved over time in the United
States to recognize both quid pro quo and hostile work environment forms of
sexual harassment, many instances are deemed “merely offensive” rather than
“pervasive” or “severe,” the legal threshold required to pursue a claim in court
(White 2018). U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand captured limitations in legal
definitions when responding to criticisms against her for calling on Senator Al
Franken to resign his seat due to allegations of sexual harassment. Consistent
with the idea of a continuum of violence, she stated: “I think when we start
having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harass-
ment and unwanted groping, you are having the wrong conversation. You need
to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is OK. None of it is acceptable”
(Prakash 2017).
Other research challenges the notion that physical attacks are “worse”
than other forms of violence. In an early study, 72% of respondents reported
that psychological abuse had a more severe impact on them that physical abuse
(Follingstad et al. 1990, 114). This is because, while physical wounds may heal,
psychological violence can damage victims’ self-respect and their ability to
relate to others, affecting every aspect of their lives (DeKeseredy 2011). Work
on torture corroborates this view, noting that physical pain is not the most
important determinant of traumatic stress in survivors: psychological and sex-
ual acts are associated with at least as much as if not more distress (Başoğlu,
Livanou, and Crnobarić 2007).
Recent work on online abuse seeks to further expand this spectrum.
Online abuse can take numerous forms, including flaming and trolling, harass-
ment, physical threats, sexual harassment, inciting others to abuse, sexual
threats, defamation, stalking, electronic sabotage, and impersonation. Powell
and Henry (2017) argue that “harms facilitated through digital means”—
including online bullying, abuse, and harassment—are “in fact embodied, tan-
gible, and real” (50). Because digital technologies play a growing role in how
people work, learn, play, and communicate, the distinction between “online”
and “offline” behavior is increasingly blurred, such that “virtual” abuse can
have direct and devastating “real world” implications. Although online abuse
can range from episodic and unpleasant to more frequent, threatening, and
hateful, Lewis, Rowe, and Wiper (2017)—like prior scholars—caution against
creating “scales of severity,” as experiences of abuse can be “extremely sub-
jective,” with even seemingly mundane exchanges being experienced as harm-
ful (1470).
An analogy that feminist activists have used to capture the linked nature of
these various acts is through the image of an iceberg.1 An example focused on
sexual harassment places sexual coercion at the tip, as behaviors like promising
professional rewards for sexual favors—and, the converse, threatening profes-
sional consequences if sexual demands are unmet—would be clearly recognized
and condemned by many people as sexual harassment. Incidents of unwanted
sexual attention, like rape, sexual assault, and groping, are just below the tip,
with many people viewing them as cases of sexual harassment—but not all,
often due to victim-blaming. Acts below the water line of public consciousness
may entail gender harassment, including relentless pressures for sex or dates,
sexual teasing and insults, vulgar name calling and offensive comments about
bodies, and sabotage of women’s equipment or advancement in their careers.
While diverse, these acts—as sections of the iceberg—form part of the same
field of behaviors, constituting the broader phenomenon of sexual harassment.
MUTUAL INTERACTIONS
A second dimension of the continuum of violence relates to the collective

impact of diverse forms of violence, highlighting how they overlap, intersect,
and sometimes substitute for one another as part of a shared architecture
supporting women’s domination. Criticizing legal approaches adopting an

“incident-specific and injury-based definition of violence,” Stark (2007) argues
that physical abuse against intimate partners often intertwines with three psy-
chological tactics: intimidation, isolation, and control. In these cases of “coer-
cive control,” violence is “ongoing rather than episodic” and “cumulative rather
than incident-specific” (10, 12). Sue (2010) offers a similar reflection, noting
that “any one microaggression alone many be minimally impactful, but when
they occur continuously throughout a lifespan, their cumulative nature can
have major detrimental consequences” (7). Positioning some acts as individu-
ally more harmful than others, therefore, “risks losing how the quieter forms of
intrusion . . . rely on the possibilities and realities of the louder, criminal forms,
to have the particular impact they do” (Vera-Gray 2017, 21). Indeed, as Henley
(1977) points out, physical force is often a “last-ditch” option (189), with more
subtle and invisible forms of violence often preferred by perpetrators in the
first instance.
These synergies are evident in empirical research on violence against
women. Some work observes, for instance, that some acts have multiple effects,
cutting across different categories of violence. As DeKeseredy (2011) writes: “it
is very hard for anyone to be beaten up physically and not to be simultane-
ously emotionally battered” (15). Conversely, Coker, Smith, Bethea, King, and
McKeown (2000) find that women experiencing psychological intimate partner
violence report poor mental as well as physical health, including suffering from
chronic pain, ulcers, migraines, and indigestion. Studying online violence, Jane
(2018) describes the professional consequences of psychological harassment as
a form of “economic vandalism,” affecting women’s productivity, work oppor-
tunities, and work relationships—and thus their economic livelihoods. These
problems, in turn, can exacerbate levels of psychological and economic stress,
because “the internet is not a discrete workplace that a woman can leave in the
way she might be able to leave a factory in which she experiences offline abuse
or harassment” (587).
Encapsulating these ideas, the power and control wheel was first devel-
oped by staff at a domestic violence shelter in the 1980s as a tool for describ-
ing battering for victims, offenders, members of the criminal justice system,
and the general public. Convening focus groups with battered women over
the course of several months, they identified a range of common abusive
behaviors experienced by these women. Using the analogy of a wheel, they
placed power and control at the center, with threats, intimidation, and coer-
cion forming the spokes, which are held together by a rim consisting of
physical and sexual violence.2 Modeling violence against women in this way
demonstrates how diverse manifestations of violence operate as a system,
with—for example—physical and sexual violence being informed by, as well
as magnifying, emotional and economic abuse in the service of dominating
and controlling women.
A Typology of Violence
The feminist concept of a continuum of violence points to the need—when

developing a typology of violence against women in politics—to consider
a spectrum of acts seeking to deter and undermine women’s political par-
ticipation. In its guidelines for statistics on violence against women, the UN
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2014) recommends collecting
data on four types: physical, psychological, sexual, and economic violence. The
first three appear in Article 2 of the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence against Women, while the fourth is added in Article 3 of the Council
of Europe’s 2011 Istanbul Convention and CEDAW General Recommendation
No. 35 in 2017. World Bank (2016) data from 189 countries indicate that all
four categories of violence appear in national legislation on violence against
women, albeit with varying degrees of recognition: physical violence is crimi-
nalized in 137 countries, psychological violence in 134, sexual violence in 106,
and economic violence in 86. Based on inductive insights, this book adds a fifth
type—semiotic—not reducible to these four categories.
Physical violence entails bodily harm and injury, but may also include
various forms of unwelcome physical contact, as well as involuntary physi-
cal confinement. Psychological violence inflicts trauma on a person’s mental
state or emotional well-being, for example by sending death or rape threats or
otherwise insulting, taunting, or scaring the target. Sexual violence involves
sexual acts and attempts at sexual acts by coercion, as well as unwelcome sexual
comments or advances. Economic violence comprises behaviors aimed at deny-
ing, restricting, or controlling women’s access to financial resources. Semiotic
violence, finally, mobilizes sexist and degrading words and images to injure,
discipline, and subjugate women. Distinct from the other types, it focuses on
influencing how the public views politically active women as a group.
In line with the notion of a continuum, analytically distinguishing these
five types does not necessarily mean that they are clearly distinct in practice.
Sexual assault, for example, may have both physical and psychological com-
ponents. Similarly, when distributed to a larger public, digitally altered images
sexualizing a female politician constitute semiotic violence; when sent to the
woman in question, they entail psychological and sexual violence. These over-
laps, however, do not undermine the notion of different categories of violence.
Instead, they bolster the case for thinking about these acts as part of a shared
field of practices, where specific incidents may shade into several types of vio-
lence at the same time.
Politically active women may also experience multiple forms of violence
over the course of their political engagement. Juana Quispe, a local councilor
in Bolivia, faced a combination of physical, psychological, and economic
violence in the two years that she held office. Almost immediately after win-
ning her seat in 2010, Quispe faced relentless physical and verbal abuse from
colleagues who, together with the mayor, pressured her to resign. When she did
not, they changed meeting times and refused her entrance to the sessions. After
a group of peasants took over the local council hall to demand her resignation,
the council president and vice-president suspended her.
Because Quispe had been duly elected by popular vote, they justified their
decision by falsely accusing her of corruption. She subsequently undertook a
seven-month legal battle, which resulted in her being reinstated to her position
on the local council. The mayor, however, denied her the salary she was owed
for those seven months, arguing that she had not attended sessions. One month
later, in 2012, Quispe was found murdered, showing signs of strangulation.
Although the crime still remains officially unsolved, and local police insist she
was killed in a robbery, Quispe’s death was viewed as a symptom of hostility
toward women’s political engagement—and, as such, served as a final catalyst
for passage of the Bolivian law criminalizing political violence and harassment
against women (“Acoso Político” 2012; Corz 2012).
While acknowledging these overlaps and interactions, the next five chap-
ters take up these various forms of violence in turn, drawing on a global dataset
of news items, practitioner reports, autobiographies, and original interviews.
Each chapter provides an overview of what each form of violence looks like
in practice, selecting examples that collectively address various dynamics at
work in different parts of the world. Although women’s testimonies tend to be
anonymized in existing research, the book focuses wherever possible on cases
where politically active women have spoken openly about their experiences, or
the events affecting them have been covered extensively in the media, to ensure
that these cases conform to the criteria set out in chapter 10 for identifying an
instance of violence against women in politics.3 As a result of this approach,
most examples center on the experiences of female politicians. Whenever pos-
sible, however, the discussion extends to other categories of politically active
women, including voters, activists, and journalists. Due to the inductive nature
of this investigation, the sub-typologies in each chapter are intended to be not
exhaustive but illustrative, offering a sense of the wide range of potential mani-
festations of each form of violence—and, in turn, serving as a basis for theoriz-
ing and elaborating additional forms.
PART III
A Typology of Violence
12
Physical Violence
Physical violence encompasses a wide range of bodily harms involving unwanted

contact and confinement resulting in death or injury. Posing a threat to life
and/or bodily integrity, forms include—but are not limited to—killing, beating,
shoving, slapping, kicking, biting, choking, burning, and brandishing weapons,
as well as kidnapping, displacing, “disappearing,” and arbitrarily arresting and
detaining targets (APWLD 2007; Barton and Storm 2014; Crowell and Burgess
1996; UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2014). The tangible
nature of these acts makes them the most widely recognized and least contested
forms of violence against women. They tend to be relatively rare, however, with
offenders opting for “less costly” means of violence before escalating to physi-
cal attacks. While legal redress may be a solution for at least some forms of
physical violence, politically active women have developed a number of grass-
roots strategies to respond to and anticipate physical violence. At the same
time, individual women and state actors have devised new preventive security
arrangements, seeking to avert or mitigate the effects of physical attacks.
Manifestations of Physical Violence
Physical violence is generally less common than other acts of violence against
women in politics. According to the IPU (2016b), of the female parliamentar-
ians interviewed in their global study, 25.5% had personally experienced some
form of physical violence in connection with their work as an MP, while 20%
had witnessed an act of physical violence against a female colleague (3). In the
IPU’s (2018) follow-up report on violence in European parliaments, the preva-
lence of physical violence that women had personally experienced was slightly
lower, but still notable at 14.8%—with 55% of these incidents occurring during
political meetings and election campaigns (1, 7). Around the world, acts of
128 A Typology of Violence
bodily harm perpetrated against women in politics include murder, attempted

murder, mutilation, beating, arbitrary arrest, and torture.
MURDER
A number of politically active women have been killed in the course of their
work. Some of these cases constitute examples of violence in politics, like the
assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
Others, however, appear to be linked to efforts to stifle their participation based
on their ascriptive identities. The 2018 murder of Marielle Franco, a local coun-
cilor in Rio de Janeiro, is one recent case in point. Franco was black, lesbian,
and grew up in a favela (a poor, neglected, and unregulated neighborhood in
Brazil). Prior to being elected in 2016, she was—and continued to be—a strong
activist for the rights of women, Afro-Brazilians, the LGBT community, and
favela residents. Franco thus posed a threat to the political status quo as “an
educated, articulate, and capable young woman from a favela: a far cry from
the moneyed, middle-aged, white male politicians Brazilians are accustomed
to, in a country where more than half the population is black or mixed-race”
(Phillips 2018).
In March 2018, Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes, were shot and
killed in their car in a drive-by assassination after leaving a meeting focused on
the empowerment of young black women in Brazil. Franco served as the head
of the women’s rights commission of the Rio local council, and the month prior,
had been chosen as speaker of a new commission overseeing police and secu-
rity forces in the city’s favelas. Evidence at the scene suggested, early on, that
these forces may have been involved: in addition to bullet casings pointing to
ammunition purchased by the federal police in 2006 (King 2018), surveillance
cameras at the nearby metro station had been switched off prior to the attack.
The sophisticated and coordinated nature of the murder gave rise to specula-
tion that the local military police unit may have been responsible, and one year
later, police arrested two former military police officers (Ramalho 2019).
When making the arrests, a police statement acknowledged that it was
“uncontestable” that Franco had been “summarily executed for her political
activity in the defense of the causes she defended” (Langlois 2019). While she
was heavily involved in the movement against militarized police brutality in the
Rio favelas, these issues also very much encompassed her work on group-based
rights. Her final public words at the meeting she left before being murdered
were: “I am not free while any woman is a prisoner, even when her shackles
are very different from my own” (Barber 2018). Following her assassination,
protests took place around the world— including crowds of thousands in
Rio—using the slogans Marielle, Presente! (Marielle is here) and Não vão nos
calar (They are not going to shut us up), reflecting views of her as “a reposi-
tory of hope for Brazil’s traditionally voiceless and excluded groups: its favela
Physical Violence 129
residents, its black and poor people, and women” (Greenwald 2018). In January
2019, her close friend Jean Wyllys, the first and only openly gay Congressman,
announced he was leaving politics and Brazil, having been under police escort
since her murder (Barros 2019).
In addition to being an elected official, Franco was also a human rights
defender, as recognized in statements put out following her death by Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch. While fatal violence against women
human rights defenders is often linked to state actors, these are not the only
potential perpetrators. A Nepalese activist, Laxmi Bohara, died in 2008 after
being severely beaten by her husband and mother-in-law, who then forced her
to ingest poison. According to witnesses, the two viewed her human rights work
as incompatible with her domestic roles as a wife and mother. Frequently criti-
cizing and harassing Bohara, they falsely accused her of “consorting with men”
and threw her out of the house 10 days before her death. After she returned
home, her daughter said her father beat Bohara all night, only taking her to
the hospital after she was poisoned. When she died, her husband initially fled
the area, but his cousin then performed the autopsy and claimed it was a sui-
cide, clearing him of any wrongdoing. The national network of women human
rights defenders took up the case, staging a 24-day relay hunger strike, rallies,
and sit-ins. Many of these women, in turn, were threatened by members of
Bohara’s husband’s family, who warned them they would be killed themselves
if they continued to work on her case (Asoka 2012, 10–11).
ATTEMPTED MURDER
One of the best known cases of attempted murder is the shooting of teen-
age activist Malala Yousafzai by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012. Yousafzai first
came to public attention at the age of 11 when writing under a pen name for
BBC Urdu about her life and her family’s fight for girls’ education under the
Taliban.1 She eventually began speaking at events with her father to campaign
for every girl’s right to an education, generating both national and interna-
tional attention. As her family had been running a school for girls for a long
time, they were used to receiving threats—either published in newspapers or
passed along directly as notes from various people.
In early 2012, however, the police showed her father a file detailing death
threats made against her specifically. A journalist also informed Yousafzai that
the Taliban had called for her and another female activist, Shad Begum, to be
killed for spreading secularism. Like Yousafzai, Begum was involved in pro-
moting women’s education—prohibited under Taliban rule—as well as other
political and health improvement projects aimed at women at the grassroots
level. As a result of these threats, Yousafzai began taking a bus to school rather
than walking as she had done before. This precaution failed in October 2012,
however, when a man leaned into the bus and asked, “Who is Malala?” and
then shot her at point-blank range. A bullet went into her left eye and other
shots hit her classmates in their hands and arms. After being medically evacu-
ated to the UK, Yousafzai eventually recovered from her wounds.
In a book she published the following year, Yousafzai wrote that she wanted
to be known as the “girl who fought for education” and vowed that she would
continue to campaign on behalf of “millions of girls around the world who are
being denied the right to go to school and realize their potential” (Yousafzai
with Lamb 2013, 327). At the UN Youth Assembly, on her sixteenth birthday,
she highlighted the gendered motivations behind her attempted assassination,
observing that “the power of the voice of women frightens” the Taliban. She
stressed, therefore, that peace deals “must protect women’s and children’s rights”
or were otherwise “unacceptable.”2 That same day, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon declared that, in shooting Yousafzai, “extremists showed what they
fear most—a girl with a book” (Johnston 2013).
MUTILATION
Other examples of physical violence involve inflicting serious bodily injuries.

Various sources in 2009 reported that members of the Taliban had cut off the
fingers of several women who voted in the presidential elections in Afghanistan.
According to an official at the Free and Fair Election Foundation, this occurred
to two women in the southern province of Kandahar and possibly also a third
woman in the eastern part of the country (“Monitors” 2009). In Afghanistan,
voters’ index fingers are dipped in ink as a measure to prevent election fraud—
in this case, helping both election monitors as well as members of the Taliban
identify who had voted. Reports from the 2014 elections indicate that these
mutilations were not isolated events. The gender neutral nature of subsequent
coverage makes it difficult to know the degree to which women in particular
were targeted for this practice (“Afghan” 2014).
However, other information regarding the context of the 2009 Afghan elec-
tions suggests that, compared to men, female voters faced extensive and dispro-
portionate intimidation intended to stifle their participation. To avoid public
mingling between men and women, officials agreed to set up sex-segregated
polling stations, although observers later reported that at least 650 of these did
not open on election day. At many polling centers that did, few women cast
votes, especially in the south and southeast parts of the country. In Kandahar,
moreover, only three women ran for the four seats reserved for women on the
provincial council (Gall 2009). Other potential candidates were likely dissuaded
by the assassination of Sitara Achakzai, a provincial council member known
for fighting for women’s rights who had been murdered a few months earlier
by gunmen in front of her home (“Female Afghan” 2009). The EU observer
mission thus concluded that “poor security conditions, widespread cultural
opposition to women in public life, and a number of attacks clearly aimed at
deterring women’s activities all created significant obstacles” to women’s par-

ticipation (Gall 2009).
BEATING
Numerous women in Kenyan politics have faced physical assault during their
campaigns or in the course of their work as members of elected assemblies.3 In
2019, Rashid Kassim, a male MP, attacked Fatuma Gedi, a female MP, in the
parliament parking lot after confronting her about why, as a member of the
Budget and Appropriations Committee, she failed to allocate additional money
to his constituency. He then called her “stupid” and a “liar” and punched her
in the jaw and neck. After another female MP intervened, Gedi was taken to
record a statement at the Parliament Police Station, leading to charges against
Kassim (Karanja 2019). After a photo circulated on Twitter showed Gedi cry-
ing with blood on her mouth,4 several male MPs began mocking their female
colleagues, joking “it was slapping day” and “women needed to have manners”
and “know how to treat men.” Female MPs then staged a walkout, with one
declaring: “We are all members of parliament . . . we are no lesser than them”
(“Kenya MP” 2019).5
One of the most extensively covered attacks, however, occurred three
months before the December 2007 elections. Flora Igoki Terah, a first time
candidate for the small Kenya Africa Democratic Development Union party,
decided to run for a seat in parliament after years of community organizing on
issues like female genital mutilation, inheritance, and child marriage.6 On a bus
back to the city of Meru one evening, she was debating political issues with
other passengers when she kept receiving phone calls from unidentified callers
asking when she would get home. She did not find this unusual, assuming they
were supporters who wanted to meet with her upon her arrival—a pattern that
also occurred frequently during her years as a social worker.
Three men greeted her as she entered the long driveway to her mother’s
home. Punching her in the nose, they grabbed her neck and pushed her to the
ground. Scratching her hands and arms with thorns from a nearby hedge, they
tore out lumps of her hair and mixed it with feces and forced it into her mouth.
When the neighbors’ dogs starting barking, the leader of the group went to get
his car and told one of the younger assailants to lift her, saying: “Hurry up, we
are now going to take her to her father’s grave and rape her.” As the young man
dragged her to the street, she recounted, he began “pleading with me to give up
politics because nothing could be compared to my life” (Terah 2008, 101–102).
Neighbors soon arrived to help, but the attackers blended into the crowd and
slipped away.
In a subsequent interview, Terah attributed the assault to the incumbent
MP, David Mwiraria, who at the time was also a cabinet minister. Prior to that
night, she explained: “I was pressured many times to quit, harassed, and even
told that I could be given better, more lucrative opportunities. The physical
attack came when all that failed.” She also later recognized one of her attackers
as a senior police administrator, who was arrested but released on the same day
that she identified him at the police station. When asked what she thought led
to her attack, Terah said she thought she was targeted because “in Kenya, and
especially in the Ameru community I belong to, women are not supposed to get
leadership positions” (IPS Correspondents 2008).
Corroborating this intuition, the assault on Terah did not appear to
be an isolated incident. A Nairobi-based NGO, the Education Centre for
Women and Democracy, handled more than 250 complaints of electoral vio-
lence against women in the run up to the 2007 elections (IPS Correspondents
2008). The U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, announced that
the U.S. government would “increase resources to counter gender-based vio-
lence” against “female candidates for office as part of our electoral assistance
program” (Terah 2008, 70). Determined not to be intimidated, Terah contin-
ued her campaign but, having been hospitalized for weeks after the attack,
she was not able to canvass properly—and ultimately lost her bid for office.
However, a widespread national and international campaign to highlight her
case contributed to the defeat of the incumbent MP by another candidate.
ARBITRARY ARREST
The unlawful detention of politically active women is a theme that emerges in

diverse contexts. In 2016, supporters of U.S. presidential candidate Donald
Trump famously chanted “Lock her up!” during political rallies, suggesting
that his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, be imprisoned despite the lack of
any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. At one event, Trump went further to
suggest, falsely, that Clinton wanted to abolish the Second Amendment, a pro-
vision in the Constitution guaranteeing the rights of citizens to bear arms. If
she were elected president, he cautioned: “nothing you can do, folks. Although
the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” Many inter-
preted the statement as instigating physical violence against Clinton (Diamond
and Collinson 2016), a call Clinton condemned on Twitter, saying: “A person
seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence
in any way.”7 The chant crossed national borders in December 2016, when
crowds in Edmonton chanted “Lock her up!” at a rally for Chris Alexander,
candidate for leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. The chant
began in response to criticisms of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley—for the
“crime” of proposing a carbon tax in the oil-dependent province (Ross and
Muzyka 2016).
In other countries, women have in fact been arrested in efforts to stop their
political work. In March 2015, nine feminist activists in China were detained by
police for planning to hand out stickers denouncing sexual harassment on public
transport in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou on International Women’s

Day. Four activists were soon released but five—Li Maizi, Wei Tingting, Zheng
Churan, Wu Rongrong, and Wang Man—were kept in custody until April.
Later sharing her experiences with a reporter, Li Maizi recounted that police
interrogated her at a Beijing police station, asking who was funding her orga-
nization and why she was “organizing subversive activities about sexual harass-
ment.” When she refused to answer their questions, one officer showed her a
group of women in the waiting room—bragging they had arrested so many
young feminists that night that there were not enough interrogation rooms for
them all.
As Li and her colleagues had not done anything to oppose the govern-
ment, she assumed initially that she would not be held for more than 24 hours.
Although they released some women the next day, Li was moved to the Haidian
Detention Center, surrounded by so many officers that she sensed that they
“were very afraid I would escape. At that moment, I knew there was no way
they were letting me go home.” Interrogated at least once a day, Li refused to
cooperate—and the agents then tried to humiliate her by calling her a “lesbian”
and a “whore” and waking her in the middle of the night to scrub floors. They
also pressured her father, who wrote to his daughter telling her to give up her
activism. When these tactics did not work, Li was taken into a special room
where police interrogators shone a bright light in her face, accused her of being
a “spy” working for “foreign forces,” and threatened her with up to 10 years in
prison (Fincher 2016).
Global diplomatic and social media pressure led to the release of the five
women in April 2015. The arrests garnered international attention because
they coincided with preparations for Chinese President Xi Jinping to co-
host a UN summit on women’s rights to mark the anniversary of the Fourth
World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. Clinton, who provided
one of the most memorable moments of the conference with a speech declar-
ing “Women’s rights are human rights,” personally tweeted in reaction to the
arrests: “Xi hosting a meeting on women’s rights at the UN while persecuting
feminists? Shameless.”8 Additionally, hashtags like #FreeTheFive went viral on
Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (Fincher 2016). However, the women were
only released on bail, meaning they remained under surveillance as “criminal
suspects” and thus were subject to state detention at any time (Zeng 2015).
Acknowledging the “difficult” political environment, Li noted the need “to
think very carefully about new methods to push forward China’s feminist
movement” (Fincher 2016).
TORTURE
Some women who are arbitrarily detained may face acts of physical torture
while in custody. In May 2018, the Saudi government arrested a number of
activists without charge, including prominent women’s rights campaigners.

Kept in solitary confinement and denied communications with people outside
the prison for the first three months, the activists were eventually able to have
contact with family members—but were warned by prison officials against
disclosing any accounts of torture or prison procedures. In November, how-
ever, Amnesty International obtained three separate testimonies regarding
the torture of these activists. They condemned Saudi authorities for having
“deprived [the women] of their liberty . . . simply for peacefully express-
ing their views” and “subjecting them to horrendous physical suffering.”
Violating the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman,
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, measures applied by prison officials
reportedly ranged from electrocution to flogging to sexual harassment, lead-
ing at least one woman to repeatedly attempt to take her own life inside the
prison.9
In March 2019, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecution agency announced that
four women—Loujain al-Hathloul, Hatoon al-Fassi, Eman al-Nafjan, and
Aziza al-Yousef—would be charged and put on trial. Some had campaigned to
lift the ban on women driving, while others had been in the process of opening
up a shelter for abused women. The government claimed that the women had
admitted to receiving “financial and moral support” from elements “hostile
to the kingdom” (Hubbard 2019). Put on trial later that month, several of the
women described for the three-judge panel the mistreatment they had faced
while in state custody, including beatings, electric shocks, and sexual assault.
The public prosecutor claimed to have investigated these claims and said that
he concluded they were false. The fact that the arrests occurred several weeks
before the ban on women driving was lifted, however, was interpreted by many
activists and diplomats as a message to activists not to challenge the govern-
ment’s agenda (Kalin 2019).
One of the women, Loujain al-Hathloul, was a prominent voice in the
campaign for the right to drive. She was also a long-standing critic of the
country’s guardianship laws requiring women to obtain permission from a
male guardian before getting a job, traveling internationally, or getting mar-
ried. While not mentioning a date when it would enter into force, an August
2019 government decree removed some—but not all—of these requirements
for women over the age of 21. Nonetheless, Hathloul remains in prison and
members of her family were placed under a travel ban barring them from leav-
ing Saudi Arabia. Relatives abroad, including her sister Lina, have continued
to speak out, reporting that Hathloul was offered a deal if she would deny
the allegations of torture, but she had refused. Referencing recent changes,
Lina stated: “if the Saudi government are sincere about the reforms on wom-
en’s rights then they should release the women who asked for these reforms”
(Oppenheim 2019).
Solutions to Physical Violence
Survivors of physical violence, in some contexts, can gain justice through legal
frameworks. In June 2016, British MP Jo Cox was fatally shot and stabbed
while arriving at a weekly walk-in session for constituents at a library in West
Yorkshire. After the attack, the assailant Thomas Mair calmly walked away.
With the help of eyewitnesses, police officers arrested him approximately one
mile from the murder scene (Cobain 2016). Within two days, Mair was brought
before a court, and following a series of hearings, he was denied bail and his
case was assigned to be handled using terrorism-related protocols. His trial
began in November, less than five months later. After nine days, the jury took
only 90 minutes to convict him of Cox’s murder, grievous bodily harm to a
bystander, possession of a firearm with intent, and possession of a dagger. The
judge sentenced Mair to life in prison, with no possibility of parole (Cobain
and Taylor 2016).10
Within the larger universe of acts of violence against women in politics,
however, the Cox/Mair case is exceptional. Perpetrators, instead, often enjoy
high levels of impunity, even when committing physical assaults that are clearly
criminal. Inadequate response from state authorities is typically due to low lev-
els of state capacity to investigate these crimes—and/or to the fact that state
actors themselves are responsible. Recognizing these limitations, women in
civil society have implemented various strategies to empower women to speak
out, anticipate, and circumvent problems with physical violence in the course
of their political work. Individual women have also cooperated with security
agencies to develop new protocols and measures to prevent and respond to
physical attacks.
AWARENESS-RAISING
After her assault, Kenyan politician Flora Terah received a wide range of
visitors—including politicians, activists, diplomats, and ordinary citizens—as
well as thousands of emails. As part of this wave of attention, she was invited
to participate on a BBC interactive radio program with women around the
world who had suffered gender-based violence. The experience was transforma-
tive, as she recounted later in her autobiography: “I got to realize that it was
not only me. Other women seeking leadership positions in African countries
were facing similar predicaments.” Further, the people who called into the show
“gave me a reservoir of strength I thought I had lost . . . I was determined to
help other women stand up to the monster of gender-related election violence”
(Terah 2008, 68–69). Terah’s resolve grew stronger after her friend Alice Onduto
was shot dead while campaigning—and further still when Benazir Bhutto was
assassinated on the same day that the 2007 Kenyan election was held.
In January 2008, Terah launched an awareness-raising campaign called

Terah against Terror to address the problem of electoral gender-based violence.
In an interview, she described “this intimidation [as] not always physical but
enough to deter women from taking part in politics, not only at the parliamen-
tary level but also locally” (IPS Correspondents 2008). Her campaign focused
in particular on reaching and educating young people, observing that youth
were often mobilized by politicians to commit electoral violence. Additionally,
she wrote and published a book on her experiences (Terah 2008). Combined,
these efforts not only helped inform the public, but also contributed to her
own psychological healing, helping her use her experiences positively to effect
change.
SELF-DEFENSE TRAINING
A longer historical view of the problem of violence against women in politics

yields a second strategy to combat physical violence: training in self-defense
techniques. In the late 19th century, greater numbers of women in U.S. cities
began venturing out into public spaces, alone and without chaperones, and con-
fronted what is now known as “street harassment.” The slang term “masher”
was used to describe men who leered, made sexual remarks, touched, or even
followed women as they attempted to go about their day (Segrave 2014). In
response, women began organizing self-defense clubs to teach boxing and jiu-
jitsu—both in person and through lessons by mail. The martial art of jiu-jitsu
was particularly attractive because its techniques use attackers’ weight against
them, enabling smaller individuals to defeat larger opponents. Newspapers gar-
nered publicity for the cause, publishing articles with illustrations or photos
showing women how to fight back physically against an attacker (Rouse 2017).
The British militant suffrage movement explicitly connected these tactics to
women’s political empowerment. On Black Friday in November 1910, women
marching on parliament were physically and sexually assaulted by police and
onlookers for more than six hours. Violence from the general public, however,
was also common: when going about “their daily business, suffragettes could
be heckled, pushed, shoved, kicked, and pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables
by bystanders” (Rouse 2017, 127). In 1908, Edith Garrud, who ran a martial
arts studio, began working with members of the Women’s Social and Political
Union (WSPU), teaching them jiu-jitsu in secret locations around London
(Williams 2012).
In 1913, the need for self-protection took on additional urgency as the
government began releasing suffrage prisoners who were on hunger strike so
that they could recover their health before being rearrested. To prevent leaders
like Emmeline Pankhurst and other fugitive suffragettes from being recaptured,
Garrud helped form a 30-member group known as the Bodyguard. These
women engaged in hand-to-hand combat with police on several occasions in
1914 and used disguises and decoys to stage a number of successful escapes and
rescues (Ruz and Parkinson 2015).11 While the press portrayed suffragettes who
knew jiu-jitsu as a curiosity, Garrud emphasized that her training was intended
only as a form of self-defense against those who had attacked women first, as a
way to “invert the violence directed at them” (Rouse 2017, 130).
VIRTUAL CAMPAIGNING
Founded in 2014, Mina’s List is an organization devoted to recruiting and sup-

porting women’s rights activists to run for political office. Through their work
with women in various countries in the global South, they came to identify two
major barriers preventing women from standing and being elected as candi-
dates: money and security. Both obstacles stem from cultural norms passing
negative judgment on women speaking to men outside their families, which
make it more difficult for women than men to raise funds for political cam-
paigns and campaign openly in public spaces.12 In 2015, Mina’s List partnered
with Voatz, a group of U.S.-based developers with expertise in technology, digi-
tal security, and mobile payments, to work on an app to make campaigning and
fundraising simpler, safer, and more accessible for aspiring women candidates.
Piloted in Nigeria, the Women Influencing Nations (WIN) app was offi-
cially launched in 2018 at a workshop in New Delhi for female candidates from
Afghanistan. Available in English, Dari, and Pashto, the WIN app enables
women to communicate directly with voters without risking their physical
safety. Candidates can set up profiles detailing their policy platforms, post
campaign videos, and link to their existing social media accounts. They can
even create digital polls to learn more about the priorities of their constituents.
Voters, in turn, are able to learn about the candidates, as well as donate to
their campaigns using a secure money-transfer system linked to the candidate’s
account. While donors can be verified to ensure compliance with campaign
finance laws, the app permits them to remain anonymous in the first instance
when public knowledge of such donations might pose a security threat.13
SECURITY SOLUTIONS
Concerns about potential dangers, finally, have led to a variety of ad hoc secu-
rity solutions to promote the physical safety of politically active women, includ-
ing provision of bodyguards, distribution of bulletproof vests and vehicles, and
identification of safe houses. Following the murder of Jo Cox in 2016, British
MPs requested the creation of a dedicated team to investigate threats and abuse
directed at parliamentarians. The Parliamentary Liaison and Investigation
Team (PLaIT), based at the parliamentary estate, was subsequently established
as part of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command of the
Metropolitan Police. While not focused exclusively on the security of female
MPs, data collected by PLaIT in its first few years of operation indicated that
women appear to be disproportionately targeted: while women constituted 32%
of MPs, about 60% of the cases PLaIT had handled were directed at women.14
These dynamics led the team to recruit a dedicated female security advisor in
June 2018 to assist female MPs in dealing with threats, abuse, and intimidation
by providing tailored personal security advice and liaising with police and secu-
rity companies on their behalf.15
These provisions compliment other security measures offered to MPs both
before and in the wake of Cox’s murder. The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre
(FTAC) was established in 2006 by the British Home Office, the Department
of Health, and the Metropolitan Police Service as a joint police/mental health
unit to “assess and manage risks from lone individuals who harass, stalk, or
threaten public figures.”16 This work, however, focuses on violence against pol-
iticians more generally: according to FTAC staff, every MP has a group of
resentful constituents who channel their frustrations toward their local MP.17
Just days after Cox’s assassination, the parliamentary Estimates Committee
decided to automatically offer enhanced security to all MPs—including panic
buttons, extra lighting, and additional locks—without MPs having to apply to
have them installed. Previous policies required a risk assessment by local police
as well as two written estimates before any work could be carried out (“MPs
to Be” 2016). Security expenses for MPs, including extra measures taken in
response to specific threats, rose as a consequence from just over £77,000 in the
2014–2015 financial year to more £4.2 million in 2017–2018.18
13
Psychological Violence
Psychological violence inflicts trauma on individuals’ mental state or emo-

tional well-being. It seeks to disempower targets by degrading, demoralizing,
or shaming them—often through efforts to instill fear, cause stress, or harm
their credibility. Its varied forms comprise, but are not limited to, death threats,
rape threats, intimidation, threats against family members, verbal abuse, bully-
ing, rumor campaigns, illegal interrogation, surveillance, social ostracism, and
blackmail (APWLD 2007; SAP International 2010; UNDP and UN Women
2017). These acts may occur inside and outside official political settings and be
carried out in person, by telephone, or via digital means like email and social
media (SAP International 2010; Sekaggya 2010).
While psychological violence is widely recognized in global declarations
and national laws, scholars and practitioners have struggled to define and mea-
sure it adequately (Follingstad 2007). This is due at least in part to percep-
tions that physical violence exacts a greater toll on its victims (O’Leary 1999),
although studies find that most survivors rate emotional abuse as having a far
more negative impact that physical abuse (Follingstad et al. 1990; Stark 2007).
According to Galtung (1969, 169), this is because physical violence “works on
the body,” while psychological violence “works on the soul.” Experiencing it
firsthand, targets (and their allies) have taken the lead in devising and sharing
coping strategies, empowering individuals and mobilizing groups to call out
psychological violence and counteract its pernicious effects.
Manifestations of Psychological Violence
Studies using a variety of data sources—testimonies of female politicians (SAP

International 2011), data on electoral violence (Bardall 2011), and purpose-
built surveys (Herrick et al. 2019)—suggest that psychological violence is the
most widespread form of violence against women in politics. Prevalence rates
are virtually identical across the IPU’s global and European surveys: 81.8%
of female parliamentarians in the global sample had faced some form of psy-
chological violence in the course of their political work (IPU 2016b, 3), while
this was the case for 85.2% of European MPs (IPU 2018, 1). Among the lat-
ter, 46.9% had received threats of death, rape, or other acts of physical vio-
lence, while 58.2% had faced sexist attacks online—with these figures rising to
50% and 76.2% for female MPs under the age of 40 (IPU 2018, 6). Opponents
employ diverse tactics, ranging from threats and abuse to intimidation both
online and offline, to frighten, degrade, and bully women to prevent them con-
tinuing their political work.
DEATH AND RAPE THREATS
Jess Phillips, a British MP since 2015, has been quite open about the death
and rape threats she has received in connection with her work as a politician.
Prior to entering parliament, Phillips worked for Women’s Aid, a domestic
violence organization—and thus not only calls herself a “feminist” but also
has expertise in recognizing tactics used by abusers. At the launch of NDI’s
#NotTheCost campaign in 2016, she disclosed that often after speaking in
parliament about topics related to women’s rights, “I [suffer] daily attacks on
Twitter, on my email system, or endless online article articles written about how
people wished to see me raped, they wished to come find my sons hanging from
a tree” (CSPL 2017, 27). A few months after that event, Phillips helped launch
the Reclaim the Internet campaign, a cross-party initiative by female politicians
in the UK to raise awareness and address misogynistic bullying online. She
received approximately 5000 Twitter notifications in response, as people tagged
her in discussions about whether or not they would sexually assault her; more
than 600 of these entailed explicit rape threats. Because the abuse was not an
isolated incident, she noted to a reporter: “I don’t need to contact the police
anymore because my local police officers watch what happens on Twitter and
they get in touch with me” (Oppenheim 2016b).
Weeks after the assassination of Jo Cox, Phillips posted a photo on Twitter
of a man with tools at her home with the caption: “Locksmith spending 6hrs
to make my home safe. Think [about] how my kids feel next time you mock up
a picture of me dying.”1 Based on their content, many of these attacks appear
to come from men’s rights activists operating in what Marwick and Caplan
(2018) call the “manosphere,” a loose online network of anti-feminists and
misogynists in the UK and abroad. Other perpetrators include the far-right,
including members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). In 2019, British
police announced they would investigate Carl Benjamin, a UKIP candidate,
for “malicious communications” against Phillips. Responding to a 2016 tweet
in which she decried rape and death threats sent to women online, he replied: “I
wouldn’t even rape you . . . feminism is cancer.” In a later video, he stated: “I
Psychological Violence 141
suppose with enough pressure I might cave.” Benjamin refused to apologize,

claiming his comments were meant merely as a “joke” (Walker 2019).
Far-right groups also target women more broadly across the political
spectrum. Female MPs in Europe not only receive more abuse than their male
counterparts, but this abuse also differs markedly in its content, mainly tak-
ing the form of “misogynistic and violent anti-female vitriol” (Spring and
Webster 2019). Katharina Schulze, co-leader of the Greens in Bavaria, esti-
mates that, on average, 20% of the emails she receives each day are abusive,
frequently containing threats of sexual assault. Spring and Webster (2019) find
that in addition to memes posted on far-right platforms like 4chan targeting
her appearance and sexual reputation, over a quarter of the abuse directed at
Schulze on mainstream social media take aim at her gender and sexuality. In
the first four months of 2019, the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland
mentioned Schulze on its Facebook page 10 times more than any other indi-
vidual German political figure or party and four times more than all other
references combined. Comments on these posts often sexualized her, with a
handful implying they wished she would be raped. Her male party co-leader
Ludwig Hartmann, despite sharing the same policy views, was not subjected
to similar treatment: the harshest tweets call him a communist appealing to
young, inexperienced voters.
In addition to politicians, female journalists also often face sexualized hate
speech online. Analyzing 70 million comments left on the Guardian website
since 2006, editors discovered that, among the 10 most abused writers, eight
were women and two were black men—despite the fact that the vast majority of
its opinion writers were white men. The findings confirmed “what female jour-
nalists have long suspected: that articles written by women attract more abuse
and dismissive trolling than those written by men, regardless of what the arti-
cle is about” (Gardiner et al. 2016). Providing a closer look into these threats,
a television show in Sweden, Mission Investigate, broadcast a documentary
in 2013 entitled, “Men Who Hate Women on the Net.”2 In the program, a
series of well-known female journalists read from letters and emails they had
received communicating death threats and sexualized hate speech. One sent
to news anchor Jenny Alversjö stated: “Now is the time . . . for us to have sex,
I will be waiting for you outside the building. If you say no, I will cut up your
body” (Edström 2016, 99). Alversjö noted she had worked for nearly twenty
years as a journalist and had “always been a target for other people’s opinion.”
But “when someone threatens to kill you . . . the world stops . . . [a]‌person who
wanted me dead said I had two weeks left to live. It’s hard to describe the fear
I felt” (Bell 2015).
In 2016, the national Swedish television channel produced a program,
“The Threatened,” exploring how a range of politically active women—female
journalists, opinion-makers, and politicians—received threats and hateful mes-
sages online, by letter, or through texts and calls to their mobile phones. Most
communications took on a sexual character, with perpetrators often describing

how they would rape the target or get an orgasm watching them die (Haraldsson
2016). One politician featured on the program was Rossana Dinamarca, who
has served as an MP for the Left Party since 2002. She described the moment
she first began to be harassed and threatened by one particular man, while she
was at her sister’s home in 2014, as a shocking contrast between the “beautiful
day” with “kids playing in the garden” and the sexually graphic message she
received on her phone: “You don’t go and expect that when your phone beeps
that you’ll pick up a sexual threat . . . But there it is—while you’re standing and
making pancakes.”3
Although Dinamarca did not know it at the time, numerous other female
politicians in Sweden received similar texts at the same time, communicating
sexual threats and signed “Greetings from a Sweden Democrat,” referring to
the name of a far-right party. While sent from unregistered numbers, police
determined that the threats were all coming from the same device. They could
only find out the model type, however, and not the identity of the person using
the phone. The perpetrator was eventually caught when he topped up credit on
the phone at a gas station with a surveillance camera. Court proceedings sub-
sequently revealed that he had harassed 10 female politicians from the Social
Democratic Party, the Left Party, and the Green Party using 15 different pre-
paid phone cards.
Although the man claimed he did not know why he sent the threats, he
had previously been charged with unlawful threats against ethnic minorities
and analysis of his internet searches revealed he had looked up all 10 women’s
names. After being sentenced to three months in jail and damages for sexual
harassment, the man continued to insist that his messages were not intended as
threats—and pointed out that on Facebook, he had seen “people write worse
things about her than what I sent as text messages.”4 Far from excusing his
behavior, this comment indicates that—at least in some parts of the internet—
sexualized abuse of political women is normalized and widespread. The charges
also demonstrate that his threats were not a casual, one-time event, but instead
involved systematic and ongoing harassment: he texted and called Dinamarca
incessantly for seven months, including sending 46 emails in one day.5
INTIMIDATION AND COERCION
Intimidation and coercion may also prevent women from exercising their politi-
cal rights. During the 2008 elections in Pakistan, threats issued by religious mil-
itants in North-West Frontier Province prevented thousands of women from
casting their ballots. The day before the election, militants posted signs warn-
ing candidates not to bring their female supporters to vote; on election day,
elders in one district decided to close 30 polling stations for women. In other
districts, women’s polling stations were largely deserted, with some poll workers
relieved that women had not come: “In a democratic society, everyone should
vote. But in this situation, life is more important than voting.” Others expressed
fears, however, that they themselves would be attacked when carrying the bal-
lot boxes back to central government offices (Rohde 2008). A parallel scenario
played out in the province of Lower Dir during a parliamentary by-election in
2015. According to one report, mosques broadcast warnings telling women not
to vote, while “baton-wielding men” guarded polling stations to block the few
women who attempted to cast their ballots (Boone 2015).
Women in Zanzibar, an autonomous region of Tanzania, faced similar
pressures not to vote in 2015. However, this intimidation and coercion came
not from religious fundamentalists, but from members of their own fami-
lies. Mzuri Issa, coordinator of the Tanzania Media Women’s Association
(TAMWA) in Zanzibar, stated that 47 women were divorced for voting against
their husband’s orders. One woman recounted: “I thought it was just normal
and free in a democracy to differ in politics. But unfortunately, my husband
was adamant to the end and decided to divorce me. He has even decided not
to bring basic needs to our young children.” In response, TAMWA and other
women’s rights organizations launched a campaign to raise awareness, espe-
cially among men, that all citizens have the freedom to make their own political
decisions (Makoye 2015).
Analysis by the Tanzania Women Cross-Party Platform finds that these
trends are widespread across the country: 40.6% of the women interviewed
had heard of women being forced not to participate in politics by relatives
(Semakafu 2016, 21). In addition to husbands pressuring their wives, younger
women suffered harassment from their parents and older women were sub-
jected to violence from their sons. In some cases, this intimidation resulted in
physical and mental scars. One woman shared that, after her husband caught
her watching the presidential primaries of another party, he “ordered me to
switch off the television . . . he then attacked me and beat me and then went to
the bedroom and wrote divorce papers. And that was the end of my marriage.”
An elderly woman whose sons were not happy with her vote recounted: “my
house was stoned every night. I cannot go out to the lavatory for fear of getting
injured” (23, 22). Other men confiscated women’s voter registration cards to
prevent them from voting, while some escorted women to the polls to “assist”
them in voting, using the pretext that their wives did not know how to read or
write—thus ensuring men’s control over their votes.
Anecdotal data from the United States suggests that intimidation and
coercion by family members is not limited to the global South. Following the
2018 elections, door-to-door canvassers interviewed by Solnit (2018) shared
that it was relatively common that husbands “refused to let the wife speak to
canvassers, or talked or shouted over her, or insisted that she was going to vote
Republican even though she was a registered Democrat.” One man, only half
joking, asserted: “if she needs to know how to vote, I’ll just take her in the back
and beat her.” In one particularly memorable account, a woman who opened
the door “looked petrified” while her husband stood “menacingly” behind her.
As the canvasser made a pitch for Beto O’Rourke, a Democratic candidate
in Texas, the woman’s husband began yelling, “We’re not interested.” As the
wife quickly closed the door, however, she silently mouthed: “I support Beto.”
Solnit suggests that while it would be impossible to know how many men in
the United States “bully, silence, and control their wives into voting conserva-
tive,” the growing popularity of voting by mail may deprive some women of the
secrecy of their vote—and thus freedom to vote as they wish.
INTRUSIVE DISRUPTIONS
Intrusive disruptions aim at interrupting—and inducing enough fear to stop

women from continuing—their political work. In 2000, two sets of UN wom-
en’s rights events were held in New York: the CSW meetings, held every year
in March, and a special session organized in June to commemorate five years
since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (Beijing +5). Serving
as a preparatory conference for Beijing +5, the CSW meetings attracted a par-
ticularly large number of participants, including an outsized contingent of con-
servative organizations that attended with the aim of watering down advances
made on gender, sexuality, and human rights in the Beijing Platform for Action.
In 1995, the presence of evangelicals in Beijing, together with the Vatican
and leaders of various Muslim-majority nations, had contributed to the strik-
ing of language recognizing non-discrimination on the basis of sexual ori-
entation. When proposed language on sexual orientation was provisionally
included in the Beijing +5 documents, members of these groups mobilized to
attend and disrupt meetings, especially events arranged by the lesbian caucus.
In a context where “being ‘outed’ in their home countries meant great personal
danger,” members of anti-homosexuality groups “displayed an intimidating
interest in discovering not just what lesbian women were strategizing and say-
ing, but exactly who they were.” At one workshop, members of conservative
groups were observed copying names and contact information from an atten-
dance sheet—and one woman made sure everyone in the room was aware she
knew who they were, stating that “it was nice to put a face to all your names”
(Rothschild 2005, 104).
These groups also disturbed meetings and sought to intimidate partici-
pants. During a lesbian caucus panel, for example, priests read aloud from the
Bible during the presentations. After the panel concluded, a former nun who
had been a panelist was encircled and taunted by religious extremists until UN
security guards were able to intervene. The nun described this as a shift in tactics
“from obstruction to intimidation,” with priests “waving rosaries as a weapon
to ward off evil spirits” and conducting “an exorcism in the room where the
lesbian caucus had met.” Calling out these actions, a group of four NGOs put
out a statement against these “pro-family” forces, noting that their activities
had included “removing documents, intimidating NGO representatives, and
giving biased information.” Similar scenes were repeated at Beijing +5. Due
especially to the presence of a very large number of U.S. religious-right groups,
many with little knowledge of the UN or sexual rights issues, the special session
was characterized by an “overt climate of hostility not previously experienced
in UN settings” (Rothschild 2005, 109, 105).
These battles continue to the present day. In 2019, Koki Muli Grignon,
the CSW vice-chair and Kenya’s deputy ambassador to the UN, was inundated
with 3000 text messages in 12 languages—forcing her to suspend the negotia-
tions and leave the UN building to get a new phone number. Sent by CitizenGo,
a Spanish NGO, the texts demanded that any references to “abortion, sexual
orientation and gender identity, and comprehensive sexuality education” be
removed from the final text of the 2019 CSW meetings. Muli Grignon believed
she was targeted due to confusion about her role: as a facilitator, she in fact
had no influence over the content of the agreed conclusions. As a result of
the attack, however, “it was totally impossible to work.” She added: “The UN
should be a safe space—nobody should be intimidated.” Other activists recog-
nized the incident as part of a “strategy of distraction” used by conservative
activists to prevent progress at women’s rights conferences by attempting to
hijack the agenda (Kent 2019).
Other disruptions involve issuing bomb threats against women’s homes
and places of work. In 2013, Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman received a
tweet from an anonymous account which claimed: “A bomb has been placed
outside your home. It will go off at exactly 10.47 PM on a timer and trigger
destroying everything.” Identical threats were received by Grace Dent, a col-
umnist for the Independent; Catherine Mayer, Europe editor of Time magazine;
and Anna Leszkiewicz, editor of Cherwell, Oxford University’s independent
student newspaper. The threat against Freeman appeared to be in response to
her latest column calling out misogynistic abuse online. She explained: “I get
loads of abuse on Twitter. That I should just ‘go back to the kitchen,’ or some-
one saying they can’t wait until women lose the vote.” The disruption posed by
a bomb threat, however, convinced her finally to go to the police: “There was
that guy arrested for threatening to blow up an airport. If it’s illegal to threaten
to bomb an airport, it’s illegal to threaten to bomb me” (Batty 2013).
JUDICIAL HARASSMENT
Bringing baseless legal accusations against someone is a further means of caus-

ing mental and emotional stress, with the added bonus of potentially harm-
ing the target’s reputation within the broader community. While spurious legal
actions have been taken against various politicians, notably Hillary Clinton
and Dilma Rousseff, judicial harassment is perhaps most commonly employed
as a tactic to defame and justify imprisoning human rights defenders—while

also diverting time, energy, and resources away from their work (Frontline
Defenders 2018). While cases of judicial harassment carry the trappings of
formal legal frameworks, they are often characterized by irregularities related
to due process and fair trial procedures, including lack of access to a lawyer,
unacknowledged detention, and wrongful sentencing (Sekaggya 2010).
In May 2018, Egyptian police raided the home of actress Amal Fathy two
days after she posted a 12-minute video on her personal Facebook page venting
about sexual harassment in Egypt. In the video, she detailed two incidents that
had occurred earlier that day, in which a taxi driver groped her and, a couple
of hours later, a bank guard grabbed his crotch while making lurid comments
about her. She also criticized the government for failing to adequately address
harassment in the country. Although Fathy told police that she only posted the
video because she “had a very bad day,” they carried assault rifles and took her
away in the middle of the night on charges of terrorism (Daragahi 2018). Five
months later, she was sentenced to two years in prison: one year for “spreading
fake news” with the intention of toppling the Egyptian regime and a second
year for possessing “indecent materials” (a reference to the video itself). She
was also fined 10,000 Egyptian pounds (Malsin 2018).
Recent Egyptian cybercrime laws increased the powers of the government
to shut down websites critical of the government, including blogs with more
than 5000 followers. However, most “fake news” charges to date have been used
to target women (DeGeurin 2018). In a related incident, Lebanese tourist Mona
el-Mazbouh was initially sentenced to 11 years in prison for uploading a video
to Facebook complaining of sexual harassment—but was ultimately deported
and issued a fine instead. Feminist writer Mona Eltahawy recognized these gen-
dered dimensions when she tweeted after the trial that “the sentencing of Amal
Fathy aims to terrorize women out of public space and is a green light to men
that they can assault women with impunity.”6 In a second tweet, she compared
the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to other authoritarian leaders,
declaring: “Patriarchy at the highest levels protects & enables misogyny.”7
Solutions to Psychological Violence
Some forms of psychological violence are clearly illegal, as in the case of

Swedish MP Rossana Dinamarca described earlier. In the UK, a number of
female MPs—including Luciana Berger, Stella Creasy, and Anna Soubry—
have taken their cases to the courts, leading to jail time for a number of their
harassers. However, in general, existing legal frameworks lack robustness and
leave many victims unsatisfied—and largely unprotected. Additionally, many
forms of psychological violence are not legally prohibited, such that no state-
led recourse for justice is available. As a result, targets and their allies have
worked among themselves to develop a range of interventions to deal with and

call out incidents as they occur—as well as to provide support for victims to
resume their political work. These include both individual-level strategies to
handle and prevent abuse and collective mechanisms to express solidarity and
enhance women’s safety in the political world.
DELETING, BLOCKING, AND REPORTING
The IPU (2016b) identifies online abuse as the most common form of psy-
chological violence against female parliamentarians. As many politically active
women around the world point out, simply turning off the computer or log-
ging out of email or social media accounts is not a realistic option. New tech-
nologies have become increasingly embedded in people’s daily lives, such that
politicians, activists, and journalists have come to rely on online platforms to
communicate with constituents, elites, and the wider public. Exiting this space
can therefore have serious social and economic implications (Committee to
Protect Journalists 2016; Dhrodia 2017). Moreover, walking away from these
technologies due to harassment effectively cedes these spaces to abusers, per-
mitting perpetrators of violence to control and further isolate women (Henry
and Powell 2015).
One way that female politicians have attempted to deal with online harass-
ment on their own is by deleting, blocking, and reporting abuse. The preferred
option for many female MPs in the UK is simply to delete or block offensive
posts.8 For the staff of Diane Abbott, the first black woman elected to the
British parliament, this task forms part of their daily routine. After a study by
Amnesty International showed that Abbott received nearly half of the abusive
tweets sent to female MPs between January and June 2017 (Dhrodia 2017), her
staffers were invited to give evidence to the CSPL inquiry on abuse and intimi-
dation in British politics. They described the work in plain terms: “The first
thing we do in the morning is to block and delete online abuse, usually whilst
having breakfast. Porridge with one hand, deleting abuse with the other.” They
cautioned that this was an imperfect solution because once they blocked or
muted an account, they had to rely on others to see and report inappropriate
content. Moreover, leaving this abuse online, they recognized, could still have
negative effects: “removing it from Diane doesn’t stop another black woman
from seeing it, or from emboldening someone else” (CSPL 2017, 38).
Some MPs also take advantage of opportunities to report abusive content
directly to social media companies. Twitter, for example, explicitly states that
users may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people;
engage in targeted harassment of someone; promote violence against, threaten,
or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual
orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or
serious disease; or depict sexual violence and/or assault.9 Many soon become
disillusioned with the process, however. In 2016, Jess Phillips penned a piece
entitled: “By Ignoring the Thousands of Rape Threats Sent to Me, Twitter
is Colluding with My Abusers.” She explained that after reporting a message
from “someone gloating, in intricate detail, about how they would not rape
me,” Twitter responded that they “reviewed the content and determined that
it was not in violation of the Twitter rules” (Phillips 2016a). Seyi Akiwowo,
a former local councilor who went on to form Glitch, an NGO to end online
abuse, expressed similar vexation: “There’s something really infuriating when
someone is clearly being hateful and you’ve reported but Twitter reply claiming
there are no violations. It . . . feels like gaslighting.”10
AWARENESS-RAISING
In the face of psychological violence, other women have taken a different

tack: sharing the abuse women have received in hopes of raising awareness and
spurring broader action. In January 2018, Baroness Anne Jenkin spoke in a
debate in the British House of Lords on social media regulations about the
experiences of a Conservative female candidate. Jenkin recounted that, every
time this woman left her house, she faced activists “yelling at her, and I quote—
and please, my Lords, forgive the unparliamentary language and block your
ears if you are sensitive or easily offended—a ‘Fucking Tory cunt.’ ”11 The
speech quickly garnered attention on Twitter, as well as in traditional media
outlets, noting that it was the first time this slur had been uttered on the floor of
parliament. In a subsequent interview, Jenkin acknowledged there was “a sharp
intake of breath” in the chamber—but that she “wasn’t out to shock people,”
but to make them aware that “this sort of abuse happens to women candidates”
(Atalanta 2018, 40).
Two months later, Mhairi Black, an MP for the Scottish National Party,
made a more extensive intervention during a parliamentary debate on misog-
yny on the eve of International Women’s Day. Both the youngest MP and a
lesbian, Black had personally faced a variety of lines of abuse, including being
called a “wee boy” and a “cunt.” But she continued: “I struggle to see any joke
in being systematically called a dyke, a rug muncher, a slut, a whore, a scruffy
bint. I’ve been told you can’t put lipstick on a pig, let the dirty bitch each shit
and die.” While Black noted she could have softened her language “by talking
about the C-word . . . the reality is there is no softening when you’re targeted
with these words and you’re left reading them on my screen every day.” She said
that she felt uncomfortable reading out the insults, “yet there are people who
feel comfortable flinging these words around every day.” For Black, allowing
the abuse to go unchallenged helps normalize it and “when it becomes normal-
ized it creates an environment that allows women to be abused” (Settle 2018).
Canadian politician Sandra Jansen made a similarly impassioned speech
on the floor of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, opening her speech by
declaring: “What a traitorous bitch!” Jansen had left her longstanding party,
the Progressive Conservatives, in 2016 due to the bullying and harassment she
experienced at a 2016 party convention. Subsequently crossing the floor to
join the New Democratic Party, she received a torrent of abuse after changing
parties, including “Sandra should stay in the kitchen where she belongs” and
“Dumb broad, a good place for her to be is with the rest of the queers.” She
called on colleagues who were “stunned by the words” or “reject[ed] the inher-
ent violence behind them” to recognize that “harassment and abuse, even if it’s
verbal, even if it’s online, and even if it’s directed at a political opponent, is poi-
son.” She pleaded: “Please oppose it. Don’t ignore it. Don’t look the other way.
Don’t excuse it. Because our daughters are watching us.” Once she concluded,
the speech drew a standing ovation—and was widely discussed across Canada
(McConnell 2016).
COUNTER-SPEECH AND SOLIDARITY
Reviewing her “personal archive of conservative hate mail,” Cloud (2009, 471–
472) shares that her preferred rejoinder was to post the hate mail on public
forums, “turning the tables on cyber intimidators and bringing their violations
into the light of day.” Many harassers, she was surprised to find, backpedaled
and/or apologized for the tone of their letters—because, she surmised, they
then became accountable to a larger community. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
a member of the U.S. Congress, also employs a form of counter-speech, using
Twitter to respond to and/or call out abuse. A tweet on Halloween in 2019 by
Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren captures many conservative tropes used
to denigrate Ocasio-Cortez: “I decided to dress up as the person who scares
me most. The Democratic Dimwit Darling, socialist-loving, freedom-hating,
former bartender herself @AOC.”12 Responding to the bartender trope on a
previous occasion, Ocasio-Cortez inverted her opponents’ logic by tweeting: “I
find it revealing when people mock where I came from, & say they’re going to
‘send me back to waitressing,’ as if that is bad or shameful . . . But our job is to
serve, not to rule.”13
Jess Phillips (2017) makes a similar suggestion in her memoir, calling on
allies of women “in the firing line” to “form a misogyny counter-speech army.”
She explained: “Sometimes if I am going on the telly or about to do something
I think will attract Internet hobgoblins, I put out a request for cat pics and
kindness to flood my feed. I can cope with loads of vitriol and hatred when
it is interspersed with pictures of people lying on the floor with a hamster”
(227–228). Phillips’s strategy recalls one employed informally by women in the
British parliament in the late 1980s. Dawn Primarolo, a newly elected Labour
MP, was the target of so many sexist taunts that other female MPs, even those
from other parties, made a point of sitting with her as a way to counteract the
“culture of intimidation that some Members of the House, for some strange
reason, thought that’s how Members of Parliament should behave” (Sones

2005, 67).
An automated version of counter-speech and solidarity is ParityBot,14 the
brainchild of Lana Cuthbertson, co-founder of Parity YEG, a non-partisan,
Edmonton-based NGO working toward gender parity in politics and public
office, in collaboration with computer developer Kory Mathewson.15 Using
machine learning methods, ParityBot detects abusive and problematic tweets
directed at women during an election and then sends out a positive tweet for
every bad tweet, with the aim of generating more positive political discourse
for women during elections. The bot was deployed during the spring 2019 pro-
vincial elections in Alberta and, based on feedback, revised and implemented a
second time in the fall 2019 Canadian federal elections. Between September 24
and October 26, ParityBot analyzed a total of 228,225 tweets sent to 314 female
candidates and identified 9,987 abusive tweets. To avoid violating Twitter rules,
which limit accounts to 100 tweets per hour, the developers set a relatively
high threshold of 90% likelihood of being abusive. Despite these strict criteria,
ParityBot sent out 2,428 responses in the month leading up to the election, or
an average of 74 tweets per day, using 227 messages of encouragement submit-
ted online16 or written by Parity YEG volunteers (Emmanuel 2019).
While many of these strategies entail mobilizing other women for sup-
port, research by Munger (2017) suggests that spurring men to participate in
these campaigns can be vital. In a study of racist online harassment, he iden-
tified a dataset of public Twitter accounts whose users were white men who
had employed racist slurs. He assigned these accounts to four conditions, using
bots he created in which he varied the race of the apparent account holder
as well as their purported number of followers. Each bot was programmed to
send a tweet to subjects after they made a racist remark, with a message telling
them their behavior was unacceptable. Analyzing the results, Munger discov-
ered that subjects significantly reduced their use of racist slurs when they were
sanctioned by a white man with high number of Twitter followers. There was
no impact when the bots were white men with few followers or black men with
many followers. However, subjects increased their rates of harassment after
receiving a message from a black man with few followers. These findings point
to the importance of high-status allies joining the fight against online harass-
ment, not simply leaving the heavy lifting to members of marginalized groups
who are disproportionately affected.
INTERNET SAFETY
Other women have been inspired by their own experiences—and those of their
colleagues—to develop and offer services to enhance the online safety of other
politically active women. In 2017, the International Federation of Journalists
and the South Asia Media Solidarity Network joined up to launch the Byte
Back campaign to raise awareness and combat online harassment of women

journalists in the Asia-Pacific region. They devised a guide to explain how
cyber harassment works—including how users can disguise themselves, mobi-
lize other users to attack, and set up bots to engage in automated trolling—and
provide practical information for handling these cyberattacks. In addition to
sharing how to set up filters and block or mute certain users, the guide outlined
three primary strategies for responding to and tracking online abuse: “name
and shame,” re-tweeting a screenshot of the post with comments calling out
the abuse; “shout it out,” refusing to remain quiet and making the media house
aware and accountable for abuse received; and “save and document abuse,”
collecting evidence regarding the messages and the accounts sending them
(International Federation of Journalists 2017).
In the United States, former reporter Michelle Ferrier founded TrollBusters
in 2015 as a hands-on “rescue service” for female journalists experiencing cyber
harassment. As a columnist for the Dayton Beach News-Journal, between 2005
and 2007 she regularly received abuse and threats in anonymous letters sent to
the newsroom. The communications were so chilling, she recounted: “I would
pull the letters I received out of sealed plastic bags with rubber gloves while
standing outdoors, so as not to expose my coworkers at the newspaper to any
potential toxins—and to preserve any fingerprints that might still be imprinted
atop these hateful words” (Ferrier 2016, 46). As the letters became increasingly
violent, she went to the newspaper’s management, local police, and the FBI
and CIA. The CPJ ultimately took her case to the Department of Justice, yet
“nothing changed. But I did. I changed as a person. I became angrier. More
wary and withdrawn . . . I gave up and quit my job to protect my family and
young children.”17
Leaving journalism for a career in academia, Ferrier came up with the idea
for a rescue service at a hackathon for women news publishers in 2014. She sub-
sequently worked with an international team of female journalists to develop
the tools and services to “provide a hedge of protection around women so they
can persist online and tell the story, and not become the story” (Ricchiardi
2018). The website offers digital security courses, social media monitoring,
and digital hygiene lessons.18 It also provides infographics in English, Hindi,
and Spanish, mapping out possible scenarios and providing advice on steps
to take in each case. If the problem, for example, is that “someone is post-
ing sexually explicit photographs of me without my consent,” the chart recom-
mends reporting the incident to Twitter or Facebook; consulting an attorney;
documenting everything; and reporting the incident to the police, TrollBusters,
and employers. The infographic lists what to document: number of threats;
date, time, picture of threats; number of people involved; and implied/explicit
severity of the attack. It also provides guidance on how to change Twitter set-
tings “to ensure you only see what you want,” including filtering tweets to see
only those from accounts followed; filtering out “lower-quality content” from
people not followed or recently interacted with; and muting tweets containing
specific words.19 The aim, according to Ferrier, is to take a proactive stance to
online abuse, acting as “first responders online” and sending “positive mes-
sages” so women “know they are not alone” (Ricchiardi 2018).
SAFE SPACES
A further strategy is to create “safe spaces” for women’s political expression.

On October 20, 2016, Libby Chamberlain, a private citizen, set up Pantsuit
Nation, an invite-only Facebook group to follow the third U.S. presiden-
tial debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Like the red “Make
America Great Again” caps that came to symbolize the Trump campaign, the
pantsuit refers to the clothing Clinton famously wore during her many years in
public life. The group grew from 30 members originally to nearly three million
by election day on November 8 (Correal 2016). Adopting the mantra ascribed
to First Lady Michelle Obama—“When they go low, we go high”—Pantsuit
Nation became what one reporter described as a “troll-free internet oasis for
Clinton supporters” (Desmond-Harris 2016). To keep it positive and inspir-
ing, the group remains “secret,” meaning that people must be invited to join
by another member. All posts must also be approved by administrators before
they can appear on the page.
Pantsuit Nation resonated with many female Clinton voters, in particu-
lar, because many had experienced vicious sexist online (and offline) harass-
ment from opponents on both the right and the left (Clinton 2017). It thus
provided space in an otherwise toxic political environment to express enthusi-
asm for Clinton’s historic campaign, without having “to debate or be harassed
or criticized by friends and family” (Desmond-Harris 2016). One woman who
lived among Trump supporters explained: “It did sort of revive my spirit.
I didn’t believe in ‘election depression’ until I realized it was happening to
me. I’ve cut ties with my family, or rather, they’ve cut ties with me.” She then
added: “Someone thanked me, in the comments, for being a strong woman.
How often do we say that to one another, in real life? That’s been the biggest
benefit. This group brings out the supportive side of women” (Correal 2016).
In subsequent years, posts focused less on Clinton per se than on promoting
political engagement more broadly, with members sharing decisions to run for
office, become more politically active, and register and turn out to vote.20
SELF-CARE
In 2010, six organizations came together to form the Mesoamerican Women

Human Rights Defenders Initiative (IM-Defensoras) to develop alternative
strategies to respond to violence faced by women human rights defenders, par-
ticularly in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.21 In an
initial study, IM-Defensoras (2013) found that existing protection mechanisms

focused narrowly on the physical protection of individuals, employing tradi-
tional security measures such as bodyguards and bullet-proof jackets. Little
attention was paid, in contrast, to broader threats and their impact on women’s
physical and mental health. According to one female Mexican activist, “con-
stant threats, attacks, sexual harassment, and smear campaigns against activists
cause increasingly high levels of stress, fatigue, depression, anxiety, migraines”
(Hernández Cárdenas and Tello Méndez 2017, 173). Despite these pressures,
many women human rights defenders strongly neglected these aspects of their
daily lives as a result of commitment to their causes.
Troubled by these findings, in 2016 IM- Defensoras partnered with a
Mexican NGO to create Casa La Serena, offering 10-day stays to women human
rights defenders across the five countries. Informed by the model of “integrated
security” developed by Barry and Đorđević (2007), the aim of the retreat is to
create an opportunity for those “experiencing extreme fatigue, emotional or
physical exhaustion, personal crises, mourning, losses, or other impacts derived
from the context of violence and patriarchal culture that obstructs their work
of defending human rights to recuperate, heal, rest and reflect” (Hernández
Cárdenas and Tello Méndez 2017, 177). Self-care, they argue, should thus not
be viewed as a luxury, but in a profession that suffers from chronic burnout, as
a vital political strategy for individual and collective well-being—and thus for
continuing and sustaining women’s human rights work in the region.
14
Sexual Violence
Sexual violence comprises a host of unwanted behaviors targeting a person’s

sexuality and sexual characteristics, ranging from non-consensual physical con-
tact to unwelcome verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Its varied forms include
rape, attempted rape, touching, kissing, groping, exposure, sexual jokes, sug-
gestive remarks, and requests for sexual favors (APWLD 2007; Barton and
Storm 2014; SAP International 2010; UN Department of Economic and Social
Affairs 2014; UNDP and UN Women 2017). Whether involving a single inci-
dent or a pattern of behavior, sexual violence violates human dignity, commu-
nicating a message of domination and disrespect. Employed to display, gain,
or maintain power, sexual violence can also create a hostile work environment,
interrupting and potentially undermining women’s labors and contributions
(Berdahl 2007; Schultz 1998).
If sexual violence is not about sex, but about power, its existence is not
surprising in the realm of politics, where “the inherent imbalance of power cre-
ates obvious vulnerabilities” (Cox 2018, 8). However, some female politicians
observe that the “casual groping of junior staff and volunteers that passed
without comment decades ago is increasingly called out and challenged today”
(Swinson 2018, 46–47). Recent interventions around the world, especially in the
wake of the #MeToo movement, seek to deepen these emerging understand-
ings, with politically active women—and some male allies—working to raise
awareness, pursue sanctions, and devise preventative measures to expose and
combat sexual violence in its various forms.
Manifestations of Sexual Violence
Sexual violence is among the least reported forms of violence against women in
politics across the two IPU surveys: 21.8% of the MPs in the global sample and
24.7% of those in the European study reported they had personally experienced
Sexual Violence 155
sexual violence in the course of their work in parliament. Among the European
MPs, 6.2% had experienced sexual assault (IPU 2018, 7). Interestingly, however,
the global study also asked respondents whether they had witnessed acts of vio-
lence against their female colleagues—and a significantly larger share, 32.7%,
said they had (IPU 2016b, 3). A closer look at the results of the European
survey—showing that sexual violence was committed by male colleagues, either
political opponents or members of their own parties, in 75.9% of cases (IPU
2018, 7)—suggests that cultural stigmas together with political factors may
suppress women’s willingness to declare themselves victims.
Additionally, data collected in the 2018 survey indicate that MPs under the
age of 40 were far more likely to report having faced sexual harassment (36.4%)
and assault (13.6%) (IPU 2018, 7). While it may be that young female MPs are
targeted more frequently, another possibility is that younger cohorts are more
willing to disclose their experiences to researchers. Corroborating both hypoth-
eses, 40.5% of parliamentary staffers, who are often young, report having faced
sexual harassment at work—roughly similar to the share (41.5%) who said they
had witnessed incidents involving a female colleague (IPU 2018, 8). Yet power
disparities clearly play a role in decisions to lodge official complaints: while
23.5% of female MPs reported incidents, only 6% of staffers did (IPU 2018, 9).
Despite powerful incentives to remain quiet, politically active women around
the world have broken the silence around sexual violence—including rape, sex-
ual assault, sextortion, rape insults, and sexual harassment—they have experi-
enced as women in the political realm.
RAPE
As the global #MeToo movement got underway in October 2017, British

Labour Party member Bex Bailey decided to speak out about being raped at
a party event by a senior party figure in 2011 when she was only 19 years old.
In an interview on the Radio 4 PM program, Bailey said she had initially tried
to pretend the rape had not happened—and therefore did not report it to the
police at the time. Two years later, she finally found the courage to go to a
senior party staff member. However, that person dissuaded her from reporting
the incident, saying it could “damage” her within the party. She was not given
any advice on what to do next and said that there did not seem to be procedures
to bring up such complaints.1
Committed to Labour’s politics, Bailey continued to be active within the
party in the ensuing years, serving as assistant to a shadow minister, leading
the youth wing, and sitting on the party’s National Executive Committee for
three years. In an opinion piece published in March 2017, she wrote that she
was “proud of the work [Labour was] doing for women across the country.”
The party itself, however, was not free from misogyny: falling into the trap of
believing otherwise, she cautioned, “lets women members down and puts the
party in danger of not taking them seriously when they report incidents.” The
irony was thus that “as the Labour party fights for me to feel safer in society,
I still feel unsafe in the Labour party” (Bailey 2017). Her motivation in coming
forward six months later, therefore, was not to harm the party, but simply to
make it better,2 in the hope that #MeToo disclosures would “result in some sort
of change in our parties as well as in Parliament” (“Labour Activist” 2017).
SEXUAL ASSAULT
Egyptian women played an active role in protests toppling the regime of

President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. However, when women
returned to Tahrir Square a few weeks later to commemorate International
Women’s Day, a group of men appeared and began attacking demonstrators.
One woman, 20-year-old Salwa Husseini Gouda, stated: “They looked like
thugs. They called me a whore and hit me in the face.” They dragged her and
around 20 other women to the Egyptian Museum, where they handed them
over to the military—who, in turn, took them to a military prison. Once
there, the soldiers forced the women to undress, and while some searched the
women’s belongings, one took photographs of them naked—which Gouda
feared they would use “to make us look like prostitutes.” Held overnight, the
women woke to an announcement that a doctor would inspect the unmarried
women to determine whether they were virgins, a process Gouda found “hor-
ribly humiliating” (Shafy 2011). Three months later, an army general admit-
ted to the tests, but impugned the women’s reputations, claiming: “These
girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine. These were girls
who had camped out in tents with male protestors in Tahrir Square . . . We
didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we
wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place. None of them
were.”3
A second notable clash, subsequently known as the “blue bra incident,”
occurred in December 2011, when a video captured a soldier stripping a woman
of her veil and black abaya (a long robe covering her entire body), revealing
her underwear. However, security forces were not the only groups implicated
in these assaults. In late 2012, a wave of protests against the new regime of
Mohamed Morsi led to attacks from pro-Morsi factions (Tadros 2015). As the
number and severity of these assaults escalated in 2013 and 2014, ordinary citi-
zens also joined in (Zaki 2017). Evidence suggests that some attacks were coor-
dinated. Describing what women came to call the “circle of hell,” one activist
recalled suddenly being “surrounded by hundreds of men in a circle that was
getting smaller and smaller around me. At the same time, they were touching
and groping me everywhere and there were so many hands under my shirt and
inside my pants” (Kingsley 2013). For activist Mariam Kirollos, it appeared
that “cases of sexual assault that have happened in Tahrir . . . are trying to
Sexual Violence 157
frighten women and marginalize them to the extent that they will not partici-
pate in political life.” Corroborating her impression, a man interviewed by the
BBC said he had been paid to “go out and sexually harass girls, go out and has-
sle them, and try to touch them, to the point that they’d leave the demonstra-
tion” (Langohr 2013, 21). Egyptian anti–sexual harassment groups estimated
that between 80 and 90 women were sexually assaulted in Tahrir Squire during
the week of protests leading to Morsi’s departure (Kingsley 2013).4
SEXTORTION
In other cases, women face demands from male party members that they per-
form sexual favors in exchange for political leadership opportunities. NDI
(2018) found that sextortion was present in at least three of the four coun-
tries analyzed. One party member in Tanzania stated: “I was not fully aware
of sexual exploitation practices in party politics. Three party leaders asked me
for sex for them to help me win the nomination contest. I refused and I lost.”
Another woman described traveling with her party’s chief election officer when
he “started touching my thighs and squeezing my private parts. When I tried
to stop him he persisted. I had to open the door and throw myself out of the
car. My decision to jump out of the moving car was the only option I had,
to avoid shame of being raped at old age.” A party member in Honduras
shared: “During the campaign, I received invitations from men in the party to
go out at night because ‘they wanted to get to know me.’ When I told them,
‘Okay, I’ll come with my husband,’ they responded ‘No, that is not the way to
get votes.’ ” In Côte d’Ivoire, finally, a focus group member divulged: “My case
is truly humiliating. The leader was used to having a girlfriend and wanted it
to be me. He therefore said to me: ‘If you want to be head of your section, we
must go to bed together.’ I asked: ‘Are you proposing that I sleep with you?’ He
said: ‘Yes, if you want to do politics!’ ”
Keen to ascertain how widespread these practices were, the Tanzania
Women Cross-Party Platform interviewed female candidates and voters in vari-
ous parts of the country during the 2015 elections. They found that 19% of the
candidates interviewed had faced requests for sexual favors during the nomina-
tion process and 24.1% had received them during the campaign. Among female
voters, 12.5% had heard of women in politics being subjected to demands for
sexual corruption (Semakafu 2016, 15, 21). These findings dovetailed with data
collected by the Tanzania Media Women’s Association in 2014, revealing that
the problem affected women in public life more broadly. Nearly 90% of women
in the public sector had experienced sexual harassment—including demands
for sexual favors—in the course of their work (Makoye 2015), prompting more
than 70 women’s organizations to form an anti-sextortion coalition.5
Opponents of female political participation, however, also weaponized
the issue.6 In 2016, Goodluck Mlinga, a male MP, was speaking during the
budget debates when he alleged that female MPs in the opposition party were
“homosexual” and that it was the norm for “a woman to first agree with male
leaders of her party to call her ‘baby’ [a reference to performing sexual favors]
in exchange for [a reserved seat for women in parliament].” When called upon
to sanction Mlinga, Deputy Speaker Tulia Ackson refused to take any action
or retract the words from the record—and when the women protested, she
called on the sergeant-at-arms to escort the women out of the chamber. The
cross-party women’s caucus, in contrast, condemned “abusive language, mock-
ery, contempt, and humiliation of women in and outside Parliament.” Several
women’s rights NGOs concurred, with the head of the Tanzania Gender
Networking Program stating: “the incident aimed at humiliating and depriving
women of their dignity so that they could not manage to stand strong and fight
for their rights” (Mugarula 2016).
RAPE INSULTS
In 2003, Brazilian MP Jair Bolsonaro was giving a television interview

after a hearing on a gang-rape case when his colleague Maria do Rosário
approached and stated his position amounted to promoting violence. He
asked if she was calling him a rapist, and she said yes—to which he replied: “I
would never rape you because you don’t deserve it.” He then called her a slut,
told her to “go cry,” and pushed her on camera. Bolsonaro repeated the
insult during a debate in parliament in 2014 in which Rosário, then Secretary
for Human Rights, denounced the military dictatorship (1964–1985)—which
Bolsonaro had supported—for using sexual violence against dissidents. As
Rosário left the podium, Bolsonaro called out from his seat, telling her to
stay and, again, that he would not rape her because she was not worth it
(Griffin 2018).
While Bolsonaro was protected by parliamentary immunity for what he
said in the chamber, he repeated the comments to a magazine—at which point
the attorney general lodged a complaint with the Supreme Court for slander
and defamation of Rosário as well as incitement to rape (Biroli 2016). The
judges accepted the case and in May 2019, determined that Bolsonaro should
pay 10,000 Brazilian reais in damages as well as issue a public letter of apol-
ogy. Posting on Twitter in June, Bolsonaro portrayed the exchange as an “ide-
ological clash” around human rights.7 In contrast, Rosário characterized his
comments as promoting rape culture. She thus framed the forced apology as a
“victory for all women assaulted and offended on a daily basis by machismo in
our country” (Maia and Soares 2019). However, she lamented the fact that, as
someone who had achieved numerous human rights reforms as a five-term MP
and former minister, this rape insult “is what people remember. Bolsonaro has
taken that away from me” (Kaiser 2018).
Sexual Violence 159
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Prior to the #MeToo movement, a number of elected men around the world
lost their positions due to allegations of sexual harassment, including Mbulelo
Goniwe, chief whip of the African National Congress party in South Africa in
2006; Massimo Pacetti and Scott Andrews, MPs in Canada in 2014; and Silvan
Shalom, interior minister of Israel in 2015. However, charges against Denis
Baupin, vice president of the French National Assembly, were distinct from
these other cases in that they inspired a broader national conversation around
sexual violence and harassment in politics. In May 2016, an investigation by
Mediapart, an online investigative journal, and France Inter, a radio station,
uncovered complaints from at least 14 victims. Four women from the Green
Party, Baupin’s party until April 2016, went on to file criminal complaints
against him for sexual harassment.
Isabelle Attard, an independent MP who left the Green Party in 2013, said
that soon after she was elected in 2012, Baupin began sending her a barrage
of lewd daily text messages. Sandrine Rousseau, a former party spokesperson,
shared that he had cornered her in a hallway, pinned her against the wall, held
her breasts, and tried to kiss her by force. Elen Debost, a local politician, alleged
he had sent her approximately 100 sexually harassing text messages, including
one declaring he wanted to sodomize her “wearing thigh-high boots” (Chrisafis
2016). Annie Lahmer, a rank-and-file party member, said Baupin chased her
around a desk until she told him to stop. The next day, she arrived at the office
and when he refused to acknowledge her, she said: “Denis, I don’t want to
sleep with you so you no longer speak to me?” He then pointed his finger at
her and stated: “You will never have a position in this party” (“Annie Lahmer”
2016). After the women’s cases were dismissed by a judge in 2017 because they
exceeded the statute of limitations, Baupin countersued his accusers unsuccess-
fully for defamation. At the 2019 trial, former Green party leader Cécile Duflot
divulged that she, too, had faced an attempted sexual assault by Baupin on the
threshold of her hotel room at a conference in Brazil in 2008.
In another pre- #MeToo case, British Labour Party member Ava
Etemadzadeh invited MP Kelvin Hopkins to speak at a party event in 2014 at
Essex University, where she was the chair of the university’s Labour society.
After the event, she guided him to the university car park where he hugged
her very tightly and rubbed his crotch against her, “which I found revolting”
(Hughes 2017). The following year, she accepted an invitation to visit Hopkins
in parliament and when she went to have a conversation, he responded: “let’s
not talk about politics, do you have a boyfriend?” Hopkins then allegedly said
to Etemadzadeh that “if nobody was in his office he would’ve taken me there.
I was absolutely shocked.” When she later refused to answer his phone calls,
he sent a text message saying she was “an attractive, lovely young woman and
a man would be lucky to have [her] as a lover” (“Jeremy Corbyn” 2017). In

December 2015, she spoke with an MP who urged her to contact the par-
ty’s chief whip, Rosie Winterton, who told her that to file a claim she would
need to waive her anonymity, a prospect which “scared” her. When the party
introduced a new policy in November 2017, she filed a formal complaint and
Hopkins was temporally suspended from the party pending an investigation
(Etemadzadeh 2018).
During this same time period, Lauren Greene was working as communi-
cations’ director for U.S. Representative Blake Farenthold. In February 2014,
another aide, Bob Haueter, told her that Farenthold had “sexual fantasies”
about her, and Farenthold himself said he was “estranged from his wife and
had not had sex with her in years.” When Greene objected to these comments,
she was “marginalized and undermined” by Farenthold and fired several
weeks later. When Greene took her case to the Office of Compliance (OOC),
she was forced to undergo months of mandatory counseling and mediation
before she could file suit—which she did in December 2014, alleging gen-
der discrimination, sexual harassment, and a hostile work environment. The
case was later dropped, however, when both parties reached a private settle-
ment. In December 2017, details of the agreement became public when House
Administration Committee Chairman Gregg Harper told lawmakers that only
one office in the past five years had used an OOC account to settle a sexual
harassment complaint—and that settlement amounted to $84,000 (Bade 2017).
When Farenthold resigned in April 2018, he promised to reimburse the tax-
payer money he had used to settle the lawsuit, but later reneged on this pledge
(Parkinson 2018).
In 2019, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun conducted a survey
of women in local assemblies elected for the first time in 2015. One-quarter
reported having been sexually harassed in the course of their political work.
Half said the perpetrator was another assembly member, but 40% pointed to
a constituent, a perpetrator not often signaled in other accounts. The problem
was significant enough for women to coin a specific term for it: hyo hara, or
“vote harassment.” In both instances, colleagues and constituents preyed on
women’s lack of political experience and/or their need to consolidate a basis
of political support. Former MP and current assemblywoman Masae Ido also
attributed it to a “male-dominated society” that “has not gotten used to women
who are trying to take leadership roles and are speaking their minds” (“Sex
Harassment” 2019).
In one case, a male colleague approached a newly elected assemblywoman,
proposing to serve as her mentor. He then became obsessive, calling and tex-
ting her several times a day, and even pestered her daughter, asking where her
mother was. She ultimately felt compelled to install a stronger entryway to
her home, as well as to keep her doors locked at all times. Other women said
they had been groped at campaign dinners and pressured to go for drinks with
Sexual Violence 161
constituents. Hoping to gain a stronger profile in the community, one assem-

blywoman had the habit of announcing via social media the time and loca-
tion of her upcoming speeches. She soon noticed, however, that the same three
or four middle-aged men came to every speech. Some of them later followed
her to a restaurant and another sent her messages like: “I’m nearby. Can we
meet?” To avoid further harassment, she was forced to stop posting updates
(“Sex Harassment” 2019).
Female journalists similarly face harassment inside and outside their news
organizations. An early study of women in the U.S. Capitol press gallery found
that 80% perceived that sexual harassment was a problem for female journal-
ists, while 60% had personally experienced it while on assignment. Among the
latter, 40% had been harassment by coworkers, 40% by news sources, and 20%
by both (McAdams and Beasley 1994, 127). According to Lachover (2005),
these problems are particularly acute for female journalists reporting on poli-
tics and security, as most informants tend to be male. One-third of the female
journalists she interviewed reported verbal sexual harassment, including derog-
atory language and contemptuous behavior. Grace Wattera, a journalist for a
newsweekly in Côte d’Ivoire, told the CPJ that the sexual harassment was so
constant that it interfered with her work: when required to provide her contact
details on sign-in sheets at press conferences, she would receive sexually harass-
ing calls for days (Wolfe 2011).
Solutions to Sexual Violence
Addressing sexual violence in politics is complicated not only by cultural

stigmas surrounding women’s sexuality, but also by the fact that most legal
mechanisms—where they exist—focus on dynamics in the workplace. However,
politics is rarely conceptualized as a “place of work,” with regulations in place
typically applying only to workers in traditional employment relationships
serving non-political roles, like catering, security, or janitorial services (IPU
2018). Moreover, to the degree that parliaments and parties do seek to deal
with behavioral complaints, these mechanisms address issues of financial and
ethical (not sexual) misconduct. As Laura Dobson-Hughes, a former politi-
cal staffer in Canada, explained: “there were no formal processes at all really.
So even if you wanted to raise it, you probably wouldn’t. You wouldn’t know
where to go. All the incentives were . . . to bury it, to ignore it” (McKeen and
Gibson 2018).
This vacuum of accountability stems from two peculiarities of the political
work environment. The first is parliamentary privilege. Politicians in many leg-
islatures enjoy legal immunity for statements and actions in the course of their
political duties that—if said or done outside parliament—might result in civil
or criminal liability. Privilege enables MPs to speak freely during parliamentary
debates, as well as confers autonomy to representatives in relation to other

aspects of their political work—like decisions to hire and fire members of their
own staff. While this privilege ensures that MPs can surround themselves with
trusted colleagues,8 it also creates opportunities for abuse, like unfair dismissal
of staff who speak out against sexual harassment (Collier and Raney 2018).
Further, due to imbalances of power, public officials often hold a privileged
position vis-à-vis staff, constituents, and journalists, all of whom rely on them
for professional advancement, political responsiveness, and access to political
information—in turn, exacerbating their vulnerability to and silence on inci-
dents of sexual harassment (Cox 2018; Lachover 2005).9 Criticizing the use of
privilege as an excuse for tolerating sexual harassment, however, U.S. Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand has suggested that “elected leaders should absolutely be
held to a higher standard, not a lower standard” (Goldmacher 2017).
A second feature of politics affecting accountability is partisanship. The
drive to prevail over political opponents can result in the “weaponization”
of sexual harassment when committed by members of the opposing party,
but its minimization when perpetrated by members of one’s own.10 Despite
ideological differences on questions of sexual violence, a U.S. survey found
that voters were more willing to punish perpetrators from the other party.
Among Democrats, 82% believed that a Republican congressman accused of
sexual harassment should resign, but only 74% felt that a Democrat should.
Similarly, among Republicans, 71% agreed that a Democrat should leave,
but only 54% thought a Republican needed to resign (Alter 2017). Concerns
about the fate of co-partisans also delayed consensus among members of a
cross-party working group on sexual harassment in the British parliament,
with some voicing fears that new rules could be exploited to pursue vexatious
claims against their parties.11 Reflecting on her experiences in Canadian poli-
tics, Reaume (2018) characterized these tendencies bluntly as a “culture of
protecting predators in order to shield a political party from embarrassment
or bad news cycle.”
As a result of these dynamics, few robust formal options exist to deal
with and mitigate sexual violence in the political world. To protect themselves,
women have largely filled these gaps with informal, ad hoc solutions. Natasha
Kornak, a Canadian activist, spoke about “open secrets in politics [among
women] about who to avoid . . . I’ve been told don’t be alone in a room with
this individual. Don’t be alone in an elevator with this person” (McKeen and
Gibson 2018). In 2017, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill used similar language to
describe her strategy as a young political intern in the 1970s: “I learned to avoid
elevators, because elevators were when you were captured. After one unfortu-
nate incident in the elevator, I began taking the stairs everywhere . . . I’m not
going to comment as to details of it, but suffice it to say that it happened more
than once from more than one person” (Ruiz-Grossman 2017). Seeking greater
progress, politically active women have developed a variety of tactics to give
Sexual Violence 163
voice to women’s experiences, as well as to disincentivize and pre-empt oppor-

tunities to perpetrate sexual violence in the political realm.
MANIFESTOS AND OPEN LETTERS
Stigma discourages women from speaking out publicly about episodes of sexual
violence. When women do disclose, moreover, the collective societal response
has often been to treat them as “tainted witnesses,” questioning their cred-
ibility and discounting the truthfulness of their testimonies (Gilmore 2017).
Nonetheless, women often speak with one another, using “whisper networks”
as a “form of organizing . . . sharing information quietly, person-to-person”
(Jaffe 2018, 81). A female party member in Tunisia stated in an NDI focus
group, for example, that “a woman can’t go up to a man and confront him
for sexual harassment. [But] as women in the political party, we talk amongst
ourselves” (NDI 2018, 16).
What made the #MeToo movement so extraordinary, therefore, was that
it invited women to share ordinarily silenced stories to “give people a sense of
the magnitude of the problem.”12 In its first 48 hours, the hashtag #MeToo was
used nearly one million times on Twitter and 12 million times on Facebook,
creating—according to an analysis of 1.5 million tweets posted during the
first two weeks of its popularity in October 2017—a “counterpublic safe space
for disclosure which, subsequently, generated more disclosures” (Gallagher,
Stowell, Parker, and Welles 2019, 1). These “choruses of ‘me too,’ ” according
to Gersen (2018), helped render “each individual’s account that much more
believable,” making #MeToo “an evidentiary claim of sorts: what you say hap-
pened to you happened to me, too, and so it is more likely that we are both
telling the truth.” Tackling sexual violence thus requires breaking the silence,
going beyond the “whisper network in politics,” not least because “these whis-
pers don’t reach everyone” (Reaume 2018).
The French case is notable for the widespread use of manifestos and open
letters to call out sexual violence in politics. In 2015, over 40 female journal-
ists came together to denounce the sexual harassment they had experienced at
the hands of politicians. Presenting these accounts anonymously, they sought
to highlight a broader cultural problem, rather than to call out certain men or
specific incidents.13 One “rising star,” they wrote, “insisted on seeing us at night,
away from parliament and outside of working hours,” while a “political heavy-
weight interrupted the interview and proposed to go to a hotel instead.” During
a factory visit, a minister laughed at the blue overalls everyone had to wear
and said suggestively to a journalist: “it would be better if you had nothing
on underneath.” Still others sent countless text messages, offering “one piece
of information [for] one drink.” While sexual harassment occurred in other
professions, the women felt compelled to come forward because the perpetra-
tors were “elected officials responsible for making policies,” further noting that
the perpetrators came “from all political parties [and] operate at all levels of
politics.” Seventeen women then signed their names on behalf of 24 other jour-
nalists who remained anonymous, fearing professional repercussions (Amar
et al. 2015).
One year later, the sexual harassment scandal involving Denis Baupin
spurred further action. The day after the revelations, more than 500 male and
female activists and elected officials joined forces to call for “an end to impu-
nity” for sexual harassment in politics. Giving examples of advice women are
often given—“If so-and-so proposes dinner at a restaurant, say no”; “Above
all, do not take the elevator alone with what’s his name”; “Be careful if you find
yourself alone at night in the office with x”—they pointed out that women are
forced to modify their behavior “to endure, avoid, or go along with” the harass-
ers. The manifesto criticized the silence of politicians on this matter, “which
has made it difficult to recognize that [this problem] exists—even if in hushed
tones it is known by all.” The only way to get men rather than women to adapt
their behavior, to put an end to impunity, to shift guilt from one camp to the
other, they argued, was “to talk [about it]. This speech, these words must finally
become a political topic, rather than being considered an interpersonal one”
(Le Collectif “Levons l’omerta” 2016).
The following Sunday, 17 female former government ministers—from par-
ties across the ideological spectrum—published a joint call denouncing sexist
remarks and behaviors in French politics. They explained that, while they went
into politics for different reasons and to defend different ideas, “we share the
belief that sexism has no place in our society.” While sexism was not unique to
politics, they argued, “the political world has a duty to be exemplary. Those
who write laws, vote for them, must respect them and therefore be beyond
reproach.” They explained they were “taking up the pen to say, this time, it’s
too much, the omertà and the law of silence are no longer possible.” The word
omertà, used by the ministers as well as in the name of the collective of activists
and elected officials, is a revealing turn of phrase—invoking the code of silence
used by the Mafia, preventing both self-incrimination and giving evidence to
authorities regarding the misdeeds of others. The ministers emphasized that
it was not up to women to adapt to these conditions, but rather the behaviors
of certain men had to change. They declared: “That is enough. Impunity, it’s
finished. We will no longer shut up” (Bachelot et al. 2016).
Five months after these manifestos and open letters, female staff at the
French parliament launched their own awareness- raising collective, Chair
Collaboratrice. In early 2019, members of the collective published an edito-
rial in which they reflected on how little had changed despite “two and a half
years during which we have not ceased . . . to encourage the liberation of wom-
en’s words . . . Freeing up victims’ ability to speak involves offering them a
framework in which they feel free to give witness, without fear that they will be
putting their professional careers in danger.” Impunity for sexual harassment,
Sexual Violence 165
however, “had not budged one millimeter” and “we carry the heavy secret of
multiple aggressions—not punished!—within these walls.” They lamented that
many women—both politicians and staff—left politics after sharing their expe-
riences, with “sexist remarks, hands on buttocks, or rape attempts” often mini-
mized as “ ‘generational misunderstandings,’ ‘malicious behaviors’ (on the part
of women of course), or a ‘gray zone.’ ” They thus called on the government
and both houses of parliament to create an independent office that could “truly
welcome women’s testimonies, accompany them in their efforts, and provide
them with real support in court proceedings” (Gayraud Hebbache, Julié-Viot,
and Khoshkhou 2019).
This strategy has also been used outside of France. In October 2017, more
than 140 women in California politics—legislators, staff, consultants, and lob-
byists, both Democrats and Republicans—signed an open letter published in
the Los Angeles Times. The idea for the letter was born the day after the Harvey
Weinstein sexual harassment scandal broke, inspired by something that hap-
pened to political lobbyist Adama Iwu that very day. Iwu contacted a number
of female colleagues, who tapped into their networks—who in turn activated
their own networks—to spread the word among women in the state capitol
community. Over the course of a weekend, the group drafted and re-drafted the
letter numerous times. Eventually, women agreed to add their names, believing
they were stronger together and, collectively, demonstrated that sexual harass-
ment was an experience common to politically active women of all types.14
When the Los Angeles Times declined to publish a manifesto, Melanie Mason,
a journalist in Sacramento who a year earlier had sought to write a story on
sexual harassment in the state legislature (but was blocked), suggested embed-
ding the letter within a broader story. Collecting a series of testimonies over the
course of a day, she wrote an article that went live at midnight, only three days
after the letter was initially conceived (Mason 2017). As in France, no targets or
perpetrators were named in either the letter or the story—the aim, again, being
to focus attention on the broader culture of harassment, rather than reducing
it to a problem limited to particular people.15
The letter began: “As women leaders in politics, in a state that postures
itself as a leader in justice and equality, you might assume our experience has
been different. It has not.” Drawing on their various experiences, the women
offered examples of men who had “groped and touched us without our con-
sent,” communicated “insults and sexual innuendo, frequently disguised as
jokes,” and “made promises, or threats, about our jobs in exchange for our
compliance, or our silence.” They explained they had not spoken up earlier
because many of those men “hold our professional fates in their hands,” caus-
ing them to fear the professional ramifications of coming forward about sexual
harassment. Yet, by remaining quiet, “many of us feel ashamed that we have
failed to protect our friends from abuse.” While previously feeling powerless to
stop the cycle, the women declared they were “done with this” and would “no
longer tolerate the perpetrators or enablers.” They ended by calling on “women

to speak up and share the stories” and for the “good men, and there are many,
to believe us, having our backs, and speak up.”16 Later that day, they launched
a website17 and Twitter account18 declaring: “We Said Enough.”
ALTERNATIVE REPORTING MECHANISMS
Formal procedures to report sexual violence in politics rarely exist—and the

few that do often inspire little confidence (Palmieri 2011). To fill this gap, wom-
en’s networks have set up alternative reporting mechanisms, enabling women to
share their testimonies while also learning about potential services they might
access for support. In October 2016, Chair Collaboratrice created a website for
female political staff in France to report their stories anonymously, arguing
that “together we are stronger” and can “demonstrate the existence of a mass
phenomenon.” On the same page, staffers also had the option to leave con-
tact details to obtain further information or help.19 Similarly, in October 2018,
EP staff came together to launch the MeTooEP blog to provide a venue for
women to share anonymously any incidents of sexual harassment they expe-
rienced or witnessed at the parliament.20 Additionally, the blog explains what
sexual harassment is and what to do when faced with it21—as well as provides
resources for seeking help.22 The blog would not have been necessary, organiz-
ers argued, if victims felt comfortable to go through the tools of the institution
(Ritzen 2018).
In the UK, a group of women in the Labour Party had been discussing
issues of sexual harassment for some time. As the #MeToo movement began to
emerge, they held a meeting with MP Sarah Champion and decided to set up
a website called LabourToo to collect stories from women that could, in turn,
be developed into a short report for party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The women
did not inform the party prior to launching the website, concerned that lead-
ers might seek to block it—a suspicion confirmed when party officials began
pressuring Champion and other allies to find out who they were.23 Appearing
online in October 2017, the website offered women an opportunity to “anon-
ymously share your experiences of domestic or sexual abuse, harassment, or
discrimination in the Labour Party.” The website acknowledged that it was
“particularly hard to speak out” about harassment experienced or witnessed
“as part of being a member, activist, or elected representative of the Labour
Party.” However, it explained, the goal was to “build a compendium of the
types of abuse women face which all too often are unseen, ignored, or swept
under the carpet,” emphasizing that the initiative came from “women who love
the Labour Party and work hard within it, but who know it has to be better.”
They specifically instructed women not to include any identifying information
on themselves or the perpetrators, as the goal was not to “out” people but sim-
ply “to demonstrate the extent of the problem.”24
Sexual Violence 167
Closing the survey on December 19, LabourToo then collated the

accounts—but, for the sake of anonymity, decided to pull out broad themes
from the 43 testimonies. In February 2018, they sent the report to party
leader Jeremy Corbyn, party general secretary Iain McNichol, and the
party’s National Executive Committee, hoping to convince them to take
the issue of sexual harassment more seriously. The report identified six
themes: problem individuals were “common knowledge,” but no actions were
ever taken against them; there was little or no confidence in the party’s for-
mal complaint or disciplinary processes; women felt there was little support
for pursuing complaints, and sometimes they were actively dissuaded from
doing so; members lacked guidance and safeguards; men often had a poor
understanding as to what constituted sexual harassment; and women were
routinely abused by senior people in positions of trust. LabourToo stressed
that “sexual harassment, abuse, and discrimination” was not restricted to
parliament, “but is taking place at all levels within the Labour Party, and
throughout the country.”25
LISTENING SESSIONS
A related strategy is to organize listening sessions, enabling women to share

their experiences, as well as their suggestions for dealing with sexual vio-
lence in the political sphere. While not their explicit intention, members of
LabourToo drew on the testimonies that women submitted—as well as their
own discussions—to generate a list of five recommendations for the party. One
was a fully independent complaints process, with panels composed of people
with no clear link to the party who would uphold the integrity of the process
rather than trying to protect the perpetrators or the party itself. LabourToo
also called for compulsory training for party staff, elected representatives, and
key officials in local party organizations; a comprehensive set of policies cover-
ing bullying and harassment, sexual harassment, domestic abuse, abuse, assault
and sexual assault; a confidentiality policy requiring members not to share
information they learn as part of the complaints process; and mandatory dis-
closure and barring service checks for those seeking selection as candidates at
both the national and local levels.26
In Canada, founders of the Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN)
drew on their own experiences as political interns and volunteers to observe that
young women were especially affected by sexual violence in politics—yet few
political training programs addressed or even acknowledged it as a problem.
Concerned that experiences with harassment were causing young women to
leave politics just as they were beginning their political careers, YWLN sought
to create a space to speak about these issues—and, in turn, prepare and sup-
port young women in political life.27 One of their first projects was a guide for
addressing sexual violence in political institutions, with the aim of encouraging
“concrete actions toward addressing systemic gender-based sexual violence in

politics.”28
To develop the guide, YWLN interviewed 60 young people across Ontario
who had been affected by sexual violence in the course of their political work,
adopting a broad definition of “women in politics” that included not only
elected officials but also political volunteers, interns, staffers, and lobbyists.
While understanding sexual violence as stemming from “normalized misogyny
and rape culture,” YWLN also stressed its intersectional nature, highlighting
the role of ableism, ageism, colonialism, homophobia, and racism in poten-
tially magnifying abuses of power within political institutions. Conducting the
interviews in early 2018, they found that the women—with an average age of
25—reported less than 5% of the incidents they experienced. Sexual violence
occurred most often during social events (32%), in campaign offices (28%), and
during electoral canvassing (18%). The most common forms involved verbal
sexual harassment (39%), groping (25%), and rape (15%). Nearly half (49%)
of the perpetrators were campaign, party, or political staffers, with the second
largest group (27%) being political volunteers.
The interviews also provided a deeper look at the impact of sexual vio-
lence, finding that a stunning 80% of those interviewed had left politics (52%)
or significantly reduced their involvement in politics (28%) as a result. One for-
mer party organizer explained: “They treated me as a liability: the candidate’s
image was far more important to them than my well-being. It was so disheart-
ening to be treated like that by people I had worked with for years.” Another
former staffer observed: “At some point, you just have to choose between your
health and your career. I had so many plans, but at the end of the day I felt sick
and tired of being in the same room as [the perpetrator] and have everyone act
as if nothing ever happened.”
Based on these experiences, participants offered a number of recommen-
dations for moving forward, including alternative programming at events where
alcohol is present to lower the risk of sexual violence; provision of third-party,
survivor-centric anti-harassment and sexual violence support advisors at politi-
cal gatherings; codes of conduct and information about support resources; and
adequate funding for lodging to ensure that party convention attendees can
have private rooms. To support these strategies, YWLN offers four services
for political institutions: sexual violence support training, policy consultation,
equity and inclusion training, and anti-harassment support at political events
and conferences. As of late 2019, the organization had worked with 100 candi-
dates, politicians, volunteers, and staffers to “help create safer campaigns and
civic institutions that foster young women’s democratic participation,”29 seek-
ing to “ensure that sexual violence is not the last interaction young women have
with political institutions.”30
In October 2017, the #MeToo movement inspired numerous women in the
United States to open up about problems of sexual harassment in state-level
Sexual Violence 169
politics. In Illinois, six women, including fundraiser Katelynd Duncan, wrote

an open letter subsequently signed by scores of other women, detailing wide-
spread sexual harassment in Illinois politics. Duncan, in turn, helped raise
money to form the Illinois Anti-Harassment, Equality, and Access (AHEA)
Panel in February 2018, spearheaded by three female politicians: State Senator
Melinda Bush, State Representative Carol Ammons, and State Comptroller
Susana A. Mendoza. They spent six months collecting surveys, consulting with
experts, and holding listening sessions across the state with hundreds of women
working in politics (Hall 2018). The resulting report, released in September
2018, aimed to serve as a non-partisan roadmap for all political parties, opera-
tions, and campaigns to address what the authors saw as the cultural roots
of sexual harassment in political spaces. They wrote that “as a Panel of three
female elected officials, including two women of color, we have experienced this
toxic culture firsthand, and we recognize that true change and progress requires
a fundamental change to the culture of Illinois politics” (Anti-Harassment,
Equality, and Access Panel 2018, 5).
While the AHEA Panel had no investigatory powers, its listening sessions
focused on what women themselves saw as the solutions—and obstacles—to
addressing sexual harassment in the political workplace. The discussions high-
lighted, in particular, certain structural features of political campaigns facilitat-
ing opportunities for sexual harassment while also enhancing the likelihood of
impunity. For example, campaigns rely extensively on volunteers, consultants,
and contractors, none of whom are protected by federal and state employment
discrimination laws. Campaign workers also often do not know who their boss
is, making reporting difficult. Working on a campaign also tended to prioritize
the candidate over everything else, with loyalty being more important than a
positive workplace culture and travel and odd hours blurring lines between pri-
vate and work communications. Drawing on women’s testimonies, the AHEA
Panel recommended clear and non-negotiable policies not limited to what the
law provided; anti-harassment training for all members of campaigns; party
funding to campaigns tied to adopting policies and undergoing training; inde-
pendent reporting avenues in campaigns, and parties more broadly; prohibi-
tions on retaliation, non-disclosure agreements, and mandatory arbitration;
and policies for consensual romantic relationships (like a “one ask rule”) and
prohibiting alcohol use as an excuse for sexual harassment.31
OFFICIAL INQUIRIES
Most initiatives to address sexual violence in politics have been developed and
led by women’s networks, usually operating outside of the confines of for-
mal politics. However, in 2017 political fallout associated with the #MeToo
movement led the British parliament to set up an official cross-party, bicam-
eral working group—including representatives of parliamentary staff and a
sexual violence expert—to develop an Independent Complaints and Grievance

Scheme to handle complaints related to bullying and harassment on the par-
liamentary estate. It met 11 times in November and December, hearing from a
variety of stakeholders, and commissioned a short survey of people employed
at parliament.32 In February 2018, the working group published its report and
recommended not only introducing an independent complaints procedure, but
also a new behavior code on bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment for
everyone working or lawfully on the parliamentary estate; procedures for deal-
ing with reports of sexual harassment; and a system of training to support the
new code. It also put in place a number of immediate measures like interim
human resources support for staff of MPs, including an expanded helpline.
While the working group focused its attention on the staff of MPs, it also
reviewed two existing mechanisms for House of Commons employees (for
example, those providing catering or janitorial services): the Respect Policy,
covering House staff bullied by MPs; and the Valuing Others Policy, govern-
ing cases where House staff are bullied by other House staff. Although the
Valuing Others Policy was adopted in 2007, the Respect Policy was introduced
only in 2011 and even when revised in 2014, did not explicitly address sexual
harassment. The working group advised correcting this oversight, but other-
wise expressed satisfaction with the measures already in place. In March 2018,
however, the House of Commons Commission, which employs House staff,
announced an independent inquiry to be led by Dame Laura Cox, a former
High Court judge with extensive background in employment and equality law.
She was tasked with exploring the nature and extent of bullying, harassment,
and sexual harassment of House staff, as well as the robustness of existing pro-
cedures for addressing these problems (Cox 2018).
DISSUASIVE SANCTIONS
In its pledge for EP candidates, MeTooEP called for “dissuasive sanctions for
acts of sexual harassment.”33 While removing elected officials is rarely possible,
parliaments have imposed a range of other penalties on those under investiga-
tion or found guilty of sexual violence. In the UK, the sanction used most
extensively since October 2017 has been “removal of the whip,” or the suspen-
sion of an MP from the party caucus—which amounts, in this context, to a
statement of severe disapproval of behavior.34 An MP, in contrast, cannot be
removed from office, unless his or her constituents raise a petition and recall the
MP, triggering a by-election—a mechanism that, to date, has never been used.35
Operating within a different legal system, legislators in France passed a
law in September 2017 on “trust in political life,” stipulating that anyone found
guilty of a crime or misdemeanor, including sexual harassment, receive a com-
pulsory supplementary punishment of ineligibility to hold or run for parlia-
ment office for a maximum of 10 years.36 The clause on “moral and sexual
Sexual Violence 171
harassment” was added via an amendment by Senator Laurence Rossignol dur-

ing the bill’s first reading in the Senate. It was adopted against the advice of the
government, which argued that it fully shared in the aims of the amendment
but cautioned the text might not be constitutional.37 However, the final version
was validated by the Constitutional Court, which noted that ineligibility was
not automatic but had to be justified by the courts at the time of sentencing.38
In the United States, dissuasive sanctions took a different form. In
October 2017, Representative Jackie Speier renewed her efforts to reform the
Congressional Accountability Act to change the onerous process for workers at
Capitol Hill to bring forward complaints of sexual harassment. Prior to reform,
victims were required to undergo three months of mandated “counseling” and
“mediation,” as well as two “cooling off periods,” before they could file an
official complaint. During the first 30 days, moreover, victims were forbidden
from telling anyone else that they were pursuing a complaint against a law-
maker or fellow staffer. Additionally, unlike members of the executive branch,
lawmakers and congressional aides were not required to undergo sexual harass-
ment training. When perpetrators were found guilty, finally, no public notice
was required—enabling repeat offenders to continue the pattern of harassment
with others.
In a video released on the day she introduced the #MeToo Congress
bill, Speier shared her own experiences as a congressional staffer in the 1970s
when the chief of staff “held my face, kissed me, and stuck his tongue in my
mouth.”39 A July 2017 survey found that Speier’s experience, even today, was
not an isolated one: 40% of female staffers said there was a sexual harassment
problem on Capitol Hill, and one in six had personally been harassed in their
offices. Only 10% were aware that procedures existed to report misconduct
(Bade and Schor 2017). Over the course of 2018, the two houses of the U.S.
Congress adopted distinct forms of the bill. Both versions eliminated manda-
tory counseling and mediation periods and forced legislators to personally pay
settlement claims for harassment. They differed, however, in the length of time
required to file a complaint, definitions of “harassment,” and whether lawmak-
ers paid personally for claims of discrimination as well as harassment (Schor
and Bade 2018). In December 2018, an agreement was reached, at least in part
due to pressure from all 22 female senators in an unprecedented bipartisan
display of support. The revised Congressional Accountability Act improves the
process for congressional employees to report allegations of sexual harassment,
stipulates that legislators are financially liable for harassment settlements, and
increases transparency regarding the settlements reached.40
CODES OF CONDUCT
In response to allegations of sexual violence, some political institutions have

developed codes of conduct to help reduce ambiguities regarding acceptable
versus unacceptable behaviors in a political work context. In November 2014,

two female MPs in Canada representing the New Democratic Party accused
two male MPs from the Liberal Party, Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti, of
sexual harassment. After officials realized they did not have procedures in place
to deal with cases of MP-to-MP harassment, the House of Commons moved to
create a Policy on Preventing and Addressing Harassment applying to all MPs,
House officers, research officers, and staff in December 2014.41 It also tasked
the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs with devising recom-
mendations for a Code of Conduct on Sexual Harassment governing sexual
harassment claims of a non-criminal nature between MPs. In June 2015, the
code was approved, together with a pledge to be taken by all MPs “to contrib-
ute to a work environment free of sexual harassment.”42
The Code of Conduct stipulates that party whips may serve as a first point
of contact for complainants and may facilitate informal conversations when
the complainant and respondent are members of the same party. In addition
to providing training, the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) may also
serve as a first point of contact. The CHRO is responsible for guiding the dis-
pute resolution process and retaining, if necessary, the services of an external
investigator to conduct a fair and impartial investigation in a timely manner.
The external investigator should state in the report if the facts support—or do
not support—a finding of sexual harassment, or alternatively, if the complaint
appeared to be “frivolous or vexatious or not made in good faith.” Collier and
Raney (2018) are critical of the policy. First, they point out that the code adopts
a narrow definition of sexual harassment as “unwanted conduct of a sexual
nature that detrimentally affects the work environment,” entirely overlook-
ing gender harassment. Second, parties retain considerable power and influ-
ence over the process. Whips thus may privilege quick and quiet resolutions to
ensure less damage to their party, potentially at the expense of achieving justice
for victims. Third, Collier and Raney condemn the decision to include language
on “frivolous or vexatious” claims, arguing that this perpetuates debunked
myths about false reporting—while also having a potentially chilling effect on
women’s willingness to come forward.
A slightly different approach was pursued in Chile, where #MeToo pro-
tests and sit-ins paralyzed higher education institutions across the country in
April and May 2018. In June 2018, president of the lower house of parliament,
Maya Fernández, announced she would review and revise internal protocols
regarding sexual harassment. Finding that complaints against MPs were chan-
neled through the Ethics Commission, whose code did not explicit forbid sex-
ual harassment, she led a special committee to draft a new policy (Caro 2018).
In January 2019, the Committee on Internal Regulations approved a Protocol
on Prevention and Sanction of Sexual Harassment. The policy covers all work-
ers and people visiting the parliamentary estate, including political journal-
ists, and prohibits acts of a “nonconsensual sexual or intimate character that
Sexual Violence 173
involve exchange of benefits or a threat, or generate an intimidatory, hostile,

humiliating, degrading, or offensive work environment, involving an attempt
against a person’s dignity.” Possible penalties ranged from fines to censures or
reprimands, depending on the type of aggression (Muñoz 2019).
A final approach is simply to forbid sexual relationships between poli-
ticians and their subordinates. In February 2018, Australian prime minister
Malcolm Turnbull responded to a scandal involving the deputy prime minis-
ter, Barnaby Joyce—whose affair with former staffer Vikki Campion came to
light with her pregnancy—by imposing a ban on sexual relationships between
ministers and their staff. Saying the incident raised “some serious issues about
the culture of this place, of this parliament,” Turnbull declared he would add
a provision to the ministerial code of conduct to ensure that the standards of
behavior spoke “clearly about the values of respect in workplaces, the values of
integrity that Australians expect us to have” (Murphy 2018). The U.S. House
of Representatives adopted a similar measure that same month, amending Rule
23 of its code of conduct to state that members “may not engage in a sexual
relationship with any employee of the House who works under [their] supervi-
sion.” In addition, members and employees “may not engage in unwelcome
sexual advances or conduct” toward other members or employees. “Employee”
is defined broadly to include job applicants, paid and unpaid interns (and appli-
cants for internships), and those participating in fellowship programs.43
ANTI-HARASSMENT TRAINING
A common approach to sexual violence scandals is to launch anti-harassment

training initiatives. In some cases, these efforts meet with ridicule. After Swiss
MP Yannick Buttet was accused of stalking an ex-girlfriend in November 2017,
the Christian Democrats suspended him from the party, where he had been
serving as vice president. Six women—including four MPs—then came forward
with complaints of sexual harassment, and when criminal procedures began
against him two weeks later, Buttet officially resigned. In response to these
events, female MPs called for the creation of an office where victims of sexual
harassment in parliament could seek confidential advice. Among the women
disclosing their experiences, Conservative MP Céline Amaudruz shared that
she had been sexually harassed on several occasions, involving “really inap-
propriate gestures that make you think twice about whether you dare take the
elevator with certain people.” Green MP Lisa Mazzone confirmed that such
situations occurred in parliament, with acts “sometimes go[ing] beyond the
framework of seduction,” which can weigh heavily on women in an “atmo-
sphere where sexist or tendentious remarks are permitted” (Bourget 2017).
In mid-December, parliamentary and party leaders met to discuss the
Buttet case and its consequences. They decided to set up an independent com-
plaints office for a year-long trial period. Those working at parliament would
be able speak to a male or female officer and get advice in all three official lan-
guages. The financing provided for the unit was minimal, however, amounting
to only 3600 Swiss francs. As an immediate measure, administrators also pro-
duced a leaflet distributed to MPs. It defined sexual harassment as any sexual or
gender-related behavior that was unwanted on one side and violated a person’s
dignity. It provided a checklist, further, to clarify differences between flirting
and sexual harassment, emphasizing that the deciding factor was the victim’s
perception—not that of the perpetrator. While a few left-wing MPs criticized
the effort, many right-wing politicians derided it as “satire.” According to
MP Roger Köppel, there was no “real” sexism or sexual abuse in parliament
and “with this monkey theater, they taunt the real victims of sexual assault”
(Bühler 2017).
In Canada, interventions were more extensive. In the wake of the 2014
sexual harassment scandal, new frameworks were put in place to govern harass-
ment disputes between the staff of MPs as well as cases of MP-to-MP sexual
harassment. As part of these efforts, the human resources office developed an
online training course on sexual harassment launched in late 2016. Completely
voluntary, the training was completed by 620 MPs and staff over the course of
the following year (Rana 2018). According to officials, parties were not willing
to make their MPs and staff available for in-person trainings, arguing that an
online option would be easier to fit in given their busy schedules.44 To make sex-
ual harassment training accessible beyond parliament, for example to staff in
constituency offices, the website did not require a parliamentary login—which
also meant, however, that officials were unable to track who had done and not
done the training.
After the #MeToo movement got underway, parties and MPs changed their
views on the value of sexual harassment training and began calling the human
resources team to request in-person sessions. In late January 2018, these efforts
accelerated when a number of high profile male politicians lost their positions
in a matter of days due to sexual harassment allegations. The House speaker’s
communications director, Heather Bradley, announced that the House would
spend $50,000 to organize in-person sexual harassment training for all MPs,
cabinet ministers, and party leaders, in both official languages (Rana 2018).
Parties, in turn, made these trainings mandatory, setting aside time for small
groups to do the trainings during the weekly Wednesday caucus meetings.45 The
National Democratic Party and Liberal Party also hired outside experts to pro-
vide in-person trainings, focusing in particular on the importance of bystander
intervention, at national party conventions in 2018 and 2019.46
SAFETY MEASURES
Other tactics for tackling sexual violence in politics are more individualized,
focused on equipping women with the skills to fight back against sexualized
Sexual Violence 175
attacks. After finding that 14% of female journalists had been sexually assaulted
and nearly half had experienced sexual harassment on the job (Barton and
Storm 2014, 8), the IWMF sponsored a three-day training in Uganda orga-
nized by Global Journalist Security (GJS). Offering “hostile environment
and first aid training” for reporters, GJS asserts that “a proactive and candid
approach to sexual risk is essential in any security training.”47 While its director
Frank Smyth was not sure if sexual violence was on the rise “or if women and
men among the press corps have recently brought more attention to the issue
by finally talking about it,” he noted that female journalists appeared to be “at
greater risk of being sexually assaulted than men, both by individual and group
male attackers, as well as by sexually aggressive mobs.” The aim of GJS is thus
to go beyond the military-like training offered in other courses to break the
stigma preventing frank discussion and to provide adequate preparation for
confronting possible sexual violence in the field (Coates 2016).
In other contexts, women have taken it upon themselves to develop their
own ad hoc security strategies. Phoebe Asiyo, one of the longest-serving female
MPs in Kenya, stated that the greatest expense incurred by women running for
parliament was security, which was necessary given frequent use of rape as an
intimidation tactic. Mary Okumu, another Kenyan politician, was physically
assaulted when running as a candidate in 2002. Corroborating Asiyo’s account,
Okumu shared that she and other female candidates “routinely carried con-
cealed knives and wore two sets of tights under their dresses in order to buy
more time to scream during an attempted rape” (Hunt 2007, 116).
SECURITY PATROLS
A final tactic involves protection brigades provided by members of civil soci-

ety. In 2012, the rising number of sexual assaults in Tahrir Square in Cairo,
Egypt, inspired several informal, youth-led initiatives to counter threats of
sexual violence against women in public spaces. Bassma developed a strategy
of “security patrols,” whereby groups of young men in uniform walked around
and made their protective presence known to deter sexual violence in crowded
areas where sexual assaults often took place (Tadros 2015). A second group,
the Tahrir Bodyguards, also first involved mainly men—until they realized that
women under assault would hesitate to trust an all-male intervention team,
often because some assailants would pretend to help women before assaulting
them. The Bodyguards then recruited some women to join their teams, mainly
to talk to people and hand out flyers (Langohr 2013).
OpAntiSH (Operation Anti Sexual Harassment) developed perhaps the
most extensive approach. A confrontation group patrolled the square wear-
ing t-shirts with slogans like “Against Harassment” and “A Square Safe for
All,” distributing cards with emergency hotline numbers with advice telling
people what to do if they witnessed an assault. They also engaged in physical
confrontation by entering circles of harassers to rescue victims. A safety group

waited, usually in apartments close by, with first aid items and clothing and
shoes for survivors, who were often stripped during the assaults. That group
was then responsible for bringing the victim to a safe place, such as her home,
an ambulance, or a hospital. An operations management group, finally, coordi-
nated the work of the other two groups, responding to and making calls alert-
ing the others as to where assaults were taking place. Together, the various
patrols addressed a taboo topic with their conspicuous presence—and largely
substituted for police who were absent from the square (Tadros 2015).
15
Economic Violence
Economic violence employs economic hardship and deprivation as a means of

control, most often by destroying a person’s property or harming their finan-
cial livelihood as a form of intimidation. Feminist work typically views this
form of violence in an intimate partner context, defining it as denial of access
to resources in order to isolate a woman, create dependency on the perpetra-
tor, and—if she refuses to comply—expose her to poverty and hardship (UN
Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2014). Electoral violence frame-
works often incorporate property damage, but tend to treat it as a manifes-
tation of physical attacks on political opponents (Della Porta 1995; Norris,
Frank, and Martínez i Coma 2015). While it is a new concept, the Council
of Europe’s Istanbul Convention and CEDAW General Recommendation No.
35 both recognize economic violence as a fourth category of violence against
women—as does legislation in more than 80 countries around the world (World
Bank 2016).
Forms of economic violence include vandalism, property destruction,
theft, extortion, raids to remove property, withholding of funds and resources,
threats to terminate employment, withdrawal of financial support, and restric-
tions on access to funding (APWLD 2007; Bardall 2011; UNDP and UN
Women 2017). Despite direct links between economic violence and the abil-
ity of women to perform political functions, it remains a largely invisible phe-
nomenon. Few women, indeed, appear willing to speak on the record about
their experiences for fear of negative effects on their personal and professional
livelihoods. A study on racial politics in the United States finds, however, that
economic pressures were a common intimidation tactic used against black
elected officials in the post–Civil Rights era. These ranged from vexatious civil
and criminal tax audits to delaying or withholding state or federal funding for
municipal services, filing false charges about misuse of public funds, and caus-
ing the failure of personal businesses (Warner 1977). Relative silence on these
dynamics means that few measures exist to address economic violence, with
civil society largely filling the gap to provide emergency grants and accounting
oversight.
Manifestations of Economic Violence
To capture economic violence, the IPU asked female parliamentarians

whether they had ever been refused funds or resources to which they were
entitled as MPs, or if their property had ever been damaged or destroyed in
connection with their work in parliament. While economic violence is the
least common form of violence experienced by women in European parlia-
ments, affecting 13.5% of MPs (IPU 2018, 5), it is the second most common
form in the global study. Nearly one-third of respondents (32.7%) reported
facing some form of economic violence, far exceeding rates of physical
(25.5%) and sexual (21.8%) violence (IPU 2016b, 3). Of these, more had seen
their property damaged or destroyed (18.2%), but a significant share had been
denied funds (14.5%) or resources (12.7%), affecting their political work (IPU
2016b, 5). These patterns are repeated among European MPs, with 10% stat-
ing their property had been damaged or destroyed and 7.5% revealing they
had faced barriers in gaining access to resources to which they were entitled
(IPU 2018, 8). News coverage and women’s direct testimonies, some given
only anonymously, point to tactics like vandalism and property destruction,
stealing and other forms of property removal, and withholding of economic
resources, including state funding.
VANDALISM AND PROPERTY DESTRUCTION
Women around the world have experienced various attacks on their prop-
erty, including campaign materials and political office spaces—as well as
their homes and personal belongings. During the 2018 elections in Iraq,
the first since the defeat of ISIS, female candidates faced far higher levels
of violence than witnessed in previous elections (Tajali and Farhan 2018).
Women faced extensive vandalism of their campaign posters, in particular.
Both women with “veil-framed faces” and those “with make-up and without
the traditional Islamic headscarf ” were targeted, with posters “splattered
with mud, defaced with beards draw on, or completely torn up” (Abdul-
Hassan and Salaheddin 2018). This vandalism—together with wide-ranging
online abuse—led the Committee of the Electoral Charter of Honor, a vol-
untary agreement among parties to respect free and fair elections, and the
UN Special Representative in Iraq, Ján Kubiš, to “call upon all state and
political leaders to raise their voices and stand against the targeting and
defamation of women candidates.”1
Economic Violence 179
In Canada, staffers arrived at the local constituency office of MP Catherine

McKenna in October 2019 to find the word “cunt” spray painted in red letters
across a large image of her face on the front window. As McKenna had served
as Minister of Environment and Climate Change for the last four years, the
incident received extensive attention in the Canadian press. Theresa Kavanagh,
Ottawa City Council’s special liaison on women’s issues, suggested the incident
should be treated as a hate crime. When asked by reporters if the vandalism
made her think twice about being in politics, McKenna attributed the attack to
“people [who] clearly want to chase women out of politics.” She noted, how-
ever, that leaving would not “make politics any better” and declared “it’s just
going to make me re-commit to making it a better place for women [and] for
diversity of all sorts” (Glowacki and Foote 2019).
Three years earlier, a similar incident occurred at the constituency office of
British MP Angela Eagle. In July 2016, as she was running to become leader
of the Labour Party, a brick was thrown through the window, breaking the
glass.2 The vandalism formed part of a series of attacks on Eagle during the
leadership campaign, including death threats, abusive phone calls, and online
abuse, including the hijacking of her Facebook page3—leading her staff to
cancel events and unplug the phones for a period of time (Riley-Smith and
Evans 2016). A subsequent internal investigation by the party found that Eagle,
the first openly lesbian MP, had received hundreds of “abusive, homophobic,
and frightening” messages from party members. They determined that it was
“highly likely” that the brick thrown through the window was related to her
leadership bid. The investigation also revealed that her office had suffered from
coordinated denial of service attacks on their internet, a further form of van-
dalism (Mason 2016).
Testimonies from women in other countries indicate that attacks on per-
sonal property are not uncommon—and are often devastating. Sarah Mahoka,
a parliamentary candidate in Zimbabwe, stated that, in addition to burning
her campaign t-shirts, opponents “burn[ed] my fertilizer and maize which
I use to assist people in the constituency. My cattle were also targeted” (Langa
2018). In a focus group organized by NDI, a female party member in Tanzania
shared: “During the campaign one man told me that if I win my house and
everything in it will be set on fire. I was frightened to the point that I thought
of withdrawing my candidature.” Another in Côte d’Ivoire revealed how this
violence had affected her family and professional life: “My house has been
attacked several times. My husband left and I was fired from my job. My only
hope is the party; otherwise I no longer have anything” (NDI 2018, 24–25). Still
other women have faced abuse from family members, like Sakhina, a candidate
in Bangladesh, whose husband did not approve of her involvement in politics
and “burned all her saris in an attempt to stop her from going for election cam-
paigns” (SAP International 2006, 28).
STEALING AND PROPERTY REMOVAL
A related tactic involves stealing or removing property in order to intimidate

as well as obstruct women’s political work. In 2007, AWID conducted a global
survey of more than 1600 women’s rights activists and found that nearly 10%
had their workplaces destroyed or equipment stolen by religious fundamental-
ists (Balchin 2008, 26). Most of these incidents occurred in Latin America and
the Caribbean. Female politicians in the region have confronted similar chal-
lenges, but in these cases, perpetrators are often party or political colleagues.
This has been a particular problem in Bolivia, where elected positions are sub-
ject to gender parity as well as “alternate succession,” whereby officeholders—
should they not be able to serve their full mandates—have alternates of the
opposite sex. While the latter provision was adopted to ensure that women were
not only nominated as alternates, it had the unanticipated effect of contribut-
ing to a growth in the number of cases of violence against women in politics,
as male alternates employed a host of means to force women to resign so they
could access their seats.
Many women were told falsely, for example, that “alternation” meant
they would be in office for the first half of the mandate, followed by the male
alternate in the second half. To ensure they left office, women were often pres-
sured to sign resignation letters or even simply blank pieces of paper, or to
write promissory notes for two and a half years of salary (half the period of
the mandate). The latter would put her in debt to her alternate if she later
changed her mind and decided to remain in office (Restrepo Sanín 2018b).
In one case, the alternate went further by pressuring the councilor to write
a document granting him the same powers and responsibilities and stipu-
lating equal distribution of her salary among the two of them (ACOBOL
2012, 10). These forms of economic coercion were highly effective, resulting
in sharp increases in the number of women resigning in 2002, 2008, and 2013,
approximately two and a half years after elections were held (Restrepo Sanín
2018b, 111).
A second form of stealing entails identity theft. In 2017, former Breitbart
editor Milo Yiannopoulos posted a video on Facebook in which Australian
Senator Katy Gallagher accused a male senator, Mitch Fifield, of “mansplain-
ing.” Viewed more than a million times, the video quickly mobilized an army
of right-wing trolls to attack her. In addition to calling her a bitch, bigot, hypo-
crite, and “misandrist who is not fit to hold public office,” they created numer-
ous fake accounts using the same profile and banner pictures as her own verified
account.4 The fake accounts then pretended to be Gallagher, commenting on
posts made on her verified page and swearing at and abusing her supporters.
Once her office realized what was happening and began deleting the offending
comments, she posted: “Looks like my page was hacked. Apologies to those
who were offended by some comments posted in my name—they weren’t from
me I promise. Thank you to those who alerted me.”5 Her staffers reported and
blocked the fake accounts, but—due to the structure of Facebook—were not
able to prevent others from setting up similar pages using her name and picture
(Workman 2017).
Among human rights defenders, raids by state officials are a more common
form of economic violence. During these searches, police may remove vari-
ous materials from human rights defenders’ offices, in turn both obstructing
their work and endangering those on whose behalf they work (APWLD 2007).
Since coming to power in Poland in 2016, the ruling Law and Justice Party
has targeted women’s rights groups using various forms of economic intimida-
tion. In 2017, the government sent police to raid the offices of two women’s
rights groups across four cities simultaneously: the Women’s Rights Center
in Warsaw, Łódź, and Gdańsk, and BABA in Zielona Góra, both of which
work with survivors of gender-based violence. Anna Głogowska-Balcerzak,
based in the Women’s Rights Center in Łódź, was on the phone with Urszula
Nowakowska in Warsaw when they realized police had arrived unannounced at
both centers. Głogowska-Balcerzak recounted: “It was scary—it was a coordi-
nated action. You don’t use these kinds of methods to deal with non-suspects”
(Human Rights Watch 2019, 51).
Police stated that the raids were part of an investigation into alleged mis-
conduct on the part of officials in the Ministry of Justice under the former
government. The fact that both groups had received funding from the min-
istry, police claimed, provided grounds for both the search and seizure of
property. Yet the raids occurred just one day after women had staged protests
against the country’s restrictive abortion law, raising suspicions about their
timing. Moreover, as funding recipients, both organizations had already sub-
mitted extensive documentation to the government, leading one woman to
remark: “They already have all the documentation at the ministry, so [the raids]
were also symbolic.” Materials removed from the activists’ offices included doc-
uments as well as computer hard drives, which the women pointed out would
hamper their work and create risks for victims of domestic abuse who had
sought their help (Associated Press 2017).
Other Polish women’s rights activists report being denied space to con-
duct their activities—a problem that they cannot resolve because pursuing
legal action would further deplete their limited resources. Renata Durda,
for instance, said her organization, Blue Line, was abruptly removed from
its space in 2018 by the local government. Katarzyna Kamecka-Lach, who
heads the Center of the East, reported that local officials rescinded an agree-
ment granting them a workplace in a school when they were only halfway
through the contract. Although officials claimed it was urgently needed for
something else, the space remained unoccupied and, she noted: “They hadn’t
even taken down the nameplate of [our] organization” (Human Rights Watch
2019, 64).
WITHHOLDING OF ECONOMIC RESOURCES
A final set of tools entails withholding economic resources from women to

coerce them and frustrate and undermine their political participation In these
cases, economic violence restricts women’s access to resources that are oth-
erwise available to men. Conducting a survey of nearly 200 female local and
regional councilors in Peru, Quintanilla Zapata (2012) finds that 14% had expe-
rienced some form of “economic control” in the course of their political work
(9). For some women, the perpetrators are close to home. One local councilor
related that, in addition to resistance from her colleagues at work, her spouse
prevented her from accessing the family’s money after she was elected: “My
husband has cut off money to me since I became a local councilor. I am afraid.
I am afraid to complain” (14).
Other acts of economic violence are rooted in omissions on the part
of other elected officials, like mayors, regional presidents, and municipal
and regional bureaucrats, in fulfilling their legal obligations. In Peru, these
include “unjustified suspensions, unpaid expenses, [and] refusal of leaves
to which one is entitled” (Quintanilla Zapata 2012, 28). In El Salvador,
women report being denied or delayed in receiving the public allowances
owed to them for attending sessions of the city council (Herrera, Arias, and
García 2012). A local councilor in Costa Rica, similarly, noted that women
on the council were refused resources provided to men. One explained how
this affected her work and her personal finances: “I have been denied a
physical space to attend to the people. I have not been assigned a car or
a phone. I use my personal resources” (Escalante and Mendez 2011, 22).
This is true even of women holding leadership positions, as one female MP
shared: “I had to press to obtain a car, additional financing, and security
as enjoyed by my male predecessor. I obtained none of it and just gave up”
(IPU 2016b, 5).
Female voters may be vulnerable to other economic pressures. In 2015,
citizen election observers in Guatemala discovered that women were sometimes
forced to participate in political party rallies or were threatened with the loss of
social benefits if they did not register with a party or pledge to vote for a cer-
tain candidate. Juana Baca, who coordinates a network of indigenous women,
noted that women were often the ones receiving social benefits. Together with
women’s often more marginalized economic status, this rendered them more
susceptible to these forms of coercion. Few questioned these dynamics, Baca
observed, because “politicians have used social programs to perpetuate vio-
lence against women and women are conditioned to think that this is normal”
(Barker 2016).
Related dynamics operate with respect to female activists, for whom an
important source of precarity is unpredictable access to funding necessary to
carry out their activities. Restricting their ability to fundraise, or removing
existing funding streams, can thus be an effective form of economic retribution

and control—making it impossible to operate unless conforming to state or
donor demands. In 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan introduced the Mexico
City Policy, or “global gag rule,” which requires NGOs to agree—as a con-
dition of receiving any U.S. funding—that they “would neither perform nor
actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.”
Revoked by Bill Clinton in 1993, the gag rule was re-introduced by George
W. Bush, lifted by Barack Obama, and reinstated by Donald Trump. Trump,
however, expanded its provisions to ban health funding to NGOs using their
own funds to provide counseling, referrals, services or to advocate for safe abor-
tion, amounting to 15 times the reach of previous policies.6 In a report to the
General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
noted with regret its adverse impact on “women defenders working on sexual
and reproductive rights, HIV, sexual orientation and gender identity rights, and
sex workers’ rights” (Forst 2019, 6).
In Poland, the Law and Justice Party declared itself an enemy of “gen-
der ideology,” a derogatory term for work to promote gender equality
(Corredor 2019). Used by anti-gender movements around the world, the
concept enlists extreme rhetoric and tactics to attack and intimidate women
human rights defenders, claiming that gender equality poses a threat to
families and traditional values, especially when it entails rights and recogni-
tion for the LGBT community (Kuhar and Paternotte 2017). In 2017, the
new Polish cabinet created a centralized agency to oversee disbursement of
government funding to civil society, replacing the system of individual min-
istries allocating funds to groups related to their mandates. When the bill
was still in draft form, the OSCE urged the government to decentralize the
process and include safeguards to ensure that funding decisions were free
from political interference. It disregarded this advice and its appointments
to the new agency included a director and at least one member who had
publicly discredited and demonized women’s and LGBT rights organiza-
tions (Human Rights Watch 2019).
Interviewing 30 activists, supporters, and attorneys in 2018, HRW found
that seven organizations that had previously received government funding from
three ministries—the Ministry of Justice; the Ministry of Family, Labor, and
Social Policy; and the Ministry of National Education—had their funding dis-
continued or drastically reduced. Groups working on violence against women
had been forced to cut staff, restrict their geographic coverage, and reduce
essential activities like providing shelter and legal and psychological support
for survivors. Those focused on sexual and reproductive health reported that
a combination of funding and political pressures had decreased opportuni-
ties for collaboration with schools and communities, including the provision
of educational workshops. In all but one case, the government did not provide
clear explanations of why funding was discontinued (Human Rights Watch

2019, 39–40).
Prior to the creation of the new centralized agency, but after the Law and
Justice Party came to power, women faced other government pressures intended
at undermining their political work. Renata Durda, the executive director of
Blue Line, which provides services to victims of violence, shared that—after she
went to the press to complain about funding cuts—government officials invited
her to the Ministry of Justice and told her they were certain the organization
had something to hide—and they would prove it. They then conducted a three-
year-long audit of Blue Line’s finances, a process that should have only taken
a few months. In another case, the Autonomia Foundation, which conducts
anti-violence and anti-discrimination workshops, had its funding rescinded
mid-grant, accompanied by a demand for repayment of money already spent
on project activities, plus interest, within 15 days of the grant termination. The
letter was dated one day after a monitoring visit by officials from the Ministry
of Family, Labor, and Social Policy. The visit was prompted by criticisms by
MPs Robert Winnicki and Piotr Uściński, who claimed the group’s leader was
a “lesbian feminist” and called their work a form of “feminist and homosexual
agitation” (Human Rights Watch 2019, 48). The ministry finally agreed to drop
the demand for repayment after a year of exchanging documents, reports, and
information—at which point, Autonomia had already reduced its activities and
given up its office space.
Solutions to Economic Violence
Legal measures to counteract economic violence are few and far between. Law
243 in Bolivia includes economic violations within its list of sample acts of
political violence and harassment against women, calling out acts that “apply
pecuniary sanctions, arbitrary and illegal deductions, and/or withholding of
salaries.”7 The UN Declaration on the Rights of Human Rights Defenders also
stipulates in Article 13 that everyone has the right “to solicit, receive and utilize
resources for the . . . purpose of promoting and protecting human rights and
fundamental freedoms through peaceful means” (UN General Assembly 1998,
6). Despite this provision, a growing number of governments prohibit NGOs
from or punish them for receiving funds from abroad (Carothers 2006). Some
civil society groups, however, provide economic support or press governments
to be accountable for the funding they provide.
EMERGENCY GRANTS
Several programs exist to support at-risk women human rights defenders with
economic resources to continue their work. Some involve awards offering public
recognition while also providing significant monetary prizes that can support
relocation as well as legal fees. These include the Yayori Award from Japan,
focusing on female activists, journalists, and artists, and the International
Service for Human Rights Awards, with a specific category for women human
rights defenders. Other awards are not limited—but often awarded—to women,
like the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders and the Roger
N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty.
Other grassroots organizations provide emergency grants and relief pro-
grams available to a wider array of women. Often approving applications
within a matter of days, these groups offer funding that can be used to meet a
wide range of needs, including improving security (like hiring security guards
and installing surveillance cameras and bars on windows), paying medical or
legal costs, or supporting evacuation to safe houses—and, if necessary, tempo-
rary relocation (Barcia 2011).
One example is the UAF, based in the United States, which offers “rapid
response grants” for women and trans* defenders in urgent situations. The
organization accepts applications in any language using online, text, and mobile
funding applications for requests up to $8,000. UAF staffers respond to all
requests within 24 hours, 365 days a year, and make most decisions within one
to ten business days. Arguing that these grants are “a lifeline to women’s human
rights defenders worldwide,” the model enables defenders to “act quickly, take
advantage of unexpected opportunities, mitigate threats, and/or prevent back-
sliding in their ongoing work.”8 By its 10th anniversary in 2007, UAF had sup-
ported more than 100 activists from 45 countries, reviewing 2256 grant requests
(Barry with Đorđević 2007, viii).
ACCOUNTING PRESSURES
A second category of measures is illustrated by efforts of the 2% + More

Women in Politics campaign in Mexico. In 2008, a reform to the political party
financing law created a new obligation on parties to dedicate 2% of their pub-
lic financing to the training, promotion, and development of women’s politi-
cal leadership. These programs were required to benefit the largest share of
women possible through direct activities engaging their participation. In 2011,
however, an audit of party expenses using freedom of information requests
revealed that parties rarely applied these funds for the purposes for which they
were intended.
The National Action Party, at the time the largest party in parliament,
used some money to pay for trainings and other activities for women. A not-
insignificant amount, however, was spent on bags, pens, bracelets, and bal-
loons with party logos. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, the next biggest
party, did not appear to direct any funds to activities for women. While some
money was spent on celebrating the party’s founding as well as supporting a
youth conference, the bulk was used to pay for general services, like telephone
calls, electricity, water, security, equipment and building maintenance, laundry,
cleaning, and fumigation. The Party of the Democratic Revolution did not
account for how it used the funds and was fined a small amount as a result
(Cárdenas Morales 2011, 34–39).
In early 2010, women’s groups came together with NDI to launch the 2%
campaign to ensure that parties in fact spent these earmarked funds to support
women’s political participation. The network held a series of workshops and
engaged in extensive online activism, both to raise awareness among women in
the parties as well as to pressure the accounting unit of the Federal Electoral
Institute (IFE) to more carefully scrutinize receipts provided by parties to ensure
they complied with the 2% earmark. In working sessions with the parties and
IFE, the campaign helped develop a new regulation on accountability for this
aspect of party spending, which was approved by the IFE Executive Council
in 2011. While parties continue to violate the provision, spending the money
on gas, printer paper, toner, and bracelets with party logos (Arteta 2019), the
earmark was increased to 3% in 2014 and expenses continue to be monitored
closely—marking it as an important advance in ensuring that women are not
deprived of economic resources to which they are entitled in the political realm.
16
Semiotic Violence
Case materials around the world provide ample evidence for physical, psycho-
logical, sexual, and economic violence against women in politics. However,
inductive research reveals that these four categories do not exhaust the spec-
trum of acts constituting violence against women in the political realm. These
dynamics “without a name” involve mobilizing semiotic resources—words,
images, and even body language—to injure, discipline, and subjugate women.
Unlike other forms of violence against women, these acts are less about attack-
ing particular women directly than about shaping public perceptions about
the validity of women’s political participation more broadly. Naming these
dynamics is not only crucial for recognizing additional points on the contin-
uum of violence, but also for spotlighting how this type of violence interacts
with and bolsters the injuries committed through the other four more widely
recognized forms.
Although this book introduces the concept of semiotic violence, a wide
range of existing literatures—in fields as diverse as law, linguistics, psychology,
political science, sociology, and gender studies—lend support to conceptual-
izing language and images as forms of “violence” when used to inflict harm
and injury by communicating a message of group-based inferiority. Analyzed
inductively, women’s experiences in politics suggest two main modes of semi-
otic violence: rendering women invisible, attempting to “symbolically annihilate”
women in the public sphere; and rendering women incompetent, emphasizing
“role incongruity” between being a woman and being a leader. Emerging solu-
tions seek to counteract these dynamics by revising or reversing prevailing
semiotic frames and forging new semiotic tools to defend women’s right to par-
ticipate and create a more inclusive public sphere.
Semiotic Violence as a Concept
Semiotics is the study of signs. Drawing on the philosophy of language and

philosophy of art and aesthetics, semiotic analysis “reads” words and images
as “texts” to gain insight into the interpretive frameworks filtering and guiding
human perceptions of the world (Chandler 2017). According to Peirce (1994),
all experience is mediated by signs, making their role in structuring thought
processes, ironically, highly invisible and unconscious. The aim of semi-
otic analysis for Saussure (2011 [1959]) is thus to search for basic signifying
units and regularities that can render these interpretive systems more explicit.
Relevant to feminist research, semiotic analysis understands signs to be socially
constructed, rather than faithful and straightforward reflections of the exter-
nal world. These constructs often center the perspectives and experiences of
privileged groups, creating and maintaining social hierarchies (Barthes 1957).
Deconstructing signs can thus serve to reveal and challenge systems of privi-
lege and oppression (Chandler 2017).
Semiotic analysis, together with theories of structural, cultural, and sym-
bolic violence, suggests that words and images offer important resources for
preserving the gendered status quo, including in the political world. In her work
on misogyny, Manne (2018, 76) captures this insight when she observes that in
response to the “psychic threat posed by powerful women . . . women may be
taken down imaginatively, rather than literally, by vilifying, demonizing, belit-
tling, humiliating, mocking, lampooning, shunning, and shaming them.” This
book proposes to call these dynamics “semiotic violence.” As a general con-
cept, semiotic violence entails drawing on and reinforcing inequalities by using
words and images—and in some cases, body language—to injure, discipline,
and subjugate members of marginalized groups. In the current context, it refers
specifically to the use of semiotic resources to deny women’s political rights.
A defining feature of semiotic violence is its public signification: while perpe-
trated against individuals, it seeks to send a message that the person’s group is
unworthy, aiming to affect how the public at large views members of that group.
Such acts may gain further resonance by tapping semiotic resources for deni-
grating other groups, creating intersectional manifestations of violence.
The concept of semiotic violence is implicitly present in many bodies of
academic research. These literatures explore how language and images may
enact violence in the sense used throughout this book, as a violation of integrity
or attack on the wholeness or intactness of the self (Bufacchi 2007). Critical
race scholars in the legal field, for instance, theorize hate rhetoric as “assaultive
speech,” with “trauma [inflicted] by racist assailants who employ words and
symbols as part of an integrated arsenal of weapons of oppression and sub-
ordination” (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, and Crenshaw 1993, 7). Through
assaultive speech, freedom of expression becomes an instrument of domina-
tion: its aim is no longer to discover truth or initiate dialogue, but rather to
Semiotic Violence 189
injure and silence the victim through repeated messages of group-based infe-
riority. Because such speech seeks to dehumanize, degrade, and humiliate, the
resulting “psychic injury is no less an injury than being struck in the face, and
it often is far more severe” (74).
Linguistic research, similarly, argues that group-based slurs perpetuate
discrimination because they offer “speakers a linguistic resource with which
to dehumanize their targets and identify them in ‘subhuman,’ rather than full
human, terms” (Croom 2013, 189). Pejorative slurs about women affront their
personal integrity and autonomy by communicating beliefs about men’s and
women’s essential differences, women’s inferiority to men, and women’s lack of
ownership over their own bodies. Epithets like “whore” and “slut” use sexual
shaming to deny women basic human dignity, while “bitch” and “cunt” dehu-
manize and discredit women to silence their voices and stifle their participation
in public discourse (Levey 2018).
Psychological studies of sexist humor provide insight into why these wound-
ing words are so pernicious, yet also difficult to challenge. Framing remarks as
a “joke,” these scholars note, is often a deliberate strategy employed by perpe-
trators to avoid disapproval normally associated with discriminatory conduct.
Yet a sexist joke is not “an isolated event in which a woman is harmlessly teased
or ridiculed; it is rather one instance among many in which women are belittled
or disparaged” (Bergmann 1986, 76). Corroborating these insights, recurring
themes in sexist humor involve sexual objectification of women, devaluation of
women’s personal and professional abilities, and support for violence against
women (Bemiller and Schneider 2010).
In an analogous way, feminist critiques of pornography argue that porno-
graphic images seek to dehumanize, degrade, and subordinate women (Itzin
2002). Like sexist jokes, these images are often viewed as “innocent leisure”
(Cawston 2018, 649), but in fact depict or defend sexualized violence against
women—including via sexually graphic, digitally altered images of female
politicians—as pleasurable, natural, or deserved (Sheeler and Anderson 2013).
Some authors go so far as to claim that each creation or use of pornography is
“itself a politically gendered oppressive act” (Cowburn and Pringle 2000, 59).
Recent work on online misogyny explores how technological advances gen-
erate new opportunities for “image-based sexual abuse” (McGlynn, Rackley,
and Houghton 2017). Noting that existing criminal codes are often limited
to the protection of physical bodies, this research argues that technology-
facilitated sexual violence—like creating and distributing (doctored) sexual and
sexual assault images, gender-based hate speech, and virtual rape—should also
be recognized as “embodied harms.” This is because these harms, although tak-
ing place in the virtual domain, can have at least as much impact on a person as
traditional injuries against a physical body (Henry and Powell 2015).
Research on some forms of body language, finally, points to ways
in which asymmetry in status can be communicated through verbal and
non-verbal interactions, including forms of address, norms of touching,

and patterns of interruption. These behaviors, Henley (1977) argues, serve
as mechanisms of social control, reinforcing relationships of power between
different categories of people. Such microaggressions “send denigrating
messages to certain individuals because of their group membership” (Sue
2010, 24), yet are often so pervasive that their harmful nature is overlooked
or forcefully denied.
The concept of semiotic violence ties together the insights from these vari-
ous literatures, which collectively illustrate how language and images may be
deployed to resist, exclude, and undermine members of marginalized groups,
particularly women. One implication of tendencies to “naturalize” semiotic
violence, however, is that this form of violence remains invisible as well as trivi-
alized. Further developing this concept can thus serve both a theoretical and
a political purpose, giving a shared name to dynamics that, to date, have been
analyzed separately—and focusing efforts, in turn, on calling out and disman-
tling semiotic violence as a widespread and pernicious weapon of harm and
exclusion.
Manifestations of Semiotic Violence
Semiotic analysis highlights the structural nature of signs. This contributes to

their invisible but pervasive impact—but also implies that their manifestations
are not infinitely variable, but rather, both systematic and predictable. Jane
(2017) notes, for example, that gendered vitriol often has a “quasi-algebraic
quality,” with elements seemingly restricted to a “range of pre-determined
parameters” that can be “substituted endlessly without altering the structure
of the discourse.” As a consequence, searching for themes in online misogyny
quickly reaches a “saturation point,” after which “antagonists seem to run out
of ideas” (36). An inductive analysis of women’s experiences reveals similar
findings in the political realm, with semiotic attacks on politically active women
taking two broad forms: rendering women invisible and rendering women
incompetent. Within each mode, recurring sub-types can be identified, illus-
trating the varied—but also limited number of—ways that language and images
may be mobilized to resist, exclude, and undermine women as political actors.
RENDERING INVISIBLE
The first mode of semiotic violence involves rendering women invisible in the
political sphere. These acts attempt to “symbolically annihilate” politically
active women by refusing to acknowledge their political presence or contribu-
tions to political debates. Reinforcing the male as norm, they imply that men
are the only legitimate participants—or, if women are included, that men are
the only ones whose presence “counts.” As a result of these dynamics, the idea
that women can be political actors, especially leaders, produces strong cogni-
tive dissonance among the general public, contributing to women’s ongoing
secondary status.
The concept of symbolic annihilation emerged in media studies with
Gerbner’s (1972, 43–44) statement: “representation in the fictional world signi-
fies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation.” The lack of women
on television is significant, according to Tuchman (1978), because it suggests
to viewers that women do not exist—or, if they do, they do not matter much
in society. The treatment of the few women who are included—for example, as
sexual objects or through the denigration of working women—strengthens this
message, cultivating specific ideas about how the world works and where power
resides (Gerbner 1972).1
Political scientists theorize an analogous dynamic stemming from women’s
relative absence in political media. Pointing to the lack of women in British
election coverage, Walsh (2001, 94) observes, for example, that “the structured
invisibility of women is likely to sustain the damaging myth that politics is
primarily a ‘man’s game.’ ” Confirming this intuition empirically, research
shows a close correlation between the share of women as news subjects and
experts and the share of female candidates for parliament (Haraldsson and
Wängnerud 2019).
Experiences around the world point to at least seven tactics for symboli-
cally annihilating women in politics. These range from erasure of women as
political actors to denial of women’s rights to speak and be heard in politi-
cal debates. At the individual level, many acts are also instances of psycho-
logical violence, seeking to obstruct the participation of specific women by
affecting their mental states through exclusion and trivialization. By playing
out before the eyes of the general public, however, the impact of these acts
reach beyond the affected individuals, sending a message to society—via these
symbolizing actions—that women are not worthy or equal participants in the
political realm.
Removal
Women can be removed from political spaces in a variety of ways. Legal con-
cepts may deny the full humanity of women, rendering them legally invisible
and preventing the exercise of their political rights. In Canada, women gained
political rights in most parts of the country by 1922. However, they remained
excluded from appointment to the Senate by language in Section 24 of the
British North America Act (1867), which restricted this to “qualified per-
sons.”2 Emily Murphy, a magistrate, lobbied three prime ministers, only to be
told repeatedly that women were not considered “persons” in the constitution.
Turning to the courts, Murphy joined four women in petitioning the Supreme
Court, which decided in 1928 that women were “expressly excluded from the
class of ‘qualified persons.’ ”3 The women appealed to the British Privy Council,
the highest court, which decided in 1929 that “the world ‘persons’. . . includes
members both of the male and female sex.”4 This struggle illustrates how legal
concepts may deny the full humanity of women, rendering them legally invis-
ible and preventing the exercise of their political rights.
In other cases, appeals to customary practices make women literally invis-
ible in political spaces. Although women gained suffrage in Pakistan in 1947,
women were barred from voting in many areas. In Dhurnal, a village in Punjab,
elders endorsed a ban on women voting prior to the 1962 elections. By sealing
it with a prayer, they prevented any households from violating the ban and sub-
jected any who did to social and religious boycott. While some male politicians
argued that “if women are happy to follow local traditions, no one should have
any objection to it,” one young woman in Dhurnal, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told reporters: “I know that voting is my constitutional and fun-
damental right but still I cannot exercise it since I need the permission of men
in my household to do so” (Dastageer and Safdar 2018). As a result, even in
recent years some polling stations reported that not a single woman had voted.
Non-Portrayal
Another tactic is simply not to portray women involved in politics, erasing
them from public consciousness as actors in the political realm. On several
occasions in Israel, ultra-Orthodox newspapers have digitally altered photos
of the national cabinet to remove, replace, or block out women. In 2009, one
paper erased the two female ministers, Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver, and
put two men in their place; another simply blacked out their faces (Shabi 2009).
In 2015, three women—Ayelet Shaked, Miri Regev, and Gila Gamliel—were
appointed to the new cabinet. Some ultra-Orthodox news outlets declined to
publish the photo, while others opted for various digital editing strategies: pix-
elating the women’s faces, editing the three women out, and removing the three
women and adding a man in one of the spots (Goldman 2015).
Using a different medium, in early 2019 a toy company in the United
States launched a line of Lego-like mini-figures of the “2020 presidential can-
didates.” The series, however, included only the four men who had announced
their presidential runs: Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, and Pete
Buttigieg. When asked by a reporter why the company had not created figures
of any of the women who had launched campaigns—like Elizabeth Warren,
Kamala Harris, or Kirsten Gillibrand—the company’s CEO replied that these
would be added later because “at the moment we do not have female hair for
the lady candidates” (Render 2019). Given that the company boasts of selling
mini-figures of all U.S. presidents, including Donald Trump, failing to stock
such a key item is a telling oversight—reflecting and reinforcing the notion that
only men can be presidents.
Misrecognition
When members of marginalized groups gain access to political positions, they
are often viewed as “space invaders,” as “bodies out of place” inside political
institutions (Puwar 2004). This dynamic can give rise to encounters with col-
leagues and others where their identity as political actors is not recognized—
and, indeed, sometimes actively contested—reinforcing their secondary status.
By these processes, women become figuratively invisible, despite overcoming
literal invisibility associated with explicit exclusion. Being from another politi-
cally marginalized group can heighten these effects, creating intersectional
manifestations of semiotic violence.
In one incident in Denmark, various party leaders had gathered at a tele-
vision studio prior to taking part in a panel discussion in 2007. During the
preparations, Conservative Party leader Bendt Bendtsen asked a young woman
to fetch him some coffee. She turned out to be the 23-year-old leader of the
Red-Green Alliance, Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen. Rather than tell him who she
was, she replied that, unfortunately, she did not know where the coffee was. As
the program began, Bendtsen got the “shock of his life” when he subsequently
saw the “office girl” on the party leader panel (Nilsson 2007).
That same year, Iyabo Obasanjo became the youngest senator in Nigeria,
elected together with eight other women and 100 men.5 Despite a badge iden-
tifying her as a senator, security guards often refused to let her in, only relent-
ing after verifying all her credentials each time. She then hired a 25-year-old
female assistant, and one day guards denied her entry into the Senate building.
Because male citizens at the gates were being very aggressive, Obasanjo was
forced to leave the chamber, where she was due to speak, to prevent her assis-
tant from being assaulted by the crowds. She learned that the Senate president
had given instructions to the guards not to let in any young women, owing
to rumors that they would “entice men” who would in turn give them money
for sex. The policy assumed, clearly, that young women could not be senators
or staffers, in addition to blaming women, rather than men, for demands for
sexual favors.6
Other women’s experiences reflect the dual impact of race and gender.
Dawn Butler, the third black woman to be elected to the British parliament,
has spoken up about multiple incidents. On one occasion, she was inside a
“members only” elevator when a fellow MP reportedly commented, “This lift
really isn’t for cleaners.” Another time, a former minister, David Heathcote-
Amory, confronted her in the members’ section of the terrace, saying, “What
are you doing here? This is for members only.” When questioned in the press,
Heathcote-Amory answered that “he was simply asking” and that “they are
quite sensitive about this kind of thing, they think that any kind of reprimand
from anyone is racially motivated” (Oppenheim 2016a). Rather than seeing
any problem with his behavior, he thus shifted the fault onto Butler for taking
offense—further marginalizing her as an “outsider” in political space.
A final form of misrecognition involves confusing political women for one
another. In an interview in 2004, Gillian Shepherd shared that, when she first
became an MP in 1987, “there was a Conservative MP who was a backbencher,
but rather a prominent one, and he called us all Betty. And when I said, ‘Look,
you know, my name isn’t Betty,’ he said, ‘Ah but you’re all the same, so I call
you Betty, it’s easier’ ” (Sones 2005, 77). This problem is not confined to the
past. After the 2018 elections, Katie Hill and Katie Porter were elected to the
U.S. Congress from Southern California. Despite widely distinct personal and
professional profiles, constituents, congressional staffers, reporters, and even
colleagues regularly mix them up. “It’s constant,” said Porter, while Hill com-
mented: “Why is this so hard? We don’t look anything alike.” Reflecting a sense
of being a “space invader,” Porter ruminated: “Being constantly confused with
another member, it deepens the sense of dislocation and ‘Do I belong here?’ ”
(Haberkorn 2019).
Masculinization
A further way to render women invisible is to appeal to male-centered rules of
grammar when referring to politicians, implying these positions cannot—and
should not—be feminized. Sensitive to this dynamic, upon becoming presi-
dent of the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2013, Laura Boldrini sent a let-
ter to MPs asking them to use the appropriate gender when talking about
other MPs. In an interview, she explained: “Language is not only a seman-
tic issue . . . When you are opposed to saying la ministra or la presidente it
means that culturally you are not admitting that women can reach top posi-
tions” (Feder, Nardelli, and Maria De Luca 2018). This problem originates in
a tendency in many languages to treat men as the “unmarked” or “generic”
category and women, conversely, as the “marked” or “subsumed” category.
“Generic masculine” forms not only render women invisible (Pauwels 2003),
but also create ambiguity for women, as male-designated terms may or may
not actually include them (Spender 1980). In a work context, gender-exclusive
language can thus subtly inform women that they do not belong (Stout and
Dasgupta 2011).
In France, debates on this issue have waged for more than twenty years.
In 1997, the new Socialist government decided to address female politicians
with feminine titles, despite protests from the Académie Française, the French
language council. Female ministers subsequently had feminine titles printed on
official stationery and signs on their office doors replaced (Burr 2003). In 2014,
a heated exchange in parliament brought this question back into the public
eye. In a session presided over by Vice-President of the National Assembly
Sandrine Mazetier, a conservative male deputy, Julien Aubert, addressed her
as “Madame le President,” using the masculine form. After reminding him that
assembly rules stipulated she be addressed as “Madame la Presidente,” the fem-

inine form, he refused to yield (Cotteret 2014).
The Real Academia Española (RAE), the official institution of the
Spanish language, continues to refuse such reforms. In 2016, it addressed grow-
ing trends to “split” noun references—avoiding the generic masculine plural
when groups include men and women, thus replacing, for example, ciudadanos
([male] citizens) with ciudadanas y ciudadanos (female and male citizens)—by
arguing that this such a practice was “artificial and unnecessary from a lin-
guistic point of view.”7 In July 2018, the issue reemerged when the government
asked the RAE to write a report on how to modify the constitution to make it
more gender-inclusive. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo explained: “We
have a constitution in the masculine. It is necessary to begin to have a text that
includes women” (Sonnad 2018). The RAE confirmed its position, presenting
a style manual whose first chapter rejected calls for more inclusive language.
Official language bodies are not the only ones to draw on their positions
of power to police language use. In 2014, Speaker Danis Tzamtzis was tak-
ing a roll call vote in the Greek parliament. When a number of female MPs
responded by answering “present” using the feminine ending, he responded by
“correcting” their statements to “present” using the masculine ending. Afroditi
Stambouli challenged the “repair” by requesting that the official record make
note that she had used the feminine form. Addressing Tzamtzis, she pointed
out that he had changed the sex of all the women. Continuing the roll call, he
did not apologize but rebuked her request by telling her to “Learn grammar”
(Georgalidou 2017, 39). Although the voting continued, the exchange inspired
a larger number of female MPs to use the feminine form in a subsequent vote.
Silencing
Historically, public speaking has been perceived as a masculine act.
Consequently, the simple act of women talking in public can be seen as trans-
gressive (Cameron 2006). Yet denying women the right to speak makes their
perspectives invisible, undermining their status as political equals (Beard
2017). Alluding to her experiences in Honduras in the 1990s, Doris Gutiérrez
shared: “The president of the congress refused to let me speak. He let all the
men express their points and he always left me with my hand raised.” Rather
than let the issue slide, she adopted a counter-strategy: “I decided to cover my
mouth with a handkerchief as a sign of protest. Those photos could be seen in
the press, and the commentary vacillated between calling it bravery and crazi-
ness” (Hoyos 2014, 63). Silencing can involve, at its extreme, expelling women
from their seats. In her biography, Afghan MP Malalai Joya claims that during
her two years in parliament she never had the chance to speak without getting
cut off at some point. After a controversy surrounding remarks she made in the
media, the speaker moved to remove Joya from her seat. Not given an oppor-
tunity to defend herself, she was subsequently suspended from parliament
for the remainder of her five-year term without a formal count of the votes
(Joya 2009).
In the United States, a well-known example involves the silencing of
Senator Elizabeth Warren during confirmation hearings for Senator Jeff
Sessions, nominated by Donald Trump for the position of attorney general.
During the hearings, Democrats highlighted Sessions’s ongoing failures to pro-
tect the rights of minority communities, pointing out that the Senate had previ-
ously rejected him as a federal judge on this basis. When it was Warren’s turn
to speak, she attempted to read a letter written in 1986 by Coretta Scott King,
which included relevant details like his attempts to intimidate elderly black vot-
ers. In the middle of her speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
invoked an obscure rule to prevent her from continuing. Rarely invoked, the
rule states: “no Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of
words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive
unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”8 The Senate then voted along party lines,
49–43, that Warren violated the rule, in turn barring her from speaking further
in the floor debate on the nomination.
Coverage of the incident highlighted the apparent double standard at
work, pointing out that no reprimands were made when Senator Ted Cruz
called McConnell a “liar” several times on the Senate floor in 2015, or when
Senator Tom Cotton criticized the “cancerous leadership” of Senator Harry
Reid in 2016 (Cardona 2017). Further, following the vote, three of Warren’s
male colleagues—Senators Jeff Merkely, Tom Udall, and Bernie Sanders—all
read excerpts from the same letter, uninterrupted (Ebbs 2017). Refusing to be
silenced completely, Warren stood outside the doors to the Senate chamber and
read King’s letter, streaming it live on Facebook where it was viewed 13 mil-
lion times.9 Called to account for his decision, McConnell later said: “She was
warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”
Not Listening
When women do gain the opportunity to speak, another way to silence
their contributions is to reduce the possibility they are actually heard. As
Spender (1980) notes in her book on “man-made language,” women active
in a wide array of arenas perceive they are “not listened to with equal atten-
tion (or . . . not listened to at all)” (87). Frigga Haug (1995, 137), for instance,
recalls an experience she had when giving a speech on gender quotas at a meet-
ing of the German Social Democratic Party in 1989: “the whole audience was
male and stressed this by ostentatiously starting to read newspapers, talk to
each other, walk out to get some beer, and so on.” She noted that the situation
had not improved five years later. A debate on equality and equal status for
women in parliament was scheduled during the break, leaving only a handful
of politicians to discuss the issue while everyone else (including the journal-
ists) went to lunch.
In 2017, Melissa Hortman, House minority leader in the Minnesota state

legislature, made a similar observation when she realized that a large group
of men had left the chamber prior to a speech by Ilhan Omar, a woman serv-
ing as the first Somali-American legislator. In response, Hortman decided to
move for a “call of the House,” a mechanism requiring that members return
to the floor. As a large group of white male representatives filed back into the
chamber, she remarked: “I hate to break up the 100 percent white male card
game in the retiring room, but I think this is an important debate.” Called on
by some Republicans to apologize for what they felt was a “sexist” and “racist”
comment, Hortman refused, saying: “I am so tired of watching Representative
Susan Allen give an amazing speech, Representative Peggy Flanagan give an
amazing speech, watching Representative Jamie Becker-Finn give an amazing
speech . . . and looking around, to see, where are my colleagues? And I went
into the retiring room, and I saw where a bunch of my colleagues were. And I’m
really tired of watching women of color, in particular, being ignored. So, I’m
not sorry” (Terkel 2017).
“Manterrupting”
Interruptions offer a final mechanism to “engineer female silence” (Spender
1980, 44) by preventing women from achieving their interactional goals.
Zimmerman and West (1975, 103) argue that because interruptions involve
“violations of speakers’ turns at talk,” they serve as “a device for exercising
power and control in conversation.” Meta-analyses find that men are more
likely than women to interrupt, suggesting they feel more entitled to take the
conversational floor. Men also engage in “intrusive interruptions,” which aim
to display dominance, at a far greater rate than women (Anderson and Leaper
1998). The concept of “manterrupting,” a recent neologism, captures these
gendered dynamics, referring to cases where men interrupt women as they are
trying to speak (Bennett 2016).
Aggregate-level data from Australia reveals that during estimates
hearings—a process involving scrutiny of the government’s proposed budget—
between 2006 and 2015, male senators overwhelmingly used interruptions to
gain the floor or obstruct other speakers, and most negative interruptions were
aimed at women. Female witnesses, moreover, were far more likely than their
male counterparts to face attempts to destroy their credibility and authority;
they were also 2.5 times more likely to be called “emotional” or “unreason-
able” (Richards 2016, 49). Asked to respond, female politicians in Australia
concurred with the analysis. Senator Katy Gallagher noted: “Nothing in this
study surprises me. It reflects my experiences having sat through various Senate
committee hearings over the last 18 months” (Workman 2016).
An individual-level experience that gained national attention occurred in
Japan in 2014 when Ayaka Shiomura was giving her first speech after being
elected a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. As she spoke about the
need to do more to support working women who want or have children, one
male colleague called out: “You’re the one who should get married as soon as
possible.” Another shouted: “Are you not able to have a baby?” She finished the
speech, despite their laughter, and then posted a message about the incident on
Twitter, which soon went viral. Less than a day later, the assembly had received
more than 1000 complaints; within two days, more than 40,000 people had
signed an online petition calling on the Tokyo chapter of the suspected perpe-
trators’ party to identify and punish whoever had been involved in the heck-
ling (Kameda 2014). Shiomura’s subsequent comments reveal she interpreted
it as a gendered attempt to silence and demean her right to have a political
voice: “The male members’ offensive remarks indicate they think women who
aren’t married, or can’t bear a child, aren’t worth listening to” (McCurry 2014).
RENDERING INCOMPETENT
The second mode of semiotic violence entails rendering women incompetent as

political actors. Casting women as a group as “unfit” for leadership, these acts
tap into prescriptive and proscriptive stereotypes about women’s inability to
serve in public roles. They do so by emphasizing “incongruity” between traits
and behaviors ascribed to women (warm, polite, and yielding) and those associ-
ated with men and leaders (assertive, decisive, and confident) (Eagly and Karau
2002). When women overcome these gendered beliefs to become leaders, there-
fore, they continue to confront gendered tropes questioning their intelligence,
humanity, and morality as political actors. Cognitive dissonance generated by
these stereotypes can also question their status as “women,” thus reinforcing
ideas about men as “natural” and legitimate political leaders.
Feminist psychologists developed the concept of “role incongruity” to
account for divergence in evaluations of male versus female leaders. In a meta-
analysis, Eagly, Makhijani, and Klonsky (1992) find that, because gender and
leadership stereotypes align for men but conflict for women, female leaders
tend to be viewed as less competent than male counterparts with similar cre-
dentials. Penalized for perceived “status violations” (Rudman, Moss-Racusin,
Phelan, and Nauts 2012), female leaders are also often viewed as illegitimate,
with their authority not seen as deserved or justified (Vial, Napier, and Brescoll
2016), as well as “cold,” losing the warmth stereotypically attributed to women
(Cuddy, Fiske, and Glick 2004).
Literature on gender, politics, and the media vividly illustrates these
dynamics. Arguing that media coverage privileges the practice of politics as a
male pursuit (Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ross 1996), studies observe that while
most stories about male politicians focus on their political ideas, a dispropor-
tionately large share of women’s coverage fixates on their physical appearance
(Falk 2008). Similarly, male politicians tend to be presented as living in an inte-
grated world of work and family life; female politicians, in contrast, are often
portrayed as inhabiting two conflicting worlds (Van Zoonen 1998; Thomas

and Bittner 2017). Tendencies to highlight that female candidates are the “first
woman” to pursue a particular office serves, further, to underscore their status
as a “novelty and anomaly” (Heldman, Carroll, and Olson 2005, 325).
Investigating the ways in which the competence, and thus the authority, of
women in politics is challenged around the world yields at least six strategies.
These acts of semiotic violence seek to belittle women who engage in politics,
ranging from insulting portrayals of their temperaments or political knowl-
edge, to aggressive campaigns to sexually objectify and shame them, to judg-
ments insinuating that they are “failed” women. Seeking to undercut women’s
access to, as well as effectiveness in, the political arena, these tactics aim to
dehumanize political women, punishing them for presuming they have the right
to participate in political life.
Emotional Ridicule
A common metaphorical dualism in philosophy associates men with reason
and women with emotion (Lloyd 1984), proposing a fundamental—and highly
gendered—incompatibility between outward emotional displays and the abil-
ity to make objective, rational decisions (Brescoll 2016). Expressions of anger
by female leaders are particularly fraught: while men’s emotional reactions
are often attributed to external factors, making their outbursts seem justi-
fied, women’s anger tends to be ascribed to internal characteristics, marking
them as “angry people” and, in turn, lowering perceptions of their competence
(Brescoll and Uhlmann 2008, 268). Derogatory terms used against women in
leadership positions thus tend to highlight this anger component, trivializing
women’s voices as “shrill” and “strident” in order to dismiss out of hand what
they have to say (Spender 1980).10
Ridiculing women as overly emotional is thus a common trope used
against female politicians. When Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard
delivered her famous “misogyny speech” in 2012, many media outlets and
conservative politicians framed it as an “uncontrolled emotional outburst.”
Insinuating she had “lost control of any rational façade she had put on,”
the speech—in their version of the story—“exposed her true nature as reac-
tive, emotional, irrational, and ultimately unsuitable for and incapable of
leadership” (Wright and Holland 2014, 456, 465). A similar trope was used
by media in Brazil in the months leading up to the 2016 impeachment of
President Dilma Rousseff. The magazine Isto É was particularly egregious,
with images and stories declaring she was “out of control” and suffer-
ing from “nervous explosions” (Biroli 2016, 572). Around the same time, a
Chinese Communist Party-linked newspaper published an opinion piece call-
ing Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen “an excessively ‘emotional’ single woman
without family or children, and therefore prone to take ‘extremist political
positions’ ” (Fincher 2016).
Disqualification
In other instances, the aim is to portray women as distinctly unqualified for
political activity. One common approach is to foreground aspects of women’s
descriptive backgrounds as a means for calling into question their preparation
to hold political office. While the skills and experiences of candidates should
be scrutinized by voters, the reservations expressed in these instances are not
rooted in sincere concerns that the “best” candidates be elected or appointed.
Rather, as Price (2016) suggests, a woman in (or aspiring to) a political posi-
tion appears to mobilize efforts to find something that might disqualify her,
a form of hyper-scrutiny out of proportion to that faced by male politicians.
These trip-up campaigns pose a particularly acute challenge for women who
are members of other politically marginalized groups, compounding skepti-
cism about their competence to serve in leadership roles.
In 2013, Cécile Kyenge became the first black cabinet member in Italy
when she was appointed minister of integration. Seeking to dehumanize her,
Italian Senator Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League party stated: “when
I see the pictures of Kyenge, I cannot but think of . . . the features of an orang-
utan.” In a supposed apology, party leader Umberto Bossi reinforced her
departure from the traditional profile of Italian politicians by noting that she
was “differently white” and “also a woman.” Other Northern League attacks
presumed a more limited role for (black) women in Italian society. One local
councilor explained that “she seems like a great housekeeper” but “not a gov-
ernment minister.” MEP Mario Borghezio called her a “shitty choice” who was
“totally incompetent” and had “the face of housewife” (Meret, Della Corta,
and Sanguiliano 2013).
A second version of this tactic involves generating disinformation about polit-
ical women, drawing on digital manipulation techniques to create false images and
stories casting women’s qualifications into doubt. In 2019, distorted videos of U.S.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi giving a speech were posted and circulated widely online,
“subtly edited to make her voice sound garbled and warped” and possibly drunk.
Analysis by digital forensics experts found that to correct for the 75% slowdown in
the speed of the video, Pelosi’s voice had been altered to modify her pitch to make
the video sound more realistic. In addition to being viewed millions of times,
the video was shared via Twitter by Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York
and Donald Trump’s personal attorney, who commented: “What is wrong with
Nancy Pelosi? Her speech pattern is bizarre.” Trump himself posted another ver-
sion, edited to focus on “moments where she briefly paused or stumbled—that
he claimed showed her stammering through a news conference” (Harwell 2019).
Despite growing concern about the phenomenon of “fake news,” the gen-
dered potential of “deepfake” technologies has not yet been fully explored
(Chemaly 2019). While male public figures have also been the subject of doc-
tored videos, research finds that “deepfake videos are much more likely to
be deployed against women, minorities, people from the LGBT community,
[and] poor people” (Hao 2019). Particularly alarming, these tools can do more
than simply alter and selectively edit existing clips; they can also combine and
manipulate images to create computer-generated videos of people saying and
doing things they have not done. In countries like Ukraine and Georgia, these
forms of “sexualized disinformation” have already started to appear, mixing
“old ingrained sexist attitudes with the anonymity and reach of social media
in an effort to destroy women’s reputations and push them out of public
life” (Jankowicz 2017). Such disinformation can have a staggering reach: the
American Mirror, a YouTube channel “almost entirely dedicated to videos
crafted to criticize or embarrass female Democratic leaders,” has more than
30 million total views (Harwell 2019).
“Mansplaining”
A third way to communicate women’s presumed incompetence is via “mans-
plaining,” referring to instances where a man speaks to a woman in a patron-
izing manner, on the assumption that he knows more about the topic that the
person he is addressing (Kinney 2017). This pattern implies that the best person
to explain the topic at hand is a man, training women in “self-doubt and self-
limitation” while reinforcing “men’s unsupported overconfidence” (Solnit 2014,
4). Growing usage of this term by political women around the world signals
that, even once elected, women continue to have their place in politics ques-
tioned by their male colleagues.
At an interview at the World Economic Forum in 2018, Norwegian prime
minister Erna Solberg spoke about an experience early in her career. First
elected to parliament at age 28, she observed: “I have met a lot of people who
have maybe underestimated you, because you were a young girl in politics at
the time.” In one instance, she was serving on the finance committee when a
bank CEO tried to tell her “like a child, in a very child-like way, how the inter-
est rate market functions.” The committee chair then leaned over to clarify to
the CEO that she in fact had the highest-level of education on the committee
(Parker 2018).
Such exchanges have also taken place on the floor of national and pro-
vincial parliaments. The most extensive debate involved a confrontation
in the Australian Senate in 2016. Senator Katy Gallagher was questioning
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield about several proposed bills on welfare
and families and whether they had the support of the prime minister. Fifield
responded with a lengthy explanation of internal government procedures, and
before she could follow up with another question, he interrupted: “Let me just
stop you so you don’t waste a line of questioning.” Surprised, she commented: “I
love the mansplaining. I’m enjoying it.” Confused, he asked: “What’s mans-
plaining, senator?” After Gallagher explained that it referred to the “patron-
izing and condescending way that you are responding to my questions,” Fifield
chastised her for “invoking gender in impugning how a senator is responding”
and advised her to “take a good look at herself.” She stated, not without a little
irony: “I am surprised that you do not understand the term ‘mansplaining’ ”
(Workman 2017).
Sexual Objectification
Sexual objectification of women reduces them to their body parts and depicts
their individual and collective worth solely in terms of their ability to be sexually
attractive. It is therefore a potent tool for denigrating women and, particularly,
for attacking women seeking a role in public life. Research on objectification
reveals that exposure to such portrayals leads to diminished opinions regarding
a woman’s competence, morality, and humanity among women and men (Ward
2016). Consequently, this strategy can negatively shape perceptions of women’s
credibility and suitability for political roles (Funk and Coker 2016). Coinciding
with advances in communication technologies enabling “a new era of objec-
tification” (Heldman and Wade 2011, 156), politics has become increasingly
“pornified,” with images, metaphors, and narratives from pornography enter-
ing online spaces as well as mainstream media coverage. This process affects
male and female politicians unequally: while men are typically cast in posi-
tions of power, female candidates tend to be humiliated, violated, and abused
(Sheeler and Anderson 2013).
Conducting an internet search of politicians’ names with the word
“porn,” Chemaly (2016) finds that male names—like Donald Trump, Ted
Cruz, and Bernie Sanders—produce relatively “benign lists” of articles, while
female names—like Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, and
Sarah Palin—yield “page after page of actual porn sites, using the women’s
names and photographs of their faces to portray them in bestial and brutally
sexually objectifying videos and photos.” She argues these forms of “non-
consensual porn” use “graphic sexualization to comment on a woman can-
didate’s worthiness for office,” as a “form of attack intended to degrade and
silence women.”
In the United States, these trends began in earnest in 2008, after the nomi-
nation of Sarah Palin as vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party
(Sheeler and Anderson 2013). Her physical appearance was a substantial focus
of early media coverage: Time magazine referred to her as a “sex symbol,” and
a clip of Palin wearing a swimsuit during a beauty contest received well over
a million views on YouTube (Heflick and Goldenberg 2011). Over the course
of the campaign Palin was increasingly sexualized. Entrepreneurs marketed
blow-up dolls and pornographic films and, in a widely circulated image, pho-
toshopped Palin’s head onto the body of a woman in a bikini holding a rifle
(Carlin and Winfrey 2009). Evidence suggests this sexualization was not harm-
less fun: priming people to focus on her appearance reduced perceptions of her
competence, as well as intentions to vote for the Republican ticket (Heflick and
Goldenberg 2009).
A distinct strategy of sexual objectification was employed against Kolinda

Grabar-Kitarović, the first woman and youngest person ever to serve as presi-
dent of Croatia. Rather than publishing digitally altered images, online and tra-
ditional news outlets more commonly engaged in “false identity attribution,”11
using videos and photos of other women portrayed in sexually objectifying
ways but claiming that the woman was Grabar-Kitarović herself. Soon after
her election in 2015, for example, a Serbian tabloid published stills purporting
to show her in a porn video (Kumar 2018). In 2016, the Washington Post and
other international outlets published stories about viral photos purporting to
show her in a bikini. Although the images were later determined to be of Coco
Austin, an American reality star, photos continued to surface online, featuring
a range of different models and porn stars. In an interview, Grabar-Kitarović
stated: “It makes you feel like an object, rather than as an actor” (Full Frontal
with Samantha Bee 2016).
Slut Shaming
“Slut shaming” is a related but distinct phenomenon, involving the “shaming of
someone due to their sexual behavior—real, imagined, or made up” (Hanson-
Young 2018, 55). This type of shaming is directed almost exclusively at women
to silence them, often for reasons that have nothing to do with actual sexual
activity. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte accused Senator Leila
de Lima, a harsh critic of his administration’s policies, of having an affair with
her married chauffeur. Claiming she had a “propensity for sex,” he declared she
was “not only screwing her driver” but “also screwing the nation” (Sherwell
2016). Soon after, representatives in the lower house of parliament loyal to the
president proposed screening a sex tape supposedly featuring de Lima with her
chauffeur. The five other female senators came together, despite their political
differences, to speak out against the plan, calling it “a form of slut-shaming
that will not set a good example for the country” (Elemia 2016).
In 2018, female candidates in Iraq faced unprecedented levels of abuse and
intimidation in the run-up to parliamentary elections. The problem was so bad,
indeed, that UN Special Representative Ján Kubiš issued a statement denounc-
ing the “targeting and defamation of women candidates,” including “attacks
against the reputation and honor of candidates and their families, pressing
them to step down.”12 In at least five instances, purported “sex tapes” surfaced
to damage the women’s campaigns. In one case, a three-minute clip appeared
on social media, showing a woman and a man engaged in intimate acts, alleg-
ing that the woman in the video was Intidhar Ahmed Jassim, a candidate for
the Victory Coalition of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Jassim denounced
the video, calling it “fabricated,” but within hours of her statement, Hussein
al-Adily, a spokesman for the Victory Coalition, announced she had withdrawn
her candidacy. Seemingly siding with her perpetrators, however, he stated: “it is
the right of every coalition and party to withdraw any candidate not abiding by
the qualifications and characteristics set for all the candidates . . . and this can-
didate did not abide by the guidelines” (Tajali and Farhan 2018). The Victory
Coalition also dropped Antithar Al Shammari, a sitting MP, as a candidate for
reelection after a “salacious video” allegedly featuring her was posted online—
despite her insistence that the video was fake (Aldroubi 2018).
Another strategy entails “revenge porn,” or “nonconsensual pornography”
involving “the distribution of sexually graphic images of individuals without
their consent” (Citron and Franks 2014, 346). In 2019, a conservative web-
site, RedState.org, and a British tabloid, the Daily Mail, published nude photos
and a series of damaging articles about U.S. Representative Katie Hill. Weeks
before they were published, Hill’s estranged husband Kenny Heslep had report-
edly reached out to the Los Angeles Times, asking if they wanted “the whole
story” of their divorce. Joe Messina, an aide to former Representative Steve
Knight, informed the National Republican Congressional Committee he was
in possession of more than 700 images and texts tied to Hill. Their release into
the public domain coincided with allegations that Hill had engaged in affairs
with a female campaign aide, which she admitted and apologized for as “inap-
propriate,” as well as her male legislative director, which she denied (Caygle
2019). The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into the latter,
stemming from a rule passed in 2018 banning sexual relationships between
Congress members and staffers.
Although Hill vigorously denied the affair with her staffer, she opted a
few days later to resign from her position in Congress. The letter announc-
ing her resignation made clear that her decision was driven by the “revenge
porn.” Expressing anguish that “private photos of personal moments” had
been “weaponized” against her, Hill lamented the “pain inflicted by my abusive
husband and the brutality of hateful political operatives who seem to happily
provide a platform to a monster who is driving a smear campaign built around
cyber exploitation.” However, she vowed to keep fighting to “defeat this type
of exploitation . . . which will keep countless women and girls from running for
office or entering public light.”13 In her final speech in Congress, Hill criticized
the “misogynistic culture that gleefully consumed my naked pictures, capital-
ized on my sexuality, and enabled my abusive ex to continue that abuse, this
time with the entire country watching.” Responding to the forces that had come
together to “push a young woman out of power,” she concluded: “I yield the
balance of my time for now, but not forever.”14
Identity Questioning
A final tactic for undermining women as political actors is to intimate that
women who do demonstrate political competence are not “real women.” In
an experimental study, Schneider and Bos (2014) find that female politicians
are not seen as sharing qualities stereotypically attributed to women. Perhaps
for this reason, a common mode of criticizing them is to accuse them of being
lesbians (Rothschild 2005). This trope figures prominently in media coverage

and social media representations of high-level politicians like Julia Gillard,
Helen Clark (former prime minister of New Zealand), and Tarja Halonen (for-
mer president of Finland).
Empirically, female politicians around the world are more likely to be sin-
gle and childless than they are to be mothers, while male politicians are pre-
dominantly family men (Thomas and Bittner 2017). This pattern stems from
cultural beliefs that women with children should not run for political office, as
well as parliamentary working conditions that make it difficult to balance work
and family life, including lack of parental leave, late working hours, and fre-
quent travel (Childs 2015). In 2016, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon
opened up about a miscarriage she had experienced in 2011 at the age of 40.
While she acknowledged in an interview that there were “many reasons why
women don’t have children,” the graphic included with the story not only flat-
tened this nuance, but also reinforced the notion of female leaders as “devi-
ant” by featuring six other women under the caption: “childless politicians”
(Rhodes 2016).
Treating political women as an aberration from gendered expectations,
however, is perhaps most obvious and acute in the case of Hillary Clinton.
During the 2007–2008 U.S. presidential primary campaign, Clinton was fre-
quently depicted as a “monster” or a cyborg. Ritchie (2013, 103) argues that
this was not accidental: rather, female political figures “are especially prone
to monsterization and the political arena is a fertile site for the creation of
monstrous women” because they “destabilize identity categories.” Demonizing
her, anti-Hillary groups digitally simulated devil horns and the number 666 tat-
tooed across her forehead. They also commonly spliced her head onto a male
body or morphed her face together with her husband’s. These representations,
Ritchie argues, portrayed Hillary Clinton—and her bid for the White House—
as “improper and unnatural” (102).
Solutions to Semiotic Violence
The concept of semiotic violence is new, but its manifestations are not—and
some legal frameworks offer recourse for targets of this form of abuse. The
primary instrument available is defamation law, which can punish false state-
ments harmful to a person’s reputation expressed in either written or spoken
form. Other strategies more directly address the semiotic dimensions of this
violence. Some pursue change at the structural level of language, while others
seek to create new habits and practices, drawing on the inherently interactive
nature of speech. Further tactics respond to semiotic violence in the moment,
challenging its power by seeking to undermine its effects or standing in solidar-
ity with victims.
LEGAL REFORMS
A straightforward means to counteract women’s invisibility in political spaces is

to make them visible. Legal reforms have recognized women’s status as autono-
mous human beings and provided them with full and equal political rights. In
some contexts, nevertheless, women have been denied full political recognition
until recently. In Mexico, indigenous communities in Oaxaca have the right to
follow their own traditions and customs when electing their leaders. In 2007, a
woman in one of these municipalities, Eufrosina Cruz, ran to become mayor.
However, when town leaders saw her name on some of the ballots, they tore
them up, claiming she was not a “citizen” and that, according to the custom,
“only the citizens vote, not the women” (Stevenson 2008). Cruz lodged a com-
plaint with the National Commission of Human Rights, which ruled in her
favor and recommended changes to Oaxacan laws. In 2010, she stood again as
a candidate, this time for local deputy, and two years later, she was elected to
the national parliament. Due in part to her efforts, Article 2 of the Constitution
was revised in 2015 to stipulate that indigenous people could “elect, in accor-
dance with their traditional rules, procedures, and customs, their authorities
and representatives,” but must also guarantee “the right to vote and be elected
of indigenous women and men under equitable conditions.”15
Legal measures may also be implemented as a way of changing prevailing
community practices, thereby bringing them in line with existing legal rights.
In 2017, the parliament in Pakistan approved a new Elections Act that, among
other changes, addressed the problem of women being prevented from exercis-
ing their right to vote in various parts of the country. In a section on powers
to declare a poll invalid, the text includes “implementation of an agreement
restraining women from casting their votes” among “grave illegalities” that
have “materially affected the result of the poll at one or more polling stations.”
It mandates, in turn, that “if the turnout of women voters is less than ten per-
cent of the total votes polled in a constituency, the [Election] Commission may
presume that the women voters have been restrained through an agreement
from casting their votes” and therefore may declare those elections void, requir-
ing voters to “recast their votes in the manner provided for bye-elections.”16
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
Defamation law provides an ongoing legal remedy in many countries, although

specific laws vary widely in terms of how defamation is defined, what exemp-
tions are provided, and what standards of evidence exist for proving that defa-
mation in fact occurred. In Italy, former Integration Minister Cécile Kyenge
has pursued and won several legal cases related to the sexist and racist abuse she
faced during her time in office. In 2017, Mario Borghezio was ordered to pay
€50,000 for describing the cabinet, with Kyenge’s inclusion, as “bongo-bongo
government.” In 2019, Roberto Calderoli was found guilty of defamation

by racial hatred for likening her to an orangutan, resulting in an 18-month
prison sentence. While he attempted to excuse his remarks as “playful banter,”
Kyenge argued that the verdict was a “very important signal . . . in the name
of respect and dignity for people.” She continued: “Words are weighty, and
when they come from a politician, they risk having a very negative impact”
(Giuffrida 2019).
In Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young, a Green Senator, had faced repeated
innuendos about her sexual behavior since being elected in 2008, as both the
youngest woman ever to win a seat and an unmarried single mother.17 In 2018,
she decided she could no longer stay silent after Senator David Leyonhjelm
yelled at her during a debate on violence against women: “You should stop
shagging men, Sarah!” Both the Green Party leader and Senate president asked
him to apologize, but he refused and then went on a Sky News program in
which he said that “Sarah is known for liking men,” and “The rumors about her
in parliament are well known” (quotes then included in the electronically gener-
ated captions posted at the bottom of screen). Leyonhjelm spread the message
further on additional television and radio programs, prompting Hanson-Young
to sue him for defamation (Hanson-Young 2018, 69).
The lawsuit focused on Leyonhjelm’s suggestions that she was a misandrist
and hypocrite, rather than the promiscuity allegations. Because his comments
in the Senate were protected by parliamentary privilege, the case covered only
the interviews he gave outside parliament. His lawyers argued that since the
remarks had originated in the Senate, they were also covered by privilege. The
judge disagreed, arguing that “he published his claim concerning the appli-
cant to a mass audience with the intention of publicly shaming her” (“Sarah
Hanson-Young” 2019). Much of the legal case revolved around his claim that
Hanson-Young had said words to the effects of “all men are rapists,” a claim
she denied and which was backed up by other senators in court. Finding in
her favor, the judge ordered Leyonhjelm to pay $120,000 in damages, which
Hanson-Young said she would donate to two women’s charities. At a press
conference following the verdict, she stated it was “important . . . to put a
line under this type of behavior,” as “it doesn’t matter if you work in a shop
or a factory floor or the parliament. Every woman deserves to be treated with
respect” (McGowan and Karp 2019).
LANGUAGE ADAPTATIONS
Resistance to feminizing political language continues in many countries.

However, steps have been taken in some contexts to consider how to make
language more inclusive. In France, the government of François Mitterrand
created the first Ministry for Women’s Rights in 1981. However, when the min-
ister, Yvette Roudy, sought to be called “Madame la Ministre” (rather than
Madame le Minstre, the masculine form), she was refused (“Yvette Roudy”
2019). In 1983, parliament passed a law on professional equality, leading to
the creation in 1984 of a commission to explore the feminization of titles and
functions. The commission produced a circular in 1986 prescribing the usage
of feminine terms in official documents and offering rules for feminizing pro-
fessional terms and titles. It had little effect, however, meeting with substantial
resistance. Consequently, when Édith Cresson became the first female prime
minister in 1991, she was referred to throughout her term as “le premier minis-
tre” (the masculine form).
Over the course of the 1990s, a movement for gender parity emerged, spark-
ing extensive public debate on women’s role in public life. When a Socialist gov-
ernment was elected in 1997, six of the eight women in the new cabinet asked
to be addressed as “Madame la Ministre.” The government published a circular
in early 1998 declaring all women would be addressed with feminine titles. The
commission appointed to establish the rules on feminization, however, reified
the distinction between public space and the private sphere. Arguing that profes-
sions were located in the private sphere, the commission accepted the feminiza-
tion of professional titles. However, they strongly opposed changes to titles used
for jobs in the public sphere, like the civil service, arguing that in these spaces the
law was indifferent to sex. As such, they proposed the “unmarked” masculine
form was required when referring to the role or office, but the “marked” femi-
nine form could be used when referring to particular individuals (Burr 2003).
Throughout these debates, the Académie Française, the official author-
ity on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, remained
resolutely opposed to any of these reforms. In February 2019, however, it pro-
nounced itself in favor of feminizing all professions and titles, a move that one
journalist called “nothing less than a revolution,” being “the very first time that
the institution, created in 1634, has gone so far in recognizing the feminine
nature of words” (Rérolle 2019). A report published by a study commission
declared “there existed no obstacle in principle to the feminization of nouns”
and noted, indeed, that many professions—apart from those “higher in the pro-
fessional hierarchy”—had already feminized their functions and titles. While
continuing to insist that public roles, when referred to in the abstract, should
retain the “unmarked” from, they no long opposed feminization when referring
to those holding these positions. Thus, Rérolle (2019) observes, “if France had
a woman again as the head of its government, she would be called without a
doubt ‘première ministre,’ and ‘présidente’ [the feminine forms] if she occupied
the highest function.”
LANGUAGE GUIDES
The movement for inclusive language began in earnest during the second wave
feminist movement, resulting in efforts to change linguistic practices. In 1987,
representatives from Canada and the Nordic countries raised the issue of sexist
language at the UNESCO General Conference. The debate led to Resolution
14.1, instructing the director-general to “adopt a policy related to the draft-
ing of all of the Organization’s working documents aimed at avoiding, to the
extent possible, the use of language which refers explicitly or implicitly to only
one sex except where positive measures are being considered.”18 Further resolu-
tions strengthening this stance were passed in 1989, 1991, and 1995, reflecting
“a growing awareness that language does not merely reflect the way we think: it
also shapes our thinking. If words and expressions that imply that women are
inferior to men are constantly used, that assumption of inferiority tends to
become part of our mindset; hence the need to adjust our language when our
ideas evolve.”19
To this end, UNESCO published a “Guide to Non-Sexist Language” in
1987; by its third edition in 1999, this title had been changed to “Guidelines on
Gender-Neutral Language.” In January 2019, the Division on Gender Equality
summarized the “underlying principle of gender-inclusive language” as treat-
ing and respecting women and men as equals. Linguistically, such efforts entail
“overall gender balance, parallel word choices for both men and women, and
elimination of terms that stereotype, exclude, or demean women.” In the way
of alternatives, UNESCO recommended avoiding terms that make irrelevant
assumptions about gender and gender roles; replacing masculine generic forms
(like “mankind” or “fatherland”) with gender-inclusive generics (like “human-
kind” and “homeland”); altering occupational titles that include irrelevant gen-
der modifiers (like “spokesman” to “spokesperson”); using double pronouns
(“he and she” in lieu of “he”), adopting gender-inclusive synonyms (“they”),
or eliminating personal pronouns altogether; and avoiding references and titles
reflecting a woman’s marital status.20
Embodying this spirit of reform, the lower house of parliament in Argentina
published a Guide for the Use of Non-Sexist and Egalitarian Language in the
National Chamber of Deputies in 2015. Part of a parliamentary modernization
program, the authors described the guide as a “didactic proposal to promote
communication that is more democratic and in line with legislative reforms in
recent years regarding gender equality.” Noting that language use was “not
innocent,” they argued that male-centered conventions contributed to the “per-
sistence in the collective imagination the perception that women are subsid-
iary, secondary, and dispensable,” thus creating obstacles to the equal rights
of women and men as established in Argentine law. Against the RAE, they
deemed efforts to defend masculine universals on the grounds of “economy
in language” both “abusive and sexist.” Giving copious examples of inclusive
language, they stressed the semiotic and political importance of using femi-
nine forms: “Female legislators exist, work in both chambers of Congress, and
it is correct and essential to render visible their presence and participation”
(Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Nación 2015, 10, 27, 54).
AMPLIFICATION
Women’s contributions in professional discussions can be erased and mini-

mized in many ways. In addition to interruptions, which deny their rights
to speak and be heard, women’s voices may also not be “heard” when they
are able to speak. In some instances, a male colleague may—consciously or
unconsciously—express the same idea only minutes later, with others respond-
ing by giving him credit for the idea. Work on sexism in the workplace increas-
ingly uses neologisms like “hepeating” and “bropropriation” to refer to these
common practices. Bennett (2016) offers five strategies for dealing with this
problem: using active words taking ownership of the idea, thanking colleagues
for picking up on the idea, enlisting a friend to chime in that the idea was
first voiced by the woman, putting the suggestion on the record in an email
or other electronic document, and supporting other women in meetings who
offer new ideas.
Although President Barack Obama openly called himself a “feminist,”
women were a minority of his top aides and, during meetings, some found
their voices and ideas were being ignored and/or appropriated. The women
then adopted a strategy they called “amplification,” namely “when a woman
made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author. This
forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution—and denied them the
chance to claim the idea as their own.” One staffer explained: “We just started
doing it, and made a purpose of doing it. It was an everyday thing.” Obama
then began calling more often on women and junior aides during meetings
(Eilperin 2016b). The story, which first appeared in the Washington Post, went
viral and women in a wide range of arenas—music, the tech industry, and the
foreign policy world—began to use the strategy. One bank executive described
amplification as: “On the one hand, we want to give voice to women. But on
the other hand, we want to make sure men have the skill to listen and to hear”
(Eilperin 2016a).
SEMIOTIC REVERSALS
Another way to counteract semiotic violence is to flip the script, reducing the
power of these acts to restrict women’s political activity by confronting perpe-
trators and challenging the cultural signification of these words and images.
One strategy is to push those who use these tropes to take responsibility for
their actions, de-normalizing semiotic violence in the process as reflecting a
shared understanding of women’s value as actors in the political realm. In
2017, for example, Canadian MP Gerry Ritz tweeted a link to a news article
with the headline, “No major advanced industrialized economy is currently on
pace to meeting its Paris commitments,” and commented, “Has anyone told
our climate Barbie!”
Catherine McKenna, then the minister of environment and climate change,

responded to the slur—commonly used against her—by tweeting back: “Do
you use that sexist language about your daughter, mother, sister? We need more
women in politics. Your sexist comments won’t stop us.” Ritz deleted his origi-
nal tweet minutes later and then tweeted an apology for “the use of Barbie”
as “it is not reflective of the role the minister plays.”21 Several months later,
McKenna similarly called out a reporter after he identified himself as working
for the far-right news site, The Rebel. Prior to answering his question, she com-
mented: “So you’re the Rebel Media that happens to call me ‘climate Barbie.’
I certainly hope that you will no longer use that hashtag.” While he denied call-
ing her that name personally, she interjected that she was simply asking for a
commitment that the site no longer use that type of language: “The reason I’m
asking you not to do this is because I have two daughters. There are lots of girls
that want to get into politics and it is completely unacceptable that you do this”
(“Catherine McKenna” 2017).
A second form of semiotic reversal entails appropriating slurs, which
are derogatory in most contexts, to “echo” these uses “in ways and contexts
that make manifest the dissociation from the offensive contents” (Bianchi
2014, 35). Serving as “vehicles of rapport” among “in-group speakers”
(Croom 2011, 343), these negative words can gain positive, even empower-
ing, connotations for the group in question. This occurred, for instance,
when Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” during the
final U.S. presidential debate in 2016. The reaction on social media was
immediate, with #NastyWoman trending on Twitter along with memes and
gifs featuring Janet Jackson’s 1986 hit “Nasty.” People magazine described
it as a moment in which “what was meant to be a slur against Hillary
Clinton swiftly became a battle cry for women everywhere as they embraced
Donald Trump’s ‘nasty woman’ comment” (Quinn 2016). Providing insights
as to why the term resonated with so many, one woman interviewed by the
Huffington Post stated: “If she’s a nasty woman, I want to be a nasty woman
too” (Gray 2016).
A third tactic is to invert portrayals as a form of awareness-raising.
In 2011, a group of French women formed a feminist action group called
La Barbe (The Beard). Their aim, spelled out on their website, is “not to
place a few more women in men’s clubs ruled by men, created by men. It is
to render men’s domination visible in high spheres of power, in all sectors
of professional, political, cultural, and social life by mocking their codes,
their values, their esprit de corps.”22 Their actions entail attending events
dominated by men—for example all-male panels—and sitting quietly in the
audience. At a given moment, the women pull beards out of their bags,
put them on, stand up together, and then read out in unison a prepared
speech praising the exclusion of women.23 At a political event, for example,
they drew connections across many generations of men who had “the good
taste” to “engrave the rights of man and the citizen in stone” while “care-
fully discarding the rights of women,” who were able to “resist the hysterical
claims of the suffragettes,” and who have “kept the reins of power without
sharing,” from the “most modest town hall to the corridors of the [presi-
dential] palace.”24
A comparable effort in English is the “Man Who Has It All” parody
Twitter account,25 which first appeared in 2015. It features advice from an
anonymous “working dad” who offers short messages of advice for “men
juggling a successful career and fatherhood.” By switching out women for
men, the tweets illustrate the unrealistic demands often made on women—but
normalized in magazines and everyday life—by highlighting how ludicrous
they sound when applied to men. They also highlight sexism in commen-
tary on women and their professional accomplishments that would never be
made about men (Wills 2016). Sample tweets related to the political arena
include: “ ‘Half the population are male, therefore we want up to a third
(max) of politicians to be men.’ Claudia, politician”;26 “ ‘Male politician’ is
NOT an offensive term. It is simply a way to differentiate them from normal
politicians. End of story”;27 and “TODAY’S QUIZ: Can you name 3 men
politicians?”28 While the “language of these tweets might seem absurdist to
anyone who is not female,” Vigo (2015) suggests, it also shows “how ridicu-
lous such representations are and how pervasive these tropes lurk throughout
our society.”
SOLIDARITY
Expressing solidarity is a final way to challenge semiotic violence, offering sup-

port to targets while also undercutting the power of these acts to denigrate and
harm them. In the Philippines, both ordinary citizens and women in the Senate
came out to oppose plans by a parliamentary committee to screen a purported
sex video of Senator Leila de Lima and her driver. On social media, female
activists initiated a campaign of “self-incrimination for solidarity,” encourag-
ing users to post the line: “I would like to testify in Congress. It was me in
the sex video. #EveryWoman.” Others simply used the hashtag #EveryWoman
to post tweets linking the act against de Lima to the broader suppression of
women’s participation in politics (Rappler Social Media Team 2016). A few
days later, the five other female senators—Risa Hontiveros, Grace Poe, Nancy
Binay, Cynthia Villar, and Loren Legarda—filed Senate Resolution No. 184
condemning the proposal. They noted that screening a private video would
violate at least two laws—the Anti Photo or Video Voyeurism Act and the
Anti-Wiretapping Law—in addition to breaching the “time-honored princi-
ple of inter-parliamentary courtesy” whereby sitting senators should not be
“subjected” to “ridicule and ignominy.” Most crucially, however, they wrote

that showing a sex video in Congress would be “a blow to our collective strug-
gle to uplift the dignity of women, respect her agency and her autonomy over
her own body, and is a form of slut-shaming that will not set a good example
for the country.” 29
PART IV
A Call to Action
17
Cross-Cutting Solutions
Naming the problem of violence against women in politics has drawn crucial
attention to this phenomenon. While tactics have emerged to counteract particu-
lar categories of violence, collective efforts to understand this problem highlight
the multifaceted and overlapping nature of its manifestations. Consequently,
single-pronged solutions—although powerful in specific instances—may not
suffice, on their own, to address the fuller spectrum of acts of violence against
women in politics. However, numerous strategies developed by practitioners
also cut across different kinds of violence, complementing—and potentially
amplifying the effects of—these efforts. Pioneered in various parts of the globe,
cross-cutting solutions fall into three categories: awareness-raising initiatives,
legal reforms, and safety and support frameworks. As a group, they tackle this
problem at various stages, seeking to prevent, sanction, and provide redress for
acts of violence against women in politics.
Awareness-Raising Initiatives
Raising awareness is vital to all other efforts, laying the groundwork for de-
normalizing violence against women in politics—and, in turn, inspiring action
to address it. MacKinnon (1982) describes consciousness-raising as the “major
technique of analysis, structure of organization, method of practice, and theory
of social change of the women’s movement,” driven forward by the “collective
speaking of women’s experience, from the perspective of that experience” (519–
520). The #MeToo movement provides a recent example of the power of this
approach, with initial disclosures creating momentum for women around the
world to come forward about their own experiences of sexual harassment and
assault. Noting that many men—but few women—were “surprised by these sto-
ries, or by the sheer, vast numbers of them,” Renkl (2017) suggests that “for too
long women have not considered them stories worth telling” or have hesitated
218 A Call to Action
to say anything “because too often such stories are not believed.” Seeking to
break the silence around violence against women in politics, actors around the
world have adopted a variety of strategies to raise awareness. These range from
waging online campaigns to sharing personal accounts to developing resources
to educate the general public about the existence of this phenomenon.
HASHTAG ACTIVISM
Hashtags are keyword phrases preceded by a pound sign (#) that, when
employed on social networks, help other users easily find messages with spe-
cific content. With the rising popularity of social media platforms, hashtags
have become a crucial new tool for activists, spreading their message while also
enabling them to connect with others. Taking advantage of opportunities to
engage in collective action online, “hashtag feminism” has become a power-
ful tactic for fighting gender inequities around the world (Clark 2016). One of
the first hashtags to emerge on the current subject was #NotTheCost, coined
by NDI and launched in 2016 as part of its global call to action to stop vio-
lence against women in politics.1 The phrase “not the cost” offers a rejoinder to
arguments that violence is simply the “cost of doing politics,” something to be
expected—rather than resisted—if women wish to become politically engaged.
In the ensuing years, further hashtags have emerged in global (#DefendHer,
#SOFJO), regional (#MeTooEP, #NotInMyParliament), and national
(#StopVAWIE, #DestroyTheJoint, #LevonsLOmerta, #LiftHerUp) contexts,
with the shared goal of de-normalizing violence against women as an accept-
able tactic in the political sphere.
PERSONAL TESTIMONIES
Skeptical of legal and clinical interventions, Stark (2009) proposes that a more
valuable and effective solution to violence against women is to “build an audi-
ence” around a “vanguard” of women who have “stood up to domination, given
it a name and face, and chosen to talk truth to power at risk of physical harm”
(1518). While not explicitly framed as such, this approach has been at the heart
of efforts by the international practitioner community to bring attention to the
issue of violence against women in politics. The launch of NDI’s #NotTheCost
campaign in 2016, for example, featured testimonies from female politicians
and activists around the world. Their experiences overlapped in notable ways,
despite distinct contexts, exposing violence as a shared thread of resistance to
women’s full and equal political participation.2 A notable moment at a summit
organized by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in 2018 illustrates
how these testimonies may resonate. Following a panel of women active in poli-
tics in other countries, a politician from Kosovo stood up and affirmed: “I find
my story in your story.”3
Cross-Cutting Solutions 219
Alongside planned events such as these bringing women together across

national borders, individual women have also spoken up more spontaneously,
penning opinion pieces or making speeches about their experiences with vio-
lence in the political world. In November 2016, Sandra Jansen, a provincial
assembly member in Canada, began a statement in the Legislative Assembly of
Alberta by declaring, “What a traitorous bitch!” She then went on to read out a
slew of other demeaning and hateful messages she had received on Twitter and
Facebook, including “Sandra should stay in the kitchen, where she belongs.”
She called on her colleagues to take a stand against hate speech directed at
women in politics, urging them to “stand together against this” if they were
“stunned” by these words and “reject the inherent violence behind them.”
Reminding them that “our daughters are watching us,” she pleaded: “Please
oppose it. Don’t ignore it. Don’t look the other way. Don’t excuse it.” Other
members of the chamber immediately rose to their feet, giving her a standing
ovation and sustained round of applause (McConnell 2016).
EDUCATIONAL COURSES
Educating people on the concept of violence against women in politics is

another way to raise awareness. In 2017, the Mexican Federal Electoral
Tribunal developed an online course, free to anyone who registered, offering
“conceptual and contextual tools on issues related to gender, violence, and pol-
itics, as well as basic information for identifying and addressing it in Mexico.”
A self-guided track of study, students are provided with course materials to
read and are then asked to take a series of tests for self-evaluation. The correct
responses are shown for incorrectly answered questions, after which students
are given the opportunity to retake each test. Unit 1 presents an overview of
gender and human rights, before moving on to Unit 2 on gender-based vio-
lence in the political sphere. Unit 3, the core of the course, addresses practical
issues related to identifying and dealing with violence against women politics.
Topics include how to differentiate it from other forms of violence, who can be
victims, what rights victims have, which state institutions have the competence
to provide redress, and what to do—as a magistrate, lawyer, or citizen—when
confronted with a potential case.4 Following a final exam, the online system
then issues a certificate verifying completion of the course.5
RESOURCE WEBSITES
A related tactic is to create websites with basic information about violence

against women in politics as well as resources for addressing it. State institu-
tions in Mexico have developed several of these types of initiatives. In 2014, the
National Institute of Women, the Federal Electoral Tribunal, and the National
Electoral Institute came together to create the Observatory on Women’s
Political Participation in Mexico, with the objective of coordinating—and cre-

ating synergies between—actions aimed at promoting women’s participation in
decision-making in the public sphere.6 Meeting four times a year, members of
the observatory include parliamentary committees on gender equality, politi-
cal parties, academic units, international organizations, individual experts, and
other state and civil society organizations. A dedicated section of its website
contains a series of informative materials including a definition of violence
against women in politics; graphics on what to do when confronted with a case
of violence; protocols for dealing with violence at the federal, state, and politi-
cal party levels; actions to denounce violence in non-institutional ways, includ-
ing through hashtag campaigns or contacting the observatory; and existing
legislation at the federal and state levels.7
In 2018, the network set up a task force on violence against women in
politics headed by the Office of the Special Prosecutor on Electoral Crimes.
While incorporating many of the same organizations as the observatory, the
task force was expanded to include journalists, academics, and local elec-
toral justice bodies. Meeting monthly to issue press releases and exert ongo-
ing political pressure,8 one of its other principal aims was to create a “tool
box” of materials on violence against women in politics. Posted on a website
devoted exclusively to this topic, these tools consist of studies and analyses
of violence against women in politics; laws, protocols, and guides to pre-
vent, sanction, and eradicate violence against women in politics; informa-
tion on forums, roundtables, seminars, and conferences on violence against
women in politics; and links to diverse organizations engaged in combating
violence against women in politics. One of the most extensive sections of
the website provides details on how to bring forward complaints on violence
against women in politics, mapping out the process within different state
institutions.9
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS
A final strategy combines these approaches, spotlighting women’s testimonies

in videos shared online. Following the 2016 elections, colleagues at the Women’s
Media Center (WMC)—a civil society organization based in Washington,
DC—met to strategize how they might best address violence against women
in U.S. politics.10 Founded in 2005 to raise the visibility and power of women
and girls in the U.S. media, ongoing WMC work includes “Name It. Change
It.,” a joint project with She Should Run that works to end sexist and misogy-
nistic coverage of female candidates by members of the press,11 and the “WMC
Speech Project,” which seeks to raise public and media awareness about online
harassment of women and girls.12 Raising money via Kickstarter, the team pro-
duced a public service announcement posted online in November 2017, exactly
one year after the election.13
Opening with statistics from the IPU (2016b), the video featured the
experiences of eight women—Democrats and Republicans—who had run for
political office across the country: Wendy Davis, a former state senator who
also ran to become governor of Texas; Angela Angel, a state representative in
Maryland; Marilyn Mosby, the state attorney for Baltimore; Kim Weaver, a
congressional candidate in Iowa; Rina Shah Bharara, a member of the Indian
American Advisory Council for the House of Representatives Republican
Conference; Stephanie Roman, a high school student body president; Katherine
Clark, a Congresswoman from Massachusetts; and Ileana Ros Lehtinen, a
Congresswoman from Florida. As of February 2019, the version posted on the
WMC website had been viewed more than 30,000 times. A re-edited version by
Now This was seen by more than 20 million people. The project also inspired
editors at the New York Times to produce their own video in August 2018,
accompanying a story on violence against women in U.S. politics (Astor 2018).14
Legal Reforms
The value of legal reforms for combatting violence against women in politics
is contested (Restrepo Sanín 2018a). On the one hand, the impact of laws is
limited to what they specifically proscribe. Sexual harassment legislation in
the U.S., for example, does not forbid all unwelcome sexual interactions in
the workplace, only those that victims can prove are “pervasive,” “severe,” and
“motivated by sex” (White 2018). Moreover, the mere existence of laws—or
workplace policies more generally—may obfuscate the fact that little is actu-
ally being done to implement them (Edelman 2016). Aware of these dynamics,
some are skeptical of efforts to criminalize violence against women, arguing
that reform may preclude opportunities for broader structural transformation
by equating legal changes with actual changes in society (Bernstein 2012).
On the other hand, law has “expressive value”: it condemns particular
types of acts, educates the public about the harms such acts inflict, and iden-
tifies acceptable patterns of behavior (Citron 2009). The aim thus is less to
send perpetrators to jail than to ask them to “do the work of learning” (Jaffe
2018, 84), acknowledging that certain acts should not be tolerated and taking
active steps toward establishing new norms of conduct. In this spirit, actors in
various arenas have experimented with new laws and policies that de-normalize
violence against women in politics by framing it instead as a violation of core
social and political values.
BILLS AND LAWS
Five countries in Latin America—Bolivia, Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and

Honduras—proposed stand-alone bills to criminalize violence against women
in politics between 2006 and 2018.15 Most of these policies have stalled at vari-
ous stages of the legislative process, however, with the only one to pass both
chambers being Law 243 in Bolivia, adopted in 2012 (Restrepo Sanín 2018b,
181–182).16 Law 243 defines political harassment as “acts of pressure, persecu-
tion, harassment, or threats” and political violence as “physical, psychological,
and sexual actions, behaviors, and/or aggressions” aimed at restricting the exer-
cise of women’s political rights. It establishes legal sanctions: monetary fines
and removal from office for civil offenses and prison sentences lasting between
two to eight years for criminal offenses. The law also lists a series of factors
that might magnify these penalties, including acts committed against pregnant,
illiterate, or disabled women, or women over the age of 70; acts involving the
children of the victims; acts resulting in abortion; acts involving two or more
perpetrators; and perpetrators who are repeat offenders, party leaders, or public
officeholders.17 In October 2016, Law 243 was supplemented by Supreme Decree
2.935, which clarified various aspects of its implementation and designated the
Ministry of Justice, through the Vice-Ministry of Equal Opportunities, as the
unit responsible for designing and carrying out programs promoting women’s
political leadership.18 In May 2017, the national electoral authorities published
a regulation to assist women in bringing forward their cases, outlining the pro-
cess and necessary documentation needed to file a complaint.19
Other states in the region have pursued legislative strategies, but instead of
stand-alone laws, they have reformed or passed new laws on violence against
women incorporating text on violence against women in politics. In some cases,
these mentions are quite minimal. Passed in 2011, Law 520 in El Salvador,
for instance, includes violence in “spaces of political or citizen participation”
among a list of expressions of violence against women.20 In other cases, the
text is more substantial. In Panama, Article 4 of Law 82 from 2013 recog-
nizes an extensive range of forms of violence against women, including “politi-
cal violence” and “violence in the community sphere.” The first encompasses
discrimination in access to elected office or similar positions inside political
parties, while the second entails “denigration, discrimination, marginalization,
or exclusion” from groups and associations in the public sphere, like parties,
unions, and civil society organizations.21 Similarly, Article 6 of Law 5.777 in
Paraguay, approved in 2016, lists “political violence” as a form of violence
against women. It defines this concept as any action against a woman with the
goal of “delaying, hindering, or impeding her participation in political life in
whatever form and the exercise of her rights outlined in this Law.”22
Outside of Latin America, legal initiatives to combat violence against
women in politics are rare. One exception is Tunisia. Article 46 of the new con-
stitution promulgated in 2014—written by a constituent assembly elected after
the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011—included a
number of women’s rights provisions. The final line declared: “The state shall
take all necessary measures in order to eradicate violence against women.”23
After the initial draft by Minister of Women Neila Chabaane was rejected by
conservative forces,24 a wide range of stakeholders—including several min-
istries, women from different parties, civil society groups, and international
organizations—came together to develop a revised version.25 Introduced in
the 2015–2016 session, the new bill was modified in the Committee on Rights
and Liberties—following consultation with the women’s ministry—to include
“political violence” as a form of violence against women, alongside physical,
moral, sexual, and economic violence.
Female politicians involved in the process largely explain this change
as emerging organically from female MPs, although some participants do
acknowledge the role of civil society and international organizations in shap-
ing these debates.26 Setting the scene, one former minister noted not only “brute
sexism in political campaigns,” but also incidents among MPs themselves—
giving the example of a well-publicized exchange27 in which a male leader
responded to criticism from a female leader by dismissing her as “merely a
woman.”28 According to several MPs, such encounters— combined with
debates on the violence against women bill—led women in parliament to rec-
ognize their own experiences as a “specific form” of “violence” in its own right.
One described gender-based violence, indeed, as a point of “common ground”
among female MPs.29 Article 3 of Law 58, passed in 2017, consequently recog-
nizes “political violence” as a form of violence against women, defined as “all
violence or practice designed to deprive or hinder the exercise of any partisan,
political, or associational activity or fundamental right or liberty based on sex
discrimination.”30
LEGAL FRAMEWORKS
Proponents of legal reform in Mexico have engaged in multiple attempts to

legislate on the issue of violence against women in politics: nine bills were pre-
sented in the Senate and five in the Chamber of Deputies between 2012 and
2017. Despite being proposed by legislators from parties across the ideologi-
cal spectrum, only two of the Senate bills have gained approval, while all the
Chamber bills have languished at the committee stage (Hevia Rocha 2017).
Despite the lack of legislation, actors in various institutions began receiving
complaints related to violence against women in politics during the 2015 elec-
tions. Seeking to establish a process for dealing with these cases, members of
the Federal Electoral Tribunal reached out to colleagues at related bodies to
explore what they might be able to do, individually and collectively, within
their existing competencies and in light of prevailing national and international
standards (Alanís Figueroa 2017).
In March 2016, the Electoral Tribunal published a Protocol to Address
Political Violence against Women in collaboration with the National
Electoral Institute, the Office of the Special Prosecutor on Electoral Crimes,
the Subsecretariat of Human Rights of the Interior Ministry, the Executive

Commission on Attention to Victims, the National Commission on Preventing
and Eradicating Violence against Women, the National Institute of Women,
and the Office of the Special Prosecutor on Crimes of Violence against Women
and Human Trafficking. In its opening pages, the protocol states that its pur-
pose is to identify instances of violence against women in politics; inform the
public as to who may put forward complaints and how; avoid grave harms to
victims and their families and loved ones; provide guidance on how to address
violence at the federal, state, and municipal levels; and generate adequate coor-
dination among institutions with the aim of ensuring that violence does not
affect women’s political and electoral rights. A second version released later
in 2016 offered further legal guidance, including emerging jurisprudence.31 In
November 2017, a third edition was launched in preparation for the 2018 elec-
tions, with a slightly revised title, as the Protocol to Address Gender-Based
Political Violence against Women.32 All major parties have followed suit, in
turn, by adopting protocols of their own to combat violence against their
female members.33
CODES OF CONDUCT
Codes of conduct in various parts of the world stipulate acceptable and unac-
ceptable behaviors during election campaigns. While some of these codes are
gender-neutral, a growing number explicitly address violence against women
in politics. In 2005, the National Elections Commission in Liberia worked
with the parties to develop a code of conduct. Among other aims, it sought
to prevent “the marginalization of women through violence, intimidation, and
fraud.” To this end, parties agreed to “the principle of non-discrimination, not
to use abusive language, and not to agitate on the basis of sex and gender” (UN
2007, 52). A similar code of conduct for the 2018 Nigerian elections prohibited
“inflammatory language, provocative actions, images, or manifestation [incit-
ing] violence, hatred, contempt, or intimidation against another party or can-
didate or any person or group of persons on grounds of ethnicity or gender.”34
One of the most developed codes of conduct on matters of gender, how-
ever, appears in the Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two articles
directly address violence against women in politics. Article 7.2 proscribes the
“posting, printing, and dissemination of notices, placards, posters, or other
[election] materials . . . on which women or men are presented in stereotype
and offensive or humiliating ways.” Article 16.14 forbids campaign conduct
“by way of electronic and printed media where the contents are stereotype and
offensive against men and/or women or which encourages any stereotype and
offensive behavior on the grounds of gender or any humiliating attitude against
the members of different genders.” Additionally, Article 7.3 indirectly addresses
violence against women in politics by prohibiting hate speech, establishing that
electoral actors may not “use language which could provoke or incite someone
to violence or spread hatred, or to publish or use pictures, symbols, audio and
video recordings, SMS messages, Internet communications, or any other mate-
rials that could have such effect.”35 The Central Election Commission has the
power to impose three types of sanctions on those who violate these rules: fines
up to 5000 euros, removal of perpetrators standing as candidates, and decerti-
fication of political parties.36
PERPETRATOR BANS
A last measure—albeit only at the proposal stage—is to impose bans on run-

ning for office for perpetrators of violence against women in politics. In May
2019, the Fawcett Society, one of the oldest women’s rights organizations in the
UK, posted a petition online calling for a lifetime ban from standing for elected
office for those promoting violence or rape. Arguing that “anyone who issues
threats of rape of violence or who incites hatred is not fit to stand for elected
office,” the petition lamented the fact that—under existing law—“candidates
with a track record of abusive conduct can still end up on the ballot paper,”
ultimately inviting the electorate to endorse and legitimize their conduct.37
To accompany the petition, which garnered more than 90,000 signatures, the
Fawcett Society published an open letter to Prime Minister Theresa May. The
signatories, who included women across the political parties and a host of
other equality organizations, noted that violence against women in politics had
“risen at an alarming rate” and was “driving some women out of politics and
deterring others from coming forward.” Calling for an end to the “harassment
and abuse of women in politics and public life,” they declared it was “time to
defend our democracy and promote equality, not hate.”38
Safety and Support Frameworks
Violence threatens individuals’ sense of security, causing people to develop a

host of “safety rituals . . . to reduce their anxiety about danger,” whether “in
their homes, on the street, or at work.” These routines are highly gendered, with
women “practicing a wider variety as well as a higher number of safety rituals
than men” (Stanko 1990, 13–15). Considering how to adapt this “safety work”
to “the reality and possibility of violence” in the political sphere (Vera-Gray
2018, 7), therefore, is paramount for addressing the day-to-day security con-
cerns of politically active women—and in turn, for ensuring more broadly that
women can participate in politics on equal terms with men. Emerging strategies
address these challenges in highly practical ways, lending support to women
through proactive planning, emergency response support, and efforts to foster
a more positive political environment.
SAFETY PLANNING
One way to foster greater safety is to evaluate potential vulnerabilities and iden-
tify how to counteract and overcome these challenges. Journalists reporting in
conflict zones, for example, often undergo security training to understand and
prepare for possible risks they may face in the field (Coates 2016). Conducting a
global analysis on violence against women in the news media, however, Barton
and Storm (2014) suggest that dangers are not limited to war-related contexts.
They thus recommend that female journalists—wherever they are based—carry
out risk assessments in order to be aware of potential threats so that, if neces-
sary, they may take active steps to mitigate them. Barton and Storm advocate,
for example, taking logistical precautions, like check-in protocols with some-
one trusted; developing a contingency plan to get out of trouble if a situation
deteriorates, including what to do if being followed; and securing first aid train-
ing and appropriate equipment like a whistle or rape alarm.
Expanding this approach to other categories of politically active women,
NDI developed #think10, a tool to provide women in politics with guidance on
how to enhance their personal security. Launched in 2018, the tool involves a
confidential self-assessment questionnaire posted online39—but also available
in mobile app and paper formats—asking about levels and types of political
activity, personal experiences with violence in political spaces, existence of sup-
port networks, intersectional identities, upcoming political events, presence of
women’s rights protections, legal safeguards and police responsiveness, and
societal views on women’s public engagement and acceptability of violence
against women. Answers to these questions are then combined with a country
score from NDI’s Women’s Political Participation Risk Index to generate an
individual safety plan, based on assessed levels of low, moderate, or high risk.
For a woman based in the United States with a moderate risk of violence,
for instance, the tool offers the following list of safety precautions: identifying
one or two trusted contacts, as well as memorizing or safely storing their con-
tact details; designating one or two safe places to escape to in an emergency,
including how to arrive there by different means; keeping personal information
private and de-listing home addresses and personal phone numbers; placing
important documents in a secure location; remaining aware of the surround-
ings when carrying out political activities, checking for easy exits, and review-
ing the security of homes, workplaces, and political locations; traveling with
a trusted colleague, using safe transportation routes, and letting trusted con-
tacts know about travel plans; managing digital footprints by using precautions
with passwords, installing firewalls and anti-virus/malware software, creating
separate work and personal email accounts, taking screenshots of malicious
communications, and reporting online harassment and abuse to relevant
authorities; identifying local support services like shelters, clinics, or influen-
tial leaders; and documenting incidents of violence, like saving voice messages,
keeping a journal of incidents, and photographing physical injuries. The tool

advises sharing the safety plan with a trusted colleague, ensuring that family
and friends do not inadvertently undermine the plan, and reviewing the plan
every few months and revising it accordingly.
REPORTING MECHANISMS
Dedicated reporting mechanisms offer another means of keeping women safe.

Concerned about the lack of swift action by authorities during a sustained
period of pre-and post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008, in the run-
up to the 2012 elections FIDA-Kenya set up an SMS hotline for reporting vio-
lence against female candidates and voters. The hotline, named “Sema Usikike”
(Speak and Be Heard), enabled ordinary Kenyans—whether they were victims
or witnesses of election violence—to send a free text message to 21661 describ-
ing the violence witnessed and providing the location of the incident. Working
in real time, FIDA-Kenya lawyers would immediately inform the closest police
station and then follow-up with victims and, where relevant, offer legal aid.40
Providing these services via text message limited the amount of detailed advice
the lawyers could give, but—on the flipside—using SMS technologies, they
hoped, would encourage people to report as only phone numbers, and not
names, would be visible to responders. In 2017, FIDA-Kenya offered the same
hotline, but augmented their support services. In addition to sending cases to
the police, they referred victims in need of medical attention to a gender-based
violence recovery center. In the Kisu region, a hotspot of election violence, they
set up in-person counseling at the FIDA offices to assist those who wanted to
report. In five regions, they also trained police officers on gender-based vio-
lence in elections to foster more informed responses to these cases.41
ACTION ALERTS
Among human rights defenders, action alerts constitute a widespread tactic

for raising awareness, mobilizing support, and pressuring states to cease per-
petrating human rights abuses. Urgent appeals—issued within 24 to 72 hours
of learning of the violation and circulated through networks of civil society
groups and individuals around the world—can be especially effective in coun-
tries receptive to the opinions of the international community. Typical appeals
provide key facts surrounding the case and then detail what specific actions
might be taken, like contacting authorities through email, fax, or telephone to
demand they take a specific action. According to a review by the WHRDIC’s
Working Group on Urgent Responses for Women Human Rights Defenders
at Risk, most alerts are accompanied by a sample letter to be sent to govern-
ments, but in some instances, organizations provide an automated system for
sending such letters. To raise international visibility, some groups also request
that senders copy relevant UN bodies in their correspondence. To make these

appeals more effective, the working group recommends including more contex-
tual analysis, explaining in clearer terms the ways in which the defender was
seen to be breaching social norms and taboos and how the repression was con-
nected to the defender’s human rights work (Barcia 2011).
One organization making extensive use of such alerts is Amnesty
International. In 2019, for example, it issued an appeal on behalf of Saudi
women who had fought for women’s right to drive and now faced up to 20 years
in prison for their activism. Concerned that “Saudi authorities have chosen to
silence the very women bravely speaking up for human rights,” Amnesty noted
that while three activists—Loujain al-Hathloul, Iman al-Nafjan, and Aziza
al-Yousef—were still being held, three others had been provisionally released,
indicating that authorities appeared to be listening to international pressure.
The appeal stated, further, that the women in custody were reportedly being
“tortured by electric shocks and flogging, leaving some unable to walk or stand
properly.” Pointing out that there was “still time to act and make a difference,”
it requested that supporters “write to the Saudi Arabian embassy in London,
calling on the authorities to release the activists immediately,” using the link
provided on the website. By the end of 2019, page statistics showed that more
than 40,000 people had contacted the Saudi embassy via Amnesty.42
PARTY REGULATIONS
Policies specifying that abuse will not be tolerated in political spaces can also
help foster a safer political environment for women. In the wake of debates on
sexual harassment, abuse and intimidation, and bullying in British politics, the
three major UK parties introduced or revised their codes of conduct to address
these problems. The Liberal Democrats, who experienced a sexual harassment
scandal in 2014, adopted a code of conduct later that year stating that all mem-
bers had the “right to be treated fairly, equally, and within the bounds of party
rules” and were expected to “behave in a way that does not negatively impact
other members, staff, volunteers, people who interact with the Party in a pro-
fessional capacity, or the party’s reputation.” On a checklist of questions that
members should ask themselves with regard to their actions both inside and
outside the party, the first was “Could what I am intending to do or say or write
(in any format) be taken as intimidation, harassment or bullying?”43
The Conservative Party introduced a code of conduct in late 2017, specify-
ing that anyone who formally represented the party as an elected or appointed
official may “not use their position to bully, abuse, victimize, harass, or unlaw-
fully discriminate against others.” Additionally, such officials must take
“reasonable steps” to ensure that those wishing to raise concerns about such
behaviors feel able to do so, and they must “cooperate fully with any process
set down by the Party Board should a grievance process be instigated.” In an
“interpretation annex,” the party defined “harassment” as “any unwanted

physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct that has the purpose or effect of violat-
ing a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliat-
ing, or offensive situation or environment for them.” It described “bullying,”
in turn, as “offensive, intimidating, malicious, or insulting behavior involving
the misuse of power that can make a person feel vulnerable, upset, humiliated,
undermined, or threatened.” Those found to have violated these rules were sub-
ject to a number of potential penalties, including provisional expulsion from
the party, suspension or non-renewal of party membership, suspension from
office or candidature, rebuke or severe rebuke, mandated apology, removal of
offending social media material, and obligatory training.44
The Labour Party’s revised 2018 rule book incorporated several new codes
of conduct, including one on sexual harassment and gender discrimination and
another on social media usage. The sexual harassment policy stated that, as the
“party of equality . . . Labour strongly believes that no one should feel disad-
vantaged, discriminated against or harassed due to their gender either inside
the party or in the wider society.” Declaring it “will not tolerate any form of
discrimination or harassment,” Labour committed itself to ensuring the party
is “a welcoming environment for all who share our aims and values to engage
in political activity and debate without feeling disadvantaged or unsafe.” The
social media code of conduct called on party members to “treat all people with
dignity and respect,” arguing that the party “stands against all forms of abuse
and will take action against those who commit it. Harassment, intimidation,
hateful language and bullying are never acceptable, nor is any form of discrimi-
nation on the basis of gender, race, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender
identity or disability.” The party encouraged the reporting of abusive behav-
ior online to the party, social media platforms, and—where applicable—to the
police. A pledge required of all party members, further, entailed a promise “to
act within the spirit and rules of the Labour Party in my conduct both on
and offline, with members and non-members and I stand against all forms of
abuse.”45
ELECTING WOMEN
A common—albeit diffuse—response to the question of how to combat vio-

lence against women in politics is to increase the number of women in political
roles. The intuition is that seeing more women active in the political sphere
would normalize women’s leadership—and, in turn, de-normalize and increase
accountability for acts of violence against them. Among the 123 female MPs
interviewed by the IPU (2018) in its European study, for example, over 90%
thought that having more women in parliament could provide “a means of
changing the atmosphere at work, gradually modifying the conduct and mind-
set of male colleagues and ensuring that women are able to fulfil their mandate
and serve their electors freely and safely” (17). Together with the other strat-
egies outlined here and in the rest of the book, this long-term strategy sug-
gests that a combination of many strategies—addressing individual categories
of violence; cutting across different manifestations of violence; and tackling
violence in the short, medium, and long term—will likely be necessary to recog-
nize, problematize, and combat violence against women in the political realm.
18
Data Collection and Documentation Challenges
Data collection has always been central to feminist activism, with testimo-
nies and statistics helping to prove the existence of a problem, as well as to
measure progress—and setbacks—in relation to gender equality over time
(Berkovitch 1999). In 2013, the UN Human Rights Council Working Group
on Discrimination against Women in Law and in Practice noted that “evidence-
based knowledge [was] weak on the extent of violence against women in poli-
tics” as well as “its impact on women’s capacity to exercise their right to political
participation” (UN Human Rights Council 2013, 8). Five years later, Ballington
(2018) made a similar observation, noting that few global statistics or measures
were currently available, due to “a lack of commonly agreed definitions and
indicators, a reliance on anecdotal evidence, and underreporting because of the
stigma attached to gender-based violence in many societies” (696).
Despite these challenges, a growing number of scholars and practitioners
have taken steps in recent years to document and analyze this phenomenon,
either modifying existing datasets and approaches or developing new sources
and methods of data collection. This work has been crucial in advancing these
methodological discussions by exploring multiple modes of theorizing, opera-
tionalizing, and measuring these phenomena. It has also been important in
raising public awareness, establishing that the problem of violence against
women in politics exists—as well as motivating action to address it.
At this nascent stage, studies vary widely in how they operationalize and
measure violence against women in politics. Nonetheless, they share a ten-
dency to elide the theoretical distinction between violence in politics and vio-
lence against women in politics—affecting, in turn, both theory building and
hypothesis testing. Neither comparing the experiences of women and men, as
some scholars advocate, nor centering women’s lives, as others advise, provides
a clear cut methodological solution. A bias event approach offers a potential
means forward. Focused on collecting and evaluating evidence on the presence
or absence of gender bias in particular incidents, it can assist both qualitative

and quantitative researchers in distinguishing these phenomena in future work.
Emerging Data
Budding awareness of violence against women in politics has inspired a variety

of efforts by scholars and practitioners to document and analyze this phenom-
enon.1 Ballington (2018) identifies three possibilities for how evidence might be
collected: gendering existing mechanisms for monitoring political and electoral
violence; adapting current instruments on violence against women to add a
political dimension; and collecting testimonies from women to inform country-
level analyses, both quantitative and qualitative. Largely following—but also
modifying—this template, available work adopts four main approaches: reex-
amining existing datasets on political and electoral violence through a gender
lens; conducting original surveys informed by work on violence against women;
gathering and systematizing testimonies from individual women; and collecting
social media data using hand-coding and automated techniques.
EXISTING DATASETS
Several datasets measure political and electoral violence in both conflict and
non-conflict contexts (among others, see Birch and Muchlinski 2017; Daxecker,
Amicarelli, and Jung 2019). Gender rarely features as a central category in this
work, however, at either the data collection or analysis stages. One exception
is the IFES Electoral Violence Education and Resolution dataset, recording
incidents between 2006 and 2010 in Bangladesh, Burundi, Guyana, Guinea,
Nepal, and Timor Leste. Included by chance rather than design, coders in
project countries noted the sex of perpetrators and victims of electoral vio-
lence. Reviewing the data, Bardall (2011) found a number of striking gender
differences. First, men and women tended to suffer different forms of electoral
violence: physical violence typically targeted men, while psychological vio-
lence was more commonly perpetrated against women. Second, the location
of violence varied: men were attacked in public spaces, while women tended
to face violence in private homes. Third, incidents targeting men could often
be verified through official sources, including police reports, hospital records,
and media stories. In contrast, information on acts committed against women
was typically provided by electoral observers, election agents, and community
sources. The study thus suggested that existing frameworks—focused on physi-
cal violence, public spaces, and official records—privileged men’s over women’s
experiences of electoral violence.
A second method is to revise existing modes of data collection, as the
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Project decided to do in
Documentation and Data Collection 233
2018. Updated on a weekly basis, its dataset records the date, location, and
actors involved in violent political events around the globe. After a series of
conversations with colleagues about incidents targeting women, the team
secured funding to recode information already in its dataset and adopted a new
template for data collection going forward.2 In line with its prevailing practices,
the team restricted its focus to physical violence (including physical forms of
sexual violence) in public spaces. Launched in May 2019, the revised dataset
defines “political violence targeting women” as events where individual women,
or groups primarily composed of women, are attacked on political grounds.3
An initial analysis finds that certain acts—sexual violence, abductions/forced
disappearances, and mob violence—were more common in violence targeting
women. Further, while the overwhelming majority (87%) of demonstrations
featuring women were peaceful protests, a higher proportion met with excessive
force (live fire) or intervention (arrests and tear gas), usually at the hands of
the state, than protests involving men or mixed-sex groups (Kishi, Pavlik, and
Matfess 2019, 23–24).
A third approach entails drawing on existing templates for electoral obser-
vation but adapting them to focus on tactics to prevent women’s participation
on equal terms as men. In 2015, NDI’s Gender, Women, and Democracy team
initiated the Votes without Violence project to bring a gender lens to NDI’s
longstanding work on electoral violence and the democratic quality of elec-
tions.4 Focused on training citizen observers to detect acts of violence against
women in elections, they piloted and refined the methodology during elec-
tion missions in Côte d’Ivoire, Burma/Myanmar, Guatemala, Tanzania, and
Nigeria. The resulting toolkit offers a checklist for monitoring incidents of
violence against women before, during, and after elections, tracking women’s
experiences as voters, candidates, election administrators, and public officials.
In addition to publishing the checklist (Hubbard and DeSoi 2016), NDI posted
the data collected in the five pilot countries on a dedicated website, later adding
data from six further countries—Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nicaragua, Timor
Leste, and Uganda—whose elections were observed by NDI after publication
of the assessment framework. The website provides visualizations, as well as
opportunities for researchers to download the original data.5
ORIGINAL SURVEYS
The converse strategy is to start with concepts from the gender-based violence
literature to design and implement surveys to gauge the prevalence and impact
of violence against women in politics. The most well-known of these are the two
surveys conducted by the IPU, referenced extensively throughout this book,
with 55 female parliamentarians from 39 countries across five world regions
(2016b) and 81 female MPs and 42 female staffers from 45 European states
(2018). Both surveys ask a series of questions based on the four categories of
violence against women identified in the 2011 Istanbul Convention: physical,

sexual, psychological, and economic. A variety of other entities, however, have
also sought to gather similar individual-level data to gain insight into this phe-
nomenon. Most of this work restricts its focus to women, but collectively, sur-
veys various categories of politically active women.
One of the first such studies was carried out in Japan in 2014 by the
Alliance of Feminist Representatives (Femigiren). The project was inspired by
an incident involving Ayaka Shiomura, a member of the Tokyo metropolitan
assembly, who was heckled relentlessly by male colleagues while trying to par-
ticipate in a policy debate. After sending the questionnaire to more than 500
women serving as local councilors across the country, Femigiren received 143
responses indicating that female politicians in Japan experienced a wide range
of harassment, from sexist heckling and taunts about their marital status to
silencing in debates and unwanted touching. Self-identified feminists and those
campaigning for gender equality were more likely than other women to report
being targeted. Additionally, a roughly inverse relationship emerged between
the share of women reporting harassment and the proportion of women on the
council: 73% of respondents were harassed where women held less than 10%
of local council seats, compared to 58% when women occupied 10% to 20%
of seats, 37% when the share of women was 20% to 30%, and 48% when the
council had more than 30% women (Dalton 2017, 212).6
In the run-up to the 2015 elections, the Tanzania Women Cross-Party
Platform (TWCP), a network bringing together the women’s wings of all par-
ties with representation in parliament, adopted a related but distinct approach.
With technical and financial support from UN Women, DEMO Finland, and
NDI, as well as local women’s organizations like the Tanzania Women Judges
Association and Coalition against Sextortion, TWCP deployed 56 monitors to
14 of the 30 regions of the country to undertake participant observation and
conduct structured interviews with female candidates and voters. Attending
530 events and speaking to 1532 respondents, the observers personally wit-
nessed abuse at political meetings, including stones being thrown at women, as
well as efforts at rallies to mobilize young men to threaten women who did not
support the party.
Their interviews with female candidates revealed that a large majority
(69%) had faced abusive language and 17% had experienced physical attacks.
An alarming share was asked to perform sexual favors at the nomination stage
(19%) and during the campaign itself (24%), while 10% reported that their hus-
bands did not support their decision to run (Semakafu 2016, 15–16). Surveying
female voters turned out to be far more difficult, because a significant propor-
tion of women did not turn out to vote—and thus were not present at polling
stations on the day of the election. Seeking to understand why, monitors spoke
with locals and learned that many women faced intimidation at home that had
prevented their participation. Among women interviewed after the election,
more than half (53%) stated they did not vote, saying they were afraid (34.6%),
were missing their voter registration card (33.9%), their spouse “made trouble”
(9.8%), or their husband had voted for them (7.9%). Corroborating this figure,
more than 40% of voters reported hearing about women forced not to partici-
pate by family members (Semakafu 2016, 14, 21).
In other contexts, journalists have been the ones to initiate surveys.
Although they had not conducted such research in the past, the utter lack of
information on this topic inspired the Canadian Press, a national news agency,
to administer a survey to female MPs across all parties during two weeks in
December 2017. Asked about personal experiences with sexual misconduct,
more than half (58%) of respondents said they faced incidents of sexual harass-
ment or assault in the course of their work in parliament. These ranged from
unwanted remarks and gestures to text messages of a sexual nature, mainly
from lobbyists as well as colleagues inside and outside their own parties (Smith
2018). A subsequent survey of political staff was more challenging, given no
central body to distribute the survey—and no full census of the staff working
at parliament.7 Of those that were contacted and filled out the survey, 29%
said they had been sexually harassed at least once while working in parliament,
while 9% had been sexually assaulted. In most cases, the perpetrators were
MPs—but not the ones who employed them. Most did not report the incidents,
however, because they were young, had little social capital, and faced precari-
ous employment conditions where partisan and personal loyalty were highly
valued (Samara Centre 2018).
The HuffPost undertook a similar study in 2018, focused on illuminat-
ing the experiences of young female party activists across five major German
parties. Combining dozens of personal interviews with anonymous surveys
of nearly 100 women, it found that more than 70% of the women sitting on
federal, state, and district boards of party youth organizations felt they were
taken less seriously than their male counterparts. Nearly half (45%) had wit-
nessed sexual harassment during their political work—and one in three had
personally experienced it themselves. Incidents of rape at party events were
also not uncommon: one woman revealed that she personally knew of seven
cases in her party, including herself. Another explained why it was difficult to
speak out, pointing to inequalities of power within the party: “I was raped on
a political weekend. It’s hard to talk about such things as a woman against a
man, because you lose your reputation so quickly, especially when the man is
higher.” A third young activist disclosed that an employee of a prominent MP
had bluntly asked her for sex (Pfahler 2018).
Most existing surveys thus center on women’s experiences, seeking to shed
light on the largely hidden dynamics at work behind the scenes of political
life. Herrick et al. (2019) is one of the few teams to survey both women and
men, sending a questionnaire in 2017 to all mayors of U.S. cities with 30,000
or more inhabitants. They find that although male and female mayors faced
abuse, women were more likely than men to experience all three forms of vio-
lence asked about in the survey: psychological (90.3% of women versus 80.9%
of men), physical (22.7% of women versus 10.2% of men), and sexual (21% of
women versus 2.5% of men) (8).
NDI (2018) bridges these approaches in studies of violence against
women in political parties in Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Tanzania, and Tunisia.
Combining single-and mixed-sex approaches, they administered surveys to
men and women within each party, conducted in-depth interviews with party
leaders, and held focus groups with female party members. The pooled results
indicate that women are more likely than men to be victims of violence, to wit-
ness violence against others in the party, and to perceive a climate of violence
within the party itself. Although both women and men report experiencing and
witnessing physical violence, women report much higher rates of psychological
and sexual violence in their parties.
CASE-BASED RESEARCH
Gathering and systematizing women’s testimonies is a sine qua non of femi-

nist activism. Not surprisingly, therefore, case-based research is generally the
method employed by women’s groups in civil society to map the problem of
violence against women in politics. Because this approach relies fundamentally
upon women’s willingness to come forward to speak about their experiences,
organizations like SAP International (2007) have tackled the culture of silence
by attempting to create safe spaces for women to share their experiences anony-
mously. While not necessarily representative of the larger population of politi-
cally active women, these non-random samples give voice to women’s lived
realities in the political sphere. They also offer important analytical pay-offs
in terms of mapping this phenomenon, calling attention to subtle practices
of violence that might otherwise be missed (Albaine 2016) and illustrating the
“endless creativity of misogyny”8 and the “staggering” variety of “harassment
tactics” that surface when women are asked about their experiences (Cohen and
Connon 2015, 15).
ACOBOL was one of the first groups to attempt to collect this data sys-
tematically. Formed in 1999, the network receives complaints and provides free
legal counseling to affected women as part of its mandate to defend women’s
political rights. Gathering 117 testimonies between 2000 and 2005, ACOBOL
found that 80% of acts against women fell into three main categories: pressures
on women to resign from positions as local councilors, other political positions,
or political organizations (36%); instances of sexual, physical, and psychologi-
cal violence and abuse of authority (21%); and interference with councilors’
ability to carry out their responsibilities and illegal succession to council (21%).
Smaller numbers of cases involved the illegal freezing of salaries and denial of
compensation for costs related to their protection (9%); discrimination (7%);
and defamation, slander, and libel (6%). After women’s complaints were for-
warded to local authorities, 40% went to trial but resulted in impunity for the
accused; 32.4% met with no response; and 7.6% involved governments recusing
themselves, claiming they did not have jurisdiction over these types of cases
(Rojas Valverde 2010, 529, 531).9
To resolve this legal vacuum, ACOBOL began working on a bill to define
“political harassment and violence against women,” as well as to classify these
acts as crimes or offenses resulting in legal penalties on perpetrators. Article
8 of the final version passed in 2012 offers a long and fascinating list of what
political harassment and violence might look like in practice, drawn from the
case files of ACOBOL—in turn, highlighting the benefits of using an inductive
approach to gain a fuller understanding of the many potential manifestations
of this phenomenon. The list of sample acts includes providing false, erroneous,
or vague information to women leading to inadequate exercise of their political
functions; stopping women from attending sessions and other activities where
decisions are being made, preventing or suppressing their right to speak or vote
on conditions equal to men; providing false data on the sex of candidates;10
imposing unjustified sanctions, impeding or restricting the exercise of politi-
cal rights; applying monetary sanctions, arbitrary and illegal discounts, and/or
withholding of salaries; pressuring or inducing elected or appointed women to
resign their positions; and obliging women, through the use of force or intimi-
dation, to sign documents and/or take decisions against their will.11
Transnational networks of women human rights defenders have simi-
larly sought to generate records of their experiences. A guidebook produced
by APWLD suggests that documentation is important for at least three rea-
sons: it offers the “first step towards seeking justice,” with records being vital
for pursuing “redress or remedy”; it preserves and recognizes the experiences
of women human rights defenders for the “sake of history and building a col-
lective memory”; and it provides a “safe space for victims and survivors to tell
their stories,” presenting opportunities to “link their experiences with that of
others for mutual support and collective action” (APWLD 2007, 87–89). To
this end, APWLD outlines a sample case form template, illustrating the infor-
mation that defenders should record, like the name and personal circumstances
of the alleged victim; the type of human rights the person was defending; the
alleged violation and its perpetrator(s); evidence for belief in a link between the
violation and human rights; and actions taken by authorities.
In 2015, the WHRDIC followed up by publishing an entire manual on doc-
umentation, arguing that prevailing methods for recording abuses in the human
rights community reflected limited assumptions about who defenders are (men),
where violations take place (public spaces), who commits these violations
(agents of the state), what is human rights advocacy (for example, campaigns to
end the death penalty), and what constitutes a human rights violation (torture
in prison). Existing frameworks thus often tended to ignore female defenders,
abuses occurring in private spaces, non-state perpetrators, women’s rights activi-

ties, and violations of a gendered or sexual nature. Embracing the need for an
explicitly feminist approach, the WHRDIC (2015, 2) advocated a “politically
motivated telling of women human rights defenders’ stories,” weaving a “thread
between our acts of resistance and the abuses we face.” Arguing that documen-
tation was a process as well as a product, they called on defenders to undertake
and publicize this research in a variety of ways, from taking pictures, recording
stories, and shooting documentaries to organizing exhibitions, producing pam-
phlets, making legal submissions, and sending reports to international bodies.
They emphasized that this work not only had a political dimension, but could
also serve as an important form of self-care for activists themselves.
Inspired by these debates, IM-Defensoras created the Mesoamerican Registry
of Attacks against Women Human Rights Defenders in 2012. Linking the expe-
riences of women human rights defenders in Mexico and Central America, the
registry includes information on the scope and types of attacks, describing their
main features as well as identifying gendered components. Each national net-
work designates a point person responsible for receiving and verifying informa-
tion on presumptive attacks—including undertaking face-to-face meetings with
survivors and assessing the seriousness of journalistic sources—and entering the
information into a shared regional database. An initial report covering the period
2012–2014 observed a collective increase in attacks over time, with 414 reported
in 2012, 512 in 2013, and 762 in 2014, for a total of 1688 attacks across the
region as a whole. More than half of these cases were part of a repeated series of
attacks, and the vast majority were perpetrated against individual women: 84.2%
in 2012, 69.8% in 2013, and 71.5% in 2014 (IM-Defensoras 2015, 30–31).
A gender component could be detected in 37% of recorded assaults—40%
in 2012, 46% in 2013, and 30% in 2014 (2015, 39)—although IM-Defensoras
notes in the report that information was not always available on gendered
aspects of these attacks. The most common gender component entailed threats,
warnings, and ultimatums using sexist insults; threats of sexual violence; and
threats to one’s family. Other widespread gendered acts involved slander, accu-
sations, and/or smear campaigns using gender stereotypes, or attacks on indi-
viduals or organizations working on women’s rights. Less frequent, but still
present, were attacks like sexual assault; intimate partner violence; and physical
and verbal abuse referring to the victim’s sexual identity. Largely similar pat-
terns were observed in a subsequent report focusing on 2015 and 2016, which
included the case of Nicaragua in addition to the four original countries, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.12
ONLINE DATA ANALYSIS
A fourth approach is to focus exclusively on online abuse, using a variety of tech-

niques to collect and analyze data. One set of studies adopts a mixed-method
approach, combining online data analysis with some of the self-reporting

techniques employed in other research. To investigate the prevalence and con-
tent of online abuse against female candidates, Luchadoras, a Mexican NGO,
monitored Twitter and Facebook conversations, using keywords and hashtags;
conducted in-depth interviews with female candidates who had experienced
online violence during campaigns; and requested information from local elec-
toral bodies regarding complaints mentioning online attacks. They found that
72% of the messages on Twitter and 39% of those on Facebook were sexist;
threats were largely communicated via more private digital technologies like
WhatsApp, phone calls, and text messages; and 85 public complaints had been
made by 62 candidates in 24 states. They determined, moreover, that more than
half (62%) of the attacks were gender-based, involving judgments of sexual
character, sexual objectification, and allusions to proper gender roles (Barrera,
Zamora, Domínguez, Aguirre, and Esculloa 2018, 44, 37, 51).
Collaborating with Charitable Analytics International, a data technol-
ogy company, and a long list of country partners, NDI adopted a similar
multipronged approach to explore the nature and impact of online violence
on young women’s political engagement in Indonesia, Colombia, and Kenya.
Researchers surveyed 1000 male and female students at two universities in each
country, asking about social media usage and experiences with online violence
and collecting individual Twitter handles for subsequent data analysis. Staff
also ran three-day workshops with partners in each country to develop lexicons
of words and phrases in local languages to capture both gender-based harass-
ing language and the political language of the moment.
The lexicons were then used to scrape data from a sample group of Twitter
accounts from the population of college-aged men and women who completed
the earlier surveys. After the algorithm identified a violent tweet, human coders
verified whether it met the established criteria of “violence.” If so, they classi-
fied the type of abuse, using NDI’s typology adapted to the online world: physi-
cal threats, insults and hate speech, sexualized distortion, and embarrassment
and reputational risk. Bringing together these sources of data, the study pro-
duced two particularly notable findings. One was that politically active women
paused, decreased, or completely stopped participating online following vio-
lent incidents. A second was a dramatic difference between self-reported and
observed levels of online violence—17.6% versus 5.5% in Indonesia, 22.7%
versus 3.6% in Kenya, and 50.2% versus 8.3% in Colombia (NDI 2019, 16)—
suggesting that much online violence may be more subtle than can be detected
using automated algorithms.
A second group of analyses falls on the more qualitative end of the spec-
trum, undertaking content analysis of social media conversations. The Digital
Rights Foundation (2018) scrutinized Facebook comments directed at male
and female candidates during the 2018 general elections in Pakistan. Hand-
coding comments as neutral, unwelcoming, and abusive, the researchers then
recorded whether the unwelcoming and abusive comments referenced targets’

identity, ideology, or individual personality. They found that female politicians
were more likely than their male counterparts to face objectifying, personal,
sexualized, or sexual comments, whereas the men tended to be attacked more
than the women on policy or political grounds.
Atalanta (2018) compared tweets about three pairs of politicians, male
and female, across three continents: Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in the
UK, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, and
Michelle Bachelet and Sebastián Piñera in Chile. They analyzed nearly 28,000
tweets mentioning these politicians between September and November 2017,
using a natural language processing algorithm, bringing in human verifiers for
a selection of tweets to adjust the automated process as necessary. The analysis
looked for signs of five types of gendered conversation: comments on physical
appearance, comments on relationship or marital status, comments on chil-
dren, derogatory or provocative language describing the person rather than
their profession, and comments on competence due to the person’s gender.
It found not only a greater volume of conversation directed at women in the
five gendered categories, but also more negative content directed at the three
women compared to their male counterparts.
A third set of studies addresses these questions on a much larger scale,
using machine learning techniques to collect and analyze millions of tweets. An
approach developed by IFES utilizes sentiment analysis software to quantify
and categorize opinions expressed on social media to measure their strength,
emotions, and “charge” (positive, negative, or neutral). In a first study focused
on Zimbabwe, the team selected a sample of 213 politicians and activists ahead
of the 2018 elections and created monitors for four types of violent online
content: physical, sexual, psychological, and economic. With the help of focus
groups, they developed a lexicon of words and phrases in English, Ndebele, and
Shona to create the algorithms.
Applying these tools to all publicly visible Twitter, Instagram, YouTube,
and Facebook posts, as well as public content on news media websites and
blogs, the team found that 60% of all violent discourse was directed at women
between 2013 and 2018. Women faced three times as much physically violent
discourse as men, as well as 24% more psychological violence. Men were asso-
ciated with more content on sexual violence, but the measure included accusa-
tions of having committed rape, not necessarily threats of rape against them.
Additionally, women appeared to be subject to more “viral moments” than
men, due most likely to sensationalized attention to breaches of social norms
(Bardall 2018, 27, 46).
Another method combines machine learning tools to process large num-
bers of messages, alongside crowdsourced workers to ensure greater accuracy.
During one month in 2017, Rheault, Rayment, and Musulan (2019) gathered
2.2 million tweets about and addressed to a sample of U.S. and Canadian
politicians. Classifying messages as “uncivil” if they contained swear words,

vulgarities, insults, threats, personal attacks, or hate speech, they checked the
precision of this method by randomly selecting 10,000 tweets to be annotated
by human workers. They then applied the refined tool to the full dataset and via
multivariate analysis, found that women were more heavily targeted by uncivil
messages as their political visibility increased.
Undertaking an even more ambitious project, Amnesty International
(2018b) collected tweets mentioning 778 female politicians and journalists
across the ideological spectrum in the United States and the UK between
January and June 2017. Focusing on sample of 288,000 tweets, more than 6,500
digital volunteers scrutinized each message for “abusive” or “problematic” con-
tent, with the former defined as content promoting violence or threats against
people based on their identity and the latter as content that was hurtful and
hostile but did not rise to the level of abuse. Follow-up questions asked about
the nature of this content (misogynistic, homophobic, racist, or other). Each
tweet was analyzed by multiple people, and in addition to definitions and tuto-
rials to help volunteers recognize abusive or problematic content, an online
forum enabled volunteers to discuss tweets they were unsure about with each
other and with Amnesty’s own researchers. For further quality control, three
experts on violence against women also examined and categorized a sample of
1000 tweets.
Applied to the full set of 14.5 million tweets, the refined machine learn-
ing tool identified 1.1 million abusive and problematic tweets, with relatively
similar patterns among politicians (1.3% abusive and 5.9% problematic) and
journalists (1.2% abusive and 5.8% problematic). However, while left-wing poli-
ticians received 23% more abusive and problematic mentions than right-wing
politicians, the opposite was true of journalists, with right-wing journalists tar-
geted for 64% more abusive and problematic posts than left-wing journalists.
Race also played a role, with women of color (black, Asian, Latinx, or mixed-
race) being 34% more likely to appear in abusive or problematic tweets than
white women—a pattern even more prominent among black women, who were
mentioned in 84% more abusive and 60% more problematic tweets than white
women.13 Despite many refinements, the Amnesty researchers note that their
tool achieved only 50% accuracy compared to the judgment of experts, point-
ing to the risks of simply leaving the task to algorithms to determine instances
of abuse (Chavez 2018).
Evaluating Documentation Strategies
Efforts to operationalize the phenomenon of violence against women in poli-

tics have thus used a variety of research tools, both quantitative and qualitative,
to collect and analyze data. While this literature is still in development, initial
contributions point to a variety of emerging approaches to measurement. For

some, adding a gender lens simply involves recognizing and studying women
as political actors, often—but not always—comparing women’s experiences
with those of men. For others, gendering the study of political violence entails
a much deeper critique of existing approaches, requiring an expanded view
of its actors, locations, and manifestations. Much of this work places strong
emphasis on women’s lived experiences, drawing on these for theoretical and
empirical guidance. Despite divergent methodological choices, many of these
contributions share a tendency to elide (gendered) violence in politics and vio-
lence against women in politics—in turn, undermining efforts to understand
and articulate the challenges posed by tactics to exclude women as women from
participating in political life.
MALE-FEMALE COMPARISONS
In a symposium on studying violence against women in politics, Bjarnegård

(2018) criticizes work “focusing only on women’s experiences of violence,”
which she argues obscures efforts “to distinguish between instances of violence
in which gender is part of the motive versus contexts in which violence is wide-
spread and affects all political actors.” Lamenting attention to women as a
form of “same-gender bias . . . in reverse,” she proposes that “comparing the
experiences of men and women” is the “only way” to “investigate gender differ-
ences in election violence prevalence” (693).
Central to Bjarnegård’s critique is her view that “violence against women
in politics” is an unfortunate misnomer for research on “gender and political
violence” (693). As noted in earlier chapters, however, these concepts in fact
capture two distinct phenomena. Violence against women in politics is identity-
based, aimed at suppressing women’s participation as women. It is thus a form
of violence directed exclusively at women. In contrast, violence in politics is
issue-based, employed to silence an opponent’s political views. As such, men
and women potentially face this type of violence. While some cases exist at the
intersection of these two types of violence, focusing on male-female differences
can only give insight into gendered patterns of violence in politics, for example
in its form and impact (Bardall, Bjarnegård, and Piscopo 2019). A comparative
lens, in contrast, provides no leverage for analyzing violence against women in
politics, which—by definition—is only experienced by women.
Other scholars espouse a different line of logic in comparing women and
men. They assume—albeit implicitly14—that male and female politicians may
be attacked similarly as politicians. If women are also attacked as women, the
overall volume of abuse they experience should be higher on average—making
male-female comparisons appropriate for studying both violence in politics and
violence against women in politics. While intriguing, this intuition is potentially
misleading. First, existing studies indicate that not all individuals are equally
vulnerable to attack. Politicians who are more visible (Rheault, Rayment, and
Musulan 2019), hold leadership positions (Krantz, Wallin, and Wallin 2012;
Maidment 2017), and promote controversial political opinions (Biroli 2018;
Warner 1977) tend to attract greater attention and hostility. If men are more
likely to occupy highly visible leadership roles, they may be more likely than
their female colleagues to face politically motivated attacks—in turn depressing
estimations of violence against women in politics as a separate phenomenon.
Second, gender may not be the only factor doing “added work” in shap-
ing experiences of violence. Research on harassment of black elected officials
(Musgrove 2012; Warner 1977), as well as on the effects of race, age, class, sexu-
ality, and religiosity in heightening vulnerability to violence against women in
politics (Centre for Social Research and UN Women 2014; Dhrodia 2017; IPU
2016b, 2018; Kuperberg 2018), suggest that attempts to exclude may activate
multiple categories of political marginalization. These factors, moreover, may
operate alternatively and simultaneously (Weldon 2006), collectively obscuring
how much of this violence is issue-versus identity-based—as well as which
identities, in particular, may be driving the results. Relying on male-female
comparisons to ascertain the existence (and extent) of violence against women
in politics is thus not an infallible approach—but, instead, one subject to seri-
ous estimation errors.
WOMEN-CENTERED STUDIES
International campaigns of women human rights defenders, in contrast, place

women’s experiences at the center of documentation efforts. The APWLD
(2007) guidebook suggests that telling women’s stories is important for politi-
cal and personal reasons. In contexts where abuses against women are “seldom
considered as human rights violations” or “serious enough to merit redress,”
documentation can serve as a crucial learning tool for both survivors and the
broader community, providing a “basis for reflection and evaluation” and giv-
ing insight into “specific risks and vulnerabilities” faced by female defenders.
In addition to “[breaking] the culture of silence,” the process of providing testi-
mony can support a woman’s “recovery, reintegration, reconciliation, and heal-
ing,” enabling her to “[recognize] her own voice in the narration of the incident,
and [affirm] her dignity and strength to go on with her life” (87–89).
The data collection efforts of ACOBOL embody this feminist ethos, tell-
ing of women’s stories as a form of resistance and empowerment (WHRDIC
2015). Along with giving voice to women’s realities, they analyzed the accounts
they collected to identify shared categories among these experiences, which
they subsequently used to mobilize for legal reform (Rojas Valverde 2010).
Relying on women to come forward with their testimonies has important limi-
tations, however, from a conventional social science perspective. Convenience
sampling—drawing from population members who are available and willing
to participate—can only provide insight into trends across the pool of people
studied. Making claims about broader prevalence rates, in contrast, requires a
random, representative sample of the broader population.
While treated as a tenet of “good science,” however, such standards are
difficult to achieve with “hard-to-reach populations,” where respondents have
strong incentives to remain hidden due to stigmas associated with the ques-
tions being posed (Johnston and Sabin 2010). This pattern is clearly the case
for politically active women, who may hesitate to report incidents of violence
against women in politics—or may simply normalize it as part of the political
game. In the absence of traditional sampling opportunities, researchers can,
nonetheless, aim to make their samples as representative as possible of the
diversity of relevant explanatory features within the broader population. To
this end, the two IPU surveys (2016b; 2018) sought interviews with female MPs
from different regions, political parties, age groups, and other backgrounds to
lend greater substance to their findings—even if the true generalizability of
these trends may never be known. However, if the goal is consciousness-raising,
these concerns are moot—as the aim, then, is less to generalize than to offer an
authentic articulation of women’s lived experiences.
More problematically, starting from the point of view of women’s lives,
like engaging in male-female comparisons, does not in itself resolve the issue
of distinguishing between incidents of violence in politics and violence against
women in politics. As noted earlier in this book, politically active women may
experience both forms of violence. These incidents may transpire separately,
with attacks focusing on a woman’s policy priorities at one moment and their
female identity at another. Forms of violence may also co-occur, with efforts
to discredit women’s political views questioning their right as women to par-
ticipate at all. Consequently, data collected to study women’s experiences may
capture both forms of violence simultaneously, as in the case of abusive tweets
that may be politically motivated and/or misogynistic. Disentangling these ele-
ments is especially challenging where women are attacked both as women and
in response to their women’s rights advocacy, placing them at the intersection
of these two phenomena.
Conscious of these possibilities, some researchers take care to identify
gendered content. Such a strategy, however, does not necessarily succeed in
differentiating between politically and gender- motivated acts. The registry
maintained by IM-Defensoras (2015) collects information on attacks against
women human rights defenders, recording—when available—data on gendered
components. Yet, without further details, it is not clear whether threats of
sexual violence, for example, invoke a gendered trope against an ideological
opponent, or alternatively, attempt to degrade and delegitimize women as legit-
imate participants in the political sphere. Similarly, the work of Luchadoras
on online abuse in Mexico notes whether attacks were gender-based (Barrera
et al. 2018). Whereas sexual objectification and allusions to proper gender roles
could be taken as clear manifestations of bias against women’s presence in

politics, judgments of sexual character are more ambiguous, requiring further
information to ascertain how they are used to criticize women’s participation
as women or as political rivals. Focusing exclusively on women, therefore, does
not automatically resolve the problem of identifying and measuring violence
against women in politics—but may also, in fact, lead to significant distortions.
LESSONS LEARNED AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The emerging literature on violence against women in politics reveals that—

at this early stage—scholars and practitioners continue to explore how best
to theorize, operationalize, and measure this phenomenon. The remarkable
variety of approaches employed indicates that this topic is amenable to exami-
nation from many different angles. These studies also provide initial evidence
furthering both the academic and political agendas around violence against
women in politics. Their divergent conceptual roots and methodological
assumptions, however, highlight the need for researchers to be explicit about
their choices, as different strategies may generate distinct conclusions about the
nature, extent, and impact of violence experienced by politically active women
around the world.
A central challenge across all studies involves distinguishing between vio-
lence in politics and violence against women in politics. While male-female
comparisons can help shed light on gendered forms of violence, they provide
limited leverage for discerning gendered motivations for violence—the distinc-
tion that divides these two phenomena. Similarly, focusing on women exclu-
sively can illuminate the spectrum of violence they experience—but absent
further details, does not suffice to ascertain which of these experiences are
politically versus gender-motivated. The bias event approach outlined in this
book offers a way forward, however, for researchers in both camps, providing
a framework for detecting and assessing evidence of bias against women, ame-
nable to a variety of empirical research strategies.
As elaborated in c hapter 10, this approach identifies six possible indica-
tors that bias might have played a role in a particular event: the offender made
oral comments, written statements, or gestures indicating bias; the offender left
bias-related drawings, symbols, or graffiti at the scene; the victim was engaged
in activities related to his or her identity group; the offender was previously
involved in a similar incident or is a hate group member; a substantial por-
tion of the community where the event occurred perceived that the incident
was motivated by bias; and—to capture potential implicit bias—the victim
was evaluated negatively according a double standard. This framework does
not require that all six criteria be met, but rather, draws on them holistically
to assess whether, on balance, available data would support a finding of bias
against women in political roles.
While illustrated in this book via qualitative case studies, a bias event
approach could also be translated into quantitative measures. Most existing
datasets of electoral and political violence, for example, are based on incident
reports regarding the type, location, perpetrators, and targets of violence.
Incorporating a bias event lens might entail asking follow-up questions about
the content of the incident (did it invoke bias-related tropes?), the actors involved
(did the targets or perpetrators have a history of activism for or against the tar-
get’s identity group?), and how the incident was perceived by the broader com-
munity (did citizens or the media interpret the incident as motivated by bias?).
Surveys could also integrate this approach into the design of questionnaires.
After questions about online violence, for instance, respondents could be asked
to estimate how much of the abuse was driven by political or gender reasons.
Respondents could also be invited to give examples, which researchers could
then analyze for bias-related content. Analyses of social media data, finally,
often attempt to devise measures to capture the nature of content. Adapting
these approaches in a bias-detection-oriented direction, however, could help
develop more nuanced typologies of misogynistic versus political issue content.
While the literature on violence against women in politics is still emerging,
its scope is impressively wide, analyzing the experiences of women active in a
variety of political spaces. Further, its impact is already tangible, not only giv-
ing women opportunities—and a language—to speak about their experiences
in the political world, but also serving to pressure actors at numerous levels to
enact policy change. Future work should build on these solid foundations to
produce more robust and cumulative research findings. However, both schol-
ars and practitioners should take care to ensure that, in the process, “efforts
to clarify the concept of violence do not privilege intellectual clarity over the
lived experience of fear, loss, and insecurity that are an inextricable part of
violent acts” (Krause 2009, 354). Anchoring projects—whether qualitative or
quantitative—in women’s realities will not only inspire new conversations but
also help foster awareness and a will to address violence as a gendered tool of
political exclusion.
19
Political and Social Implications
Violence against women in politics is increasingly recognized around the world

as a challenge to women’s political participation. The implications of these acts
reach far beyond individual victims, however, harming political institutions as
well as society at large. First, attempting to exclude women as women from par-
ticipating in political life undermines democracy, negating political rights and
disturbing the political process. Second, tolerating mistreatment due to a per-
son’s ascriptive characteristics infringes on their human rights, damaging their
personal integrity as well as the perceived social value of their group. Third,
normalizing women’s exclusion from political participation relegates women
to second class citizenship, threatening principles of gender equality. Naming
the problem of violence against women in politics thus has important repercus-
sions along multiple dimensions, making the defense of women’s rights integral
to the protection of political and human rights for all.
Democracy
Violence occurs in a variety of professional sectors, but features of politics

as a domain magnify the meaning and impact of violence, while simultane-
ously reducing accountability for its perpetrators. As an arena of public debate,
intimidation in political spaces is not merely a personal or institutional prob-
lem, but potentially threatens “the very nature of representative democracy,”
affecting “the diversity of our public life,” “the way in which the public can
engage” politically, and the “freedom to discuss and debate issues and inter-
ests” (CSPL 2017, 13). As such, politics “is not necessarily ‘worse’ than other
sectors” in terms of violence, according to French staffer and member of Chair
Collaboratrice, Assia Hebbache, but harassment there “imposes more problems,
because it is a place where laws are made.” Moreover, she points out, the unique
nature of this space—characterized by legal immunity and the importance of
partisan loyalty—creates “incredible impunity” (Philippe 2019), resulting in

a lack of protections from abuse that are often standard in more traditional
workplaces (Summers 2013). Using violence to deter women’s participation as
women has consequences, therefore, not only for politically active women, but
also for the democratic system at large—jeopardizing political rights, hindering
political work, and eroding public confidence in political institutions.
POLITICAL RIGHTS
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948) outlines a number of

political rights, including the right to freedom of expression and the right to
receive and impart information (Article 19), the right to peaceful assembly and
association (Article 20), and the right to take part in elections as candidates and
voters (Article 21). The CEDAW Convention (1979) specifies that women have
the right—on equal terms with men—to vote and stand for election, to hold
public office and perform all public functions at all levels of government, and
to participate in NGOs and associations concerned with the public and politi-
cal life of their countries (Article 7). Creating obstacles to women’s exercise
of these rights thus not only has tangible effects on women’s political partici-
pation but also violates national and international laws—thus hollowing out
these rights at both the practical and normative levels.
Events surrounding the resignation of Kiah Morris, the only African-
American woman in the Vermont House of Representatives, illustrate what
these rights violations might look like in practice. A racial and social justice
advocate, Morris was first elected to the state legislature in 2014. Although she
experienced a few instances of harassment during her first term, the abuse esca-
lated dramatically after she won the Democrat primary for reelection in 2016.
Swastikas appeared on trees along walking trails near her home, her car and
home were broken into, and a package with racially charged images were slid
under the door of her Democratic Party office. When the primary perpetrator,
Max Misch, a self-described white nationalist, showed up at her polling station,
she was forced to apply for a restraining order against him.
After that order expired one year later, Misch resumed his campaign of
harassment and threats. A report released in early 2019 revealed that police had
responded at least 16 times to complaints by Morris or her family over two years,
including burglaries, people lurking in their yard, and unknown vehicles parked
near their home. Morris also received numerous threatening messages online,
including one advising her to “go back to Africa, it’s the only place you’ll ever
be safe.” Although police concluded that the evidence “showed a family liv-
ing in constant fear and suspicion,” Vermont Attorney General T. J. Donovan
declined to press charges against Misch or others, arguing that that there was
insufficient physical evidence to identify any suspects in the burglaries—and
that, while “disturbing,” the harassment itself did not rise to the level of a
Political and Social Implications 249
crime. Describing the experience as “death by a thousand paper cuts” (Flynn

2019), Morris decided to resign from office after winning her third primary in
August 2018. The psychological violence perpetrated by Misch, combined with
impunity for his sustained campaign of harassment, thus effectively nullified
her political rights to run for and hold political office—as well as the rights of
voters, whose decisions in the primary election were negated.
While journalists are not often framed as political actors, attacks against
them directly affect political rights to free expression and to receive and impart
information. Indeed, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja
Mijatović convened an expert group meeting in 2015 framing online abuse of
female journalists as a new challenge to freedom of expression. Her 2016 report
argued that journalists’ safety was a precondition for free speech, such that
efforts to silence women should be understood as an attack on the freedoms
and rights of society as a whole. Likewise, a CPJ study observes that sexual
assaults of female journalists seek to silence the messenger, hoping women
will be intimidated into self-censorship. However, the broader impact of these
attacks is to block dissemination of news and information to the public, thus
also affecting the quality of news production overall (Wolfe 2011).
POLITICAL WORK
Threats aim to change the target’s behavior in order to benefit the intimidator.
In a work-related context, this involves attempting to interrupt tasks essen-
tial to job performance (Parker 2015). On a day-to-day basis, violence against
women in politics can burden targets with extra concerns, drawing time and
attention away from their political priorities. In an interview with Amnesty
International, British MP Anna Soubry noted the “time-consuming” nature of
“death threats,” as “there’s a big process to go through on each occasion with
the police and the House authorities, there’s obviously extra security measures
you have to put in place each time, and also if your kids see the tweets or it’s
the first time for new members of staff, you have to do a lot of reassurance
with them that they shouldn’t worry. Obviously you’re partly reassuring your-
self as well” (Dhrodia 2017). Along similar lines, in the IPU (2018) survey of
parliamentary staffers in Europe, more than half (59.7%) of those subjected
to violence said they were badly shaken by the experience. A slightly smaller
but still significant share (52.9%) reported it had affected their ability to work
normally (10). These patterns square with research on microaggressions find-
ing that repeated exposure to denigrating remarks can sap energy, lower self-
esteem, and “deplete or divert energy for adaptive functioning and problem
solving” (Sue 2010, 15).
Violence can also have longer-term effects, shaping the behaviors of tar-
gets into the future. Politically engaged women are often keenly aware that vio-
lence aims to force them to reduce or stop their political activities altogether. In
2016, five female members of the Seattle City Council published a joint letter
in the Seattle Times after a vote about a sports arena—which pitted the five
female members against the four male members—inspired a “bombardment
of threats, of sexual and other physical violence, hateful language and, in some
cases, racist rhetoric and accusations of incompetence rooted in our gender
identity.” They portrayed the “misogynistic backlash” as an “attempt to com-
municate a dangerous message: Elected women in Seattle do not deserve the
respect necessary to make tough decisions without the fear of violence and
racially and sexually charged retaliation.” Recognizing that the intention was
to “use fear and shame to silence and control,” they felt the need to clarify that
they would not be deterred, declaring: “We will not be silenced with threats,
not today, not tomorrow, and not ever” (Bagshaw, González, Herbold, Juarez,
and Sawant 2016).
Despite the resolve of many women to continue their political work
unabated, the reality is that many do feel compelled to take precautions that
reduce their previous ability to engage fully with the public and express their
opinions freely, especially on controversial issues. Illustrating how violence had
changed her daily routines and affected opportunities to interact with constitu-
ents, British MP Maria Caulfield told the CSPL (2017): “I now have video entry
only into my constituency office. I have panic alarms installed. I only post on
social media after I have attended events so people can’t track my movements,
on the advice of local police. I no longer put anything personal on social media.
I no longer hold open surgeries [drop-in meetings with local constituents], they
are by appointment only and are not advertised in advance” (77).
This violence, in turn, can affect opportunities for political expression. In an
opinion piece following the murder of Jo Cox, British MP Jess Phillips (2016b)
writes: “Jo’s death has brought about so many emotions . . . I am scared that
what I might say or do will make me a target. I wish I weren’t, but I am . . . For
Jo, her beliefs and her courage to air them cost her her life.” A survey of 940
male and female journalists across the 47 COE member states found, similarly,
that in the face of threats, 15% stopped covering sensitive topics, 31% toned
down their coverage of these issues, and 23% opted to withhold information in
their stories.1 A study by the Committee to Protect Journalists (2016) focused
specifically on women discovers that, in addition to abandoning stories, some
women moved jobs or locations—or even gave up journalism entirely.
Violence can also impoverish political discourse in more indirect ways. In a
subsequent book, Phillips (2017) relates that many young women seek out her
support and advice for dealing with misogyny online, telling her “they’re going
to stop posting blogs and tweeting about their politics and their views” (214).
Threats of violence also threaten to erode the fight for social justice, as women
human rights defenders are often “the ones who search for disappeared victims,
who bring to light cases of military sexual violence, who mobilize to defend the
lands and natural resources of indigenous groups, who support incarcerated
women who choose abortion, and who defend women working in sweatshops”
(IM-Defensoras 2013, 448).
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE
Civility in politics demonstrates mutual respect, permitting reasoned debate

with those holding opposite viewpoints, while also nurturing citizens’ levels
of trust in politicians and the political process more generally. Incivility, by
contrast, breeds hostility against opponents and mistrust of the political sys-
tem (Mutz 2015). Sexual harassment scandals brought to light by the #MeToo
movement highlight how allegations of sexual misconduct may affect public
opinion, as well as broader faith in political institutions. A survey conducted
by the Fawcett Society finds that sexual harassment accusations in the British
parliament had a negative impact on political engagement: 29% of respondents
were less likely to get involved in politics, while 23% said the allegations made
them less likely to vote. Affecting both men and women, these trends were par-
ticularly pronounced among younger voters, where 48% of women and 45% of
men reported they were less likely to get involved in politics as a result (Culhane
2019, 7, 26). The lack of protections for victims magnified these effects, accord-
ing to both MPs and staff, who expressed concerns that “the place regarded
as the heart of our democracy [was] failing to live up to the standards to be
expected of any 21st century workplace” (Cox 2018, 4; cf. Krook 2018).
Human Rights
Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948) stipulates

that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person (Article 3),
women’s rights were not explicitly recognized as human rights in international
instruments until the Vienna Declaration adopted by the UN World Conference
on Human Rights in 1993. Describing the “human rights of women” as “an
inalienable, integral, and indivisible part of universal human rights” (Article
18), the declaration called for the “elimination of violence against women in
public and private life,” arguing that gender-based violence constituted a vio-
lation of human rights (Article 38) (UN 1993b). The most recent statement
of these principles, CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35, asserts that
women’s right to a life free from gender-based violence is “indivisible from and
interdependent” on other human rights, including rights to life, health, liberty,
and security of the person; freedom from torture, cruel, inhumane, or degrad-
ing treatment; and freedom of expression, movement, participation, assembly,
and association (CEDAW Committee 2017, 6). Violence against women in pol-
itics thus constitutes a violation of human rights, affronting women’s personal
dignity and encumbering their rights as a group to participate in public life.
PERSONAL DIGNITY
Beyond physical injuries, experiencing violent acts can “assail the self-esteem
of recipients, produce anger and frustration, deplete psychic energy, lower feel-
ings of subjective well-being and worthiness, produce physical health prob-
lems, shorten life expectancy, and deny minority populations equal access and
opportunity in education, employment, and healthcare” (Sue 2010, 6). Flora
Igoki Terah, a parliamentary candidate in Kenya, was beaten by a group of
men leading to an extensive period of hospitalization. In a later book, she
reflected that “many people wondered where I got the courage and strength
to go on . . . . [My attackers] had wanted to humiliate me, strip me of all my
dignity, and leave nothing of me but a shell” (Terah 2008, 46). Former U.S.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (2016) captured a similar sentiment in
an opinion piece in which she wrote: “When a woman participates in politics,
she should be putting her hopes and dreams for the future on the line, not her
dignity and not her life.”
While no studies track the impact of these affronts to dignity among politi-
cally active women, interviews with current and former employees of Cognizant,
a company that provides Facebook moderation services, points to the physical
and emotional toll of repeated exposure to online abuse. Required to review
all content—including text, images, and videos—reported to Facebook for
violating community standards, moderators developed serious anxiety while
still in training and faced serious trauma symptoms long after they left the
company (Newton 2019). It is not difficult to imagine that personalized vio-
lent content could have similar if not greater impact on the politically active
women to whom it is directed, inducing anxiety and undermining their feelings
of self-worth.
SECURITY BURDENS
Abuse also threatens individuals’ sense of security, creating additional men-

tal labor and requiring the adoption of extensive preventative measures in the
conduct of their daily lives. Vera-Gray (2018) describes these psychological
burdens as “safety work,” a “range of modifications, adaptions, decisions that
women taken often habitually in order to maintain a sense of safety in public
spaces” (14). Limiting women’s freedom of movement, concerns about secu-
rity may lead women to “avoid speaking engagements, close their social media
accounts, change email addresses and phone numbers, leave their homes . . . or
even stop participating online altogether because of gender-based harassment”
(Vickery and Everbach 2018, 16). These safety burdens may be both conscious
and unconscious: while female journalists told Peterson (2018) they did not
deal with threats on a daily basis, many ended up sharing the intricate—and
exhausting—strategies they had developed for shielding themselves from abuse.
Such precautions foster a feeling of “constant external awareness” (Vera-

Gray 2018, 87) and may thwart women’s pursuit of social justice (Calogero
2013) due to an increased sense of the costs of activism. An NGO study on
security barriers to women’s participation in protests in Egypt, Libya, and
Yemen finds, for example, that “ambitious young women are forced to forego
opportunities for development that could make them more effective commu-
nity and political activists in the future” (Saferworld 2013, 16). Interviews with
reproductive rights providers in the United States similarly highlight the role
of safety concerns in reducing time spent on defending women’s human rights.
As one clinic director observed: “Our focus had to shift from the lofty goal of
women’s liberation to protecting our buildings, protecting our staffs, and pro-
tecting our clients” (Baird-Windle and Bader 2001, 14).
Gender Equality
Violence against women, finally, is widely recognized as a form of gender

inequality. Article 1 of CEDAW General Recommendation No. 19 defines
gender-based violence as “a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits
women’s ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men”
(CEDAW Committee 1992, 1). General Recommendation No. 35 expands this
definition, stating that violence serves as “one of the fundamental social, politi-
cal, and economic means by which the subordinate position of women with
respect to men and their stereotyped roles are perpetuated,” constituting “a
critical obstacle to achieving substantive equality between women and men”
(CEDAW Committee 2017, 4). In the political realm, violence against women
does not simply reflect views that women do not have same right as men to
participate. It also seeks to reinforce these inequalities by deterring individual
women—as well as women as a group—from becoming and remaining politi-
cally engaged.
INDIVIDUAL EFFECTS
The aim of violence against women in politics, by definition, is to discourage

women from participating in political life. Most efforts target individual women
who are politically involved, with the intention of coercing them to cease their
political activities. In some cases, the impact is immediate. Reviewing 10 years
of case files, ACOBOL reported that more than one-third (36%) of the com-
plaints it had received concerned forced resignations, with female local council-
ors being pressured to hand over their seats to male alternates (Chávez 2009).
Online violence, similarly, induced politically active women to modify—pause,
decrease, or completely halt—their social media engagement, across three proj-
ect countries studied by NDI (2019).
In other instances, experiences with violence lead women to think twice

about political involvement. A study of female journalists found that, in the
wake of threats and attacks, nearly one-third (29%) of respondents thought
about leaving the profession. These effects were twice as strong among jour-
nalists under the age of 30 (36%) as among reporters over the age of 40
(18%) (Ferrier 2018, 44). Sharing this sentiment, British MP Lisa Cameron
reflected: “I wouldn’t have given up my job and stood for election if the abuse
I would receive had been explained to me. I wouldn’t have. I believed I had
something to contribute . . . but I have a young family, and I wouldn’t have
wanted to put them through it. Their wellbeing is the priority” (CSPL 2017, 29).
After enduring such violence, many women around the world appear to
share the sentiments of a British suffragette who explained, after being “treated
both violently and indecently” on Black Friday in November 1910, she had
to withdraw from participating in marches on parliament because “my self-
respect prevents me from voluntarily subjecting myself again to similar treat-
ment” (Rosen 1974, 142). According to ACOBOL, few female incumbents run
for a second term, believing that holding local office in Bolivia was not worth
the physical and psychological violence they had endured (Chávez 2009). An
online survey of British MPs revealed, along similar lines, that 86% of female
MPs were not confident that appropriate action was being taken to tackle vio-
lence against women in politics—leading nearly two-thirds (65%) of female
MPs to say they were less willing to stand for re-election as a result.2
GROUP EFFECTS
As with violence against women more generally, however, the impact of vio-
lence against women in politics is not limited to the women directly targeted. As
Manne (2018) observes, “misogyny directed toward one woman in public life
may serve as a warning to others not to follow her lead, or even to publicly lend
their support to her” (111). Bradley-Geist, Rivera, and Geringer (2015) describe
this dynamic as the “collateral damage of ambient sexism” (29), whereby wit-
nessing sexism aimed at other women negatively affects female bystanders’ own
self-esteem and career aspirations. Some elected women are keenly aware of
this possibility. A candidate in the United States explained that she deleted the
sexist comments on her Facebook page, as “a lot of women pay attention to
my page. It’s important to me that we show a good dialogue about the issues
and we don’t scare women away from running” (Astor 2018, 14). British MP
Luciana Berger offered a related story about a woman she encouraged to run
for office who told her: “ ‘I wouldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t go through
what you experience’ ” (CSPL 2017, 29).
These demonstration effects need not be experienced firsthand. In a report
on the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch (2009)
notes: “Every time a woman in public life is assassinated, her death has a
multiplier effect: women in her region or profession will think twice about their
public activities” (5). Referring to the case of Sitara Achakzai, a member of
Kandahar’s provincial council, for example, one UNIFEM official called the
assassination “an attack on the entire women’s human rights community,” send-
ing a “chilling message [that] makes it even less likely for other women to start
participating” (Human Rights Watch 2009, 21–22). In cities like Kandahar,
indeed, the deterrent was so strong that in the 2009 elections fewer women ran
for office than the number of seats side aside for women by law (5).
Across different sources, however, perhaps the greatest concern is how vio-
lence against women in politics might affect the political ambitions of young
women. In Australia, surveys by Plan International (2017) revealed that, while
95% of girls aged 10 to 17 believed that girls were just as good at being lead-
ers as boys, more than half (56%) of women aged 18 to 25 thought female
politicians were treated unfairly by both the media and their male colleagues,
leading more than one third (35%) to view gender as a barrier to a career in
politics (8).3 In the UK, almost all (98%) participants in a program for aspiring
women leaders reported witnessing sexist abuse of female politicians online,
which over 75% indicated was a concern weighing on their decision to pursue a
role in public life (Campbell and Lovenduski 2016, 31). Similar sentiments were
expressed by a former political staffer, who shared: “My experiences [of sexual
harassment] have completely put me off a career in Parliament or in politics
generally, an aspiration that I had nurtured and worked hard to achieve for a
long time” (Culhane 2019, 11). Violence against women in politics thus under-
mines broader prospects for gender equality, not only affecting women directly
in the moment—but also influencing how women, indirectly as well as into the
future, feel empowered to participate fully in the political world.
20
Concluding Thoughts
This book tracks the process of naming the problem of violence against
women in politics—and in turn, seeks to strengthen its conceptual foundations
in order to support ongoing and future efforts to address and study this phe-
nomenon. These global debates have been informed and driven by the cour-
age of countless women around the world who have come forward to share
their experiences—some of whom, in the course of reflecting on incidents in
their lives, have themselves contributed to theorizing on this topic. In 2016,
Canadian politician Janis Irwin (2016) wrote an essay in the Huffington Post
sharing her thoughts in the wake of the murder of British MP Jo Cox. Seeking
to denormalize violence as the cost of doing politics, she mused: “like me, many
women in politics have been told to just not engage—and to just ‘let things
go’ . . . We’re told that you ‘gotta be tough’ in politics, and if you can’t handle it,
then it’s just not for you. ‘Grow a thick skin,’ they’ll often say. But the thickest
of skins won’t combat threats that are acted upon. The thickest of skins won’t
stop a bullet.” In 2019, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted
her thoughts on why politically active women are attacked: “The reason women
are critiqued for being too loud or too meek, too big or too small, too smart to
be attractive or too attractive to be smart, is to belittle women out of standing
up publicly. The goal is to ‘critique’ into submission. & That applies to anyone
challenging power.”1
Although raising awareness about violence against women in politics may
potentially depress the political ambitions of other women by highlighting the
dangers inherent in engaging in public life, speaking out about these experi-
ences can also be empowering. Indeed, while fear may demobilize, anger can
mobilize—producing positive, rather than negative, effects on political partici-
pation (Valentino, Brader, Groenendyk, Gregorowicz, and Hutchings 2011).
After speaking out about their experiences, indeed, many women appear
instead to be galvanized to continue their political work. Among the female
MPs in Europe interviewed by the IPU (2018), for example, 79.2% responded
Concluding Thoughts 257
that, despite experiences with violence, they were determined to remain in office
and run for another term (10). A study of online abuse of feminists found,
likewise, that more than half (54%) said experiencing abuse made them “more
determined in [their] political views,” while 33% said it made them feel “moti-
vated to continue to engage in debate” as well as “motivated to do something”
(Lewis, Rowe, and Wiper 2017, 1475). After a presentation at the UN on vio-
lence against women human rights defenders, one participant reported that
“even with the acknowledgment of struggle,” the meeting had ended not with a
“predominant feeling” of “defeat,” but rather a “mood” of “fatigued exhilara-
tion” (Rothschild 2005, 5).
Looking to the future, debates on violence against women in politics appear
likely to continue. Referring to sexism and misogyny in the political world,
Hillary Clinton (2017) shared: “I can’t think of a single woman in politics who
doesn’t have stories to tell. Not one” (116). The ubiquity of this problem makes
it easy to dismiss as simply the cost of doing politics, as an unfortunate and
pervasive consequence of women’s political activity. Viewed through the lens
of the lived experiences of the women profiled in this book, however, demon-
strates the many troubling ways in which women may be targeted as women,
with the specific purpose of violating their personal integrity as well as their
equal political rights. British MP Jess Phillips (2017) encapsulates these dynam-
ics succinctly when she writes: “It is dangerous to be a woman with a voice, but
it is considerably more dangerous for us to shut up” (236).
This book provides some initial concepts and frameworks for better under-
standing this problem, but—given the many more stories left to tell—does not
presume to offer the final word on this topic. Rather, this volume represents an
attempt to begin, rather than end, a broader global conversation on violence
against women in politics. In this spirit, a companion website to this book—
vawpolitics.org—has been created as a platform for cataloguing the original
scholarly and practitioner contributions to these debates, as well as for shar-
ing new resources as they emerge to reflect ongoing developments in this field.
Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard captures the ethos of this ongo-
ing collective project in remarks made in memory of Jo Cox in 2016: “Let us
stand in solidarity with the next generation of women and support their right
to serve and lead, safely and freely, but most importantly—powerfully.”
NOTES
Introduction
1. Focus group in Tunisia, cited in NDI (2018, 92).
2. Facebook post by Kim Weaver, June 3, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/
KimWeaverIA/posts/884931638314035.
3. Tweet by Steve King, June 4, 2017, https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/
871417060894457856.
4. Tweet by Monique Pelletier, May 10, 2016, https://twitter.com/pelletiermoniqu/
status/729950025795645440.
Chapter 2
1. For the full text of the law, see http://www.diputados.bo/leyes/ley-n%C2%B0-243.
2. In 2010, the UN General Assembly merged four organizations, including
UNIFEM, to create the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment
of Women (UN Women).
3. See http://www.knchr.org/Portals/0/Reports/Waki_Report.pdf, 24, 58.
4. Interview in Nairobi, June 13, 2018.
7. An electronic version is available at https://www.genderinkenya.org/publication/
electoral-gender-based-violence-handbook/.
8. Interviews in Nairobi, June 14, 2018.
9. The information that follows draws on an interviews in New York, March 12 and
June 7, 2018, as well as interviews via Skype, February 27 and March 11, 2019.
10. Interview in New York, June 7, 2018.
11. Interview in Washington, DC, May 10, 2018.
12. For links to these resources, see https://www.ifes.org/VAWE.
13. Interview in Washington, DC, May 10, 2018.
14. To view these testimonies, see http://www.parlamericas.org/en/gender-equality/
political-harassment-map.aspx.
15. Interview via phone, February 27, 2019.
16. Interview via phone, March 28, 2019.
17. NDI presentation at the Carter Center, Atlanta, GA, February 25, 2018.
18. Project details, as well as the call to action, are available at https://www.ndi.org/
not-the-cost.
19. Its online #think10 tool is available at https://think10.demcloud.org/ provides
women who participate in politics with a confidential way to assess their individual security
and make a plan to increase their safety.
259
260 Notes

21. Interviews via Skype, July 17 and July 27, 2018.
Chapter 3
1. Interview in Tunis, July 9, 2018.
2. For the video and full text, see http://legacy.annesummers.com.au/speeches/her-
rights-at-work-r-rated-version/.
3. Interview in New York, April 25, 2019.
4. For video of the speech, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOPsxpMzYw4.
5. Interviews in Paris, January 12 and 13, 2017.
6. See https://www.associationparler.com/.
7. The name is a play on words, sounding like Chère collaboratrice (“Dear female
staffer”) but actually meaning “Flesh of a female staffer.”
8. These testimonies are posted on the group’s website at https://chaircollabora-
trice.com/, Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/chaircollaboratrice/; and Twitter
account at https://twitter.com/chaircollab.
9. Interview in Paris, January 13, 2017.
10. See video at https://twitter.com/chaircollab/status/1108307193265352704.
11. The letter to Corbyn is posted here: http://www.mwnuk.co.uk//go_files/resources/
422693-Labour%20Party%20Complaint%20Letter.pdf.
12. Interview in London, January 18, 2018.
13. See https://www.pantsuitnation.org/mission.html.
14. For election- by-election data, see https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/elections/past_
candidates.
15. For video and commentary, see http://www.womensmediacenter.com/speech-project/
nameitchangeit.
16. Interview via Skype, March 11, 2019.
17. Activist Tarana Burke had been using the phrase “Me Too” on social media since
2006, however, and is widely recognized as the founder of the #MeToo movement.
18. Tweet by Alyssa Milano, October 15, 2017, https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/sta-
tus/919659438700670976.
19. For the full letter, see https://documents.latimes.com/women-california-politics-
call-out-pervasive-culture-sexual-harassment/.
20. Click on each account at https://www.wesaidenough.com/stories.
21. See https://twitter.com/WeSaidEnough.
22. For details on specific policy changes, see http://www.ncsl.org/research/about-
state-legislatures/2018-legislative-sexual-harassment-legislation.aspx.
23. For the full text of the final bill, see https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/
senate-bill/3749/text.
24. For the full debate transcript, see https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-10-
30/debates/832D011D-F22E-47EB-A7B2-E5062E84AF91/SexualHarassmentInParliament.
25. Interviews in London, January 9 and 16, 2018.
27. See https://labourtoo.org.uk/.
Notes 261
28. The legislative summary is available at https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/

default/en_CA/Research. Publications/LegislativeSummaries/421C65E.
29. Interview via WhatsApp, January 31, 2019.
30. See https://metooep.com/news-about-metooep/.
31. See https://metooep.com/.
32. See https://metooep.com/sign-the-pledge/.
33. These stories were published in Icelandic here https://www.mbl.is/media/08/10508.pdf.
Chapter 4
1. In 2006, the commission was replaced by the UN Human Rights Council.
3. See further details on types of grants and criteria for selection at https://urgentac-
tionfund.org/apply-for-a-grant/criteriado-i-fit/.
4. See https://www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org/about/.
5. For more extensive discussion of sexual and reproductive rights as human rights,
see Center for Reproductive Rights (2009) and Soohoo and Hortsch (2011).
6. See summary discussion at http://www.newssafety.com/stories/insi/wrw.htm.
7. See summary discussion at https://dartcenter.org/content/women-reporting-war.
8. See the full text at https://cpj.org/reports/2011/06/security-guide-addendum-sexual-
aggression.php.
9. See the full text at https://www.osce.org/fom/139186.
10. See http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/unesco_wel-
comes_report_on_safety_of_journalists_and_the_dang/.
11. See data summary at https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-
releases/article/ifj-survey-one-in-two-women-journalists-suffer-gender-based-violence-at-
work.html.
Chapter 5
1. Information from Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, vice chair of the CEDAW Committee,
March 9, 2018.
2. See https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=
21652&LangID=E.
3. For a summary of contributions to this meeting, see UN Women, Office of the
High Commissioner on Human Rights, and UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against
Women (2018).
4. “16 Days” refers to the period between November 25, International Day for the
Elimination of Violence against Women, and December 10, Human Rights Day. See more
at https://16dayscampaign.org/about-the-campaign/.
5. See details and links here: https://16dayscampaign.org/campaigns/sector-focus-
initiative/.
7. Seehttps://u
shrnetwork.org/n
ews/1 19/1 00/I nternational-L
abor-C
onference-n
egotiates-
a-standard-setting-process-to-end-violence-and-harassment-in-the-world-of-work.
262 Notes
Chapter 6
1. Personal visit to the “Votes for Women” exhibition, Museum of London, March
2018.
2. The first woman to win a parliamentary election was Constance Markievicz in
1918. As a member of Sinn Fein, however, she did not take her seat. Astor won her seat in
a by-election in 1919.
3. During hearings to confirm Thomas as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court in
1991, Hill came forward with allegations that Thomas had sexually harassed her while
serving as her supervisor at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission.
4. This exemption stemmed from the theory that Congress could not be governed by
the executive and judicial branches, making it immune from the very laws it had passed to
prevent employment discrimination (Bingham 1997). See Jones (2017) for a discussion of
the implications of this exemption in the case of race discrimination.
Chapter 7
1. See pages 3 and 4 of the law at http://www.diputados.bo/leyes/ley-n%C2%B0-243.
2. Interviews via Skype, February 27 and March 11, 2019.
3. Interview in Lima, July 24, 2015.
4. Interviews in Washington, DC, May 10, 2018, and New York, June 7, 2018.
5. See https://www.ifes.org/VAWE.
6. See https://www.ndi.org/not-the-cost.
7. See page 1 of the law at http://www.legislation.tn/sites/default/files/news/tf2017581.
pdf.
8. See page 3 of the law at http://www.diputados.bo/leyes/ley-n%C2%B0-243.
9. Interview in Tunis, September 3, 2015.
11. This can also disguise the fact that perpetrators may not even be located within the
country itself, working for “troll farms” or participating in global networks of men’s rights
activists.
12. Interviews in London, January 10, 16, 17, and 18, 2018.
13. Interview in Stockholm, September 13, 2017.
Chapter 8
1. This quote, indeed, is so central to Churchill’s views on politics that it leads the
summary of his political career on the National Churchill Museum website: https://www.
nationalchurchillmuseum.org/winston-churchill-the-politician.html.
2. See https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_
Release_Natl_010813_.pdf.
3. See the most recent data at https://www.ipu.org/about-us/structure/governing-
council/committee-human-rights-parliamentarians.
4. Decisions going back to 1996 are posted at https://www.ipu.org/decisions-committee-
human-rights-parliamentarians.
Notes 263
5. Interview in Stockholm, March 31, 2017. See links to reports and data at https://
www.bra.se/statistik/statistiska-undersokningar/politikernas-trygghetsundersokning.html.
6. For links to all these reports, see https://antisemitism.org.uk/the-appg/publications/.
8. In 2006, the commission was replaced by the UN’s Human Rights Council.
9. See https://cpj.org/about/faq.php.
10. See https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg16.
11. See https://ipi.media/programmes/ontheline/about-ontheline/.
Chapter 9
1. For a more detailed analysis of the Bhutto and Rousseff cases, see Krook and
Restrepo Sanín (2020).
2. The series of tweets (and responses) can be seen at https://www.vox.com/2019/
7/14/20693758/donald-trump-tweets-racist-xenophobic-aoc-omar-tlaib-pressley-back-
countries.
3. See https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-162/wit-and-
wisdom-true-men-and-women/.
4. See the Mobility Map (2017) and Physical Security Map (2014) at http://www.
womanstats.org/maps.html.
5. See http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/11/10/but-how-do-you-know-its-sexist-the-
mencallmethings-round-up/.
6. Many thanks to María Clara Medina for her observation at a workshop in Mexico
City in November 2015 that symbolic violence serves as the root of all other types of vio-
lence against women in politics.
7. See an English-language translation at http://kjonnsforskning.no/en/five-master-
supression-techniques.
8. This essay has been reprinted many times, but the original post is at http://www.
tomdispatch.com/blog/175584/.
Chapter 10
1. See https://www.girlboss.com/identity/gloria-steinem-interview-sexual-harassment-
feminism-trump.
2. See https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2014/0214/Hillary-Clinton-tells-
women-to-grow-skin-like-a-rhinoceros.-Good-advice.
3. Interviews in Lusaka, March 2016, and New Delhi, June 2018.
4. See debate record at https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-09-14/
debates/ 3 3680E1C- D 57C- 4 071- 9 94D- 0 11ADA9FC721/ G eneralElectionCampaign
AbuseAndIntimidation.
5. Interviews in London, January 10, 16, 17, and 18, 2018.
6. Interviews in London, January 10, 2017, and Stockholm, September 13, 2017.
7. Other criteria listed by the FBI but less relevant to instances of violence against
women in politics include: the offender and victim came from different identity groups;
objects indicating bias were used (like white hoods indicating membership in the Ku Klux
Klan); the victim was a member of a group overwhelmingly outnumbered by other residents
264 Notes
where they live and the incident occurred; the victim was visiting a neighborhood where
previous hate crimes had been committed; several incidents occurred in the same locality
and targeted members of the same group; the incident coincided with a holiday or date of
significance to the group; a hate group claimed responsibility for the crime; and historical
animosity existed between the victim’s and offender’s groups.
8. Although actors may have incentives to play up or play down bias, this criterion
seeks to capture community-based understandings of the incident, recognizing that hate
crimes seek to send a “message” about inequality and exclusion.
Chapter 11
1. For a sample visualization see https://www.nap.edu/visualizations/sexual-harassment-
iceberg/.
2. For an image of this wheel see https://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheels/.
3. Individual interview sources—sometimes including but often going beyond the
women in question—remain anonymized, however, to conform to university research eth-
ics requirements.
Chapter 12
1. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.stm.
2. See the full text of the speech at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/
2013/jul/12/malala-yousafzai-united-nations-education-speech-text.
3. Interviews in Nairobi, June 13, 2018.
4. See https://twitter.com/leemakwiny/status/1139113802656620546.
5. Footage of the walkout is posted here: https://twitter.com/Mnurferuz/status/
1139151121644175360.
6. Interview via phone, May 3, 2018.
7. Tweet by Hillary Clinton, August 9, 2016, https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/sta-
tus/763103518773436416.
8. Tweet by Hillary Clinton, August 27, 2015, https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/sta-
tus/648099640714391552.
9. Seehttps://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/11/saudi-arabia-reports-of-torture-
and-sexual-harassment-of-detained-activists/.
10. For more details on why the Cox case is an instance of violence against women in
politics, versus a case of violence in politics, see Krook and Restrepo Sanín (2020).
11. See excerpts from Katherine Marshall’s unpublished manuscript, Suffragette
Escapes and Adventures, at http://suffrajitsu.com/escapes-and-adventures/.
12. Interview in New York, February 15, 2018.
13. Materials received during in-person attendance at Mina’s List/Voatz training ses-
sion in New Delhi, June 27, 2018.
15. Personal communication, October 4, 2018.
16. See http://www.fixatedthreat.com/ftac-welcome.php.
18. See https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-costs/annual-publication/.
Notes 265
Chapter 13
1. Tweet by Jess Phillips, July 28, 2016, https://twitter.com/jessphillips/status/
758670826732412929.
2. This is a reference to the Swedish-language title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson, Men Who Hate Women.
3. See transcript at https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/referens/de-hotade-1.
4. See transcript at https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/referens/de-hotade-1.
5. Presentation at the UN Expert Group Meeting on Violence against Women in
Politics, New York, March 8, 2018.
6. See https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1046071155793285120.
7. See https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1046072510054313985.
8. Interviews in London, January 7, 16, and 17, 2018.
9. Twitter Rules as of November 3, 2019, at https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-
policies/twitter-rules.
10. Tweet by Seyi Akiwowo, May 30, 2019, https://twitter.com/seyiakiwowo/status/
1134105938544254978.
11. See https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2018-01-11/debates/6e012cd9-93e2-
4449-9425-13f8d7015de9/LordsChamber.
12. Tweet by Tomi Lahren, October 31, 2019, https://twitter.com/TomiLahren/status/
1189955946337861632.
13. Tweet by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, March 8, 2019, https://twitter.com/AOC/sta-
tus/1104069510238269440.
14. See https://twitter.com/ParityBOT.
15. See “All about ParityBOT” at http://lanacuthbertson.ca/.
16. The link for submitting suggestions is available at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/
e/1FAIpQLScNmkBq_JmMgToEgu442ij611RKV60KSeObG20MOjl9SBfr1g/viewform.
17. See https://yoursosteam.wordpress.com/about/.
18. See http://www.troll-busters.com/.
19. See https://yoursosteam.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/trollbusters_tabloidedit3_
01_dm.jpg.
20. Personal observations of Pantsuit Nation content between 2016 and 2019.
21. See https://im-defensoras.org/en/.
Chapter 14
1. See audio link at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-41824720/bex-bailey-i-
was-raped-at-a-labour-party-event-in-2011.
2. This sentiment was expressed by members of LabourToo in an interview in
London, January 10, 2018.
3. See press release at https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/press-release-me-let-me-go/
not-your-daughter-or-mine-forced-virginity-tests-egypt.
4. See also https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/03/egypt-epidemic-sexual-violence.
5. Interviews in Dar es Salaam, August 2, 10, and 11, 2016, and New York, June 7, 2018.
6. Interviews in Dar es Salaam, August 16, 2016.
7. Tweet by Jair Bolsonaro, June 13, 2019, https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/
1139218648894189568.
266 Notes
8. Interview in Ottawa, February 5, 2018.

9. Interviews in Ottawa, February 6 and 8, 2018.
11. Interviews in London, January 15 and 16, 2018.
12. Tweet by Alyssa Milano, October 15, 2017, https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/sta-
tus/919659438700670976.
13. Interviews in Paris, January 12, 2017.
14. Interview in San Francisco, April 6, 2018.
15. Interviews in Sacramento, April 9 and 10, 2018.
16. See the letter at https://documents.latimes.com/women-california-politics-call-out-
pervasive-culture-sexual-harassment/.
17. See https://www.wesaidenough.com/home.
18. See https://twitter.com/wesaidenough?lang=en.
19. See https://chaircollaboratrice.com/dis-moi-tout-ma-belle/.
20. See https://metooep.com/share-your-story/.
21. https://metooep.com/about-sexual-harassment/.
22. See https://metooep.com/get-help/.
24. See https://labourtoo.org.uk/ (version up on October 20, 2017).
25. Information on the content of the report can be found at https://labourtoo.org.uk/
blog/.
26. See https://labourtoo.org.uk/blog/.
28. An electronic copy is available at https://issuu.com/ywln/docs/ywln_itstime_
0930/20.
29. See https://www.ywln.ca/itstime1.
30. Presentation by YWLN co-founder Arezoo Najibzadeh at the World Forum for
Democracy in Strasbourg, France, November 20, 2018.
31. See https://www.aheapanel.org/.
32. See statement by Andrea Leadsom at https://hansard.parliament.uk/C ommons/2 017-
1 2 - 2 1 / d e b a t e s / 5 2 E 5 8 F E F - E 5 A B - 4 5 3 1 - A 9 E C - 9 F 4 7 1 6 4 9 1 B 7 3 /
IndependentComplaintsAndGrievancePolicy.
33. See the pledge at https://metooep.com/sign-the-pledge/.
36. See the full text at https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFT
EXT000035567974&categorieLien=id.
37. See the full debate at https://www.publicsenat.fr/article/politique/moralisation-
les-senateurs-etendent-l-ineligibilite-aux-elus-condamnes-pour.
38. See https://jean-jaures.org/nos-productions/sept-propositions-pour-lutter-contre-le-
harcelement-sexuel-au-parlement.
39. See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCNN4MXhpRQ.
40. For the full text, see https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3749/
text.
41. Yet a third policy applies for administrative staff and unionized employees.
42. See https://www.ourcommons.ca/About/StandingOrders/Appa2-e.htm.
Notes 267
43. See the full text at https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20180205/HRES___.pdf.

47. See https://www.gjs-security.com/training/.
Chapter 15
1. See https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/un-s-kubi-rejects-and-denounces-malicious-
acts-against-election-integrity-particular.
2. See images of the damage at https://twitter.com/lorna_hughes/status/752804738
270433280.
4. To compare the images, see https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliceworkman/
trolled-for-mansplaining.
5. See https://www.facebook.com/SenKatyG/posts/looks-like-my-page-was-hacked-
apologies-to-those-who-were-offended-by-some-comme/1497654190305295/.
6. See further details at https://www.icrw.org/news/state-dept-announces-guidance-
expanded-gag-rule/.
7. For the full text of the law, see http://www.diputados.bo/leyes/ley-n%C2%B0-243.
8. See https://urgentactionfund.org/what-we-do/rapid-response-grantmaking/.
Chapter 16
1. While not the focus here, fictional works rarely portray women as political leaders.
When they do, these representations break with but also reify existing gendered norms of
leadership (Sheeler and Anderson 2013).
2. See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/30-31/3/section/24.
3. See https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/9029/index.do.
4. See https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/ukjcpc/doc/1929/1929canlii438/1929canlii438.html.
5. See http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/arc/classif311207.htm.
6. Interview in Williamsburg, October 29, 2018.
7. See https://www.rae.es/consultas/los-ciudadanos-y-las-ciudadanas-los-ninos-y-las-
ninas.
8. See Rule 19.2 at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SMAN-107/html/SMAN-107-
pg18-2.htm.
9. See https://www.facebook.com/senatorelizabethwarren/videos/724337794395383/.
10. Brooks (2013) suggests that both male and female leaders are penalized for emo-
tional outbursts, but also provides compelling evidence for the widespread use of this frame
when discussing female candidates.
11. Presentation by Eleonora Esposito at the European Conference on Politics and
Gender in Amsterdam, July 2019.
12. See https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/un-s-kubi-rejects-and-denounces-malicious-
acts-against-election-integrity-particular.
13. Tweet by Katie Hill, October 27, 2019, https://twitter.com/RepKatieHill/status/
1188591520531779584.
268 Notes
14. See https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/31/politics/katie-hill-farewell-speech-full-text/

index.html.
15. See https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Mexico_2015.pdf ?lang=en.
16. See https://www.ecp.gov.pk/Documents/laws2017/Election%20Act%202017.pdf.
17. Interview in Canberra, August 16, 2018.
18. See http://ulis2.unesco.org/images/0007/000769/076995EO.pdf.
19. See https://en.unesco.org/system/files/ge_guidelines_for_publications_-_annex_
4.pdf.
20. See https://en.unesco.org/system/files/guidelines_for_pp_-_annex_3.pdf.
21. For the full exchange of tweets, see: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/
gerry-ritz-catherine-mckenna-climate-barbie-1.4298005.
22. See https://labarbelabarbe.org/Qui-sommes-nous.
23. Interview in Paris, July 5, 2012.
24. See https://labarbelabarbe.org/En-politique.
25. See https://twitter.com/manwhohasitall.
26. Tweet by ManWhoHasItAll, October 3, 2018, https://twitter.com/manwhohasitall/
status/1047471374665756672.
27. Tweet by ManWhoHasItAll, September 27, 2016, https://twitter.com/manwhoha-
sitall/status/780754090129186817.
28. Tweet by ManWhoHasItAll, November 20, 2019, https://twitter.com/manwhoha-
sitall/status/1197269649236406273.
29. For the full text of the resolution, see https://www.rappler.com/n ation/1 48077-w
omen-
senators-senate-resolution-vs-house-show-de-lima-video.
Chapter 17
1. See https://www.ndi.org/not-the-cost.
2. Personal notes from the #NotTheCost campaign launch, New York, NY, March
17, 2016.
3. Personal notes from the Violence against Women in Politics Summit, London,
United Kingdom, March 19, 2018.
4. See http://www.cecafp.senado.gob.mx:8080/elearning/temarios/3.pdf.
5. A completed certificate can be viewed at http://mlkrook.org/pdf/Constancia.pdf.
6. See https://observatorio.inmujeres.gob.mx/mvc/view/public/index.html?q=MTA0.
7. See https://observatorio.inmujeres.gob.mx/mvc/view/public/index.html?q=OTI=.
8. Interviews in Mexico City, May 22 and 23, 2018.
9. See https://violenciapolitica.mx/denuncia.
10. Interview via phone, December 10, 2018.
11. See http://www.nameitchangeit.org/pages/about.
12. See http://www.womensmediacenter.com/speech-project.
13. See http://www.womensmediacenter.com/speech-project/nameitchangeit.
15. Proposals at the federal level in Mexico are not stand-alone bills but focus on
reforming existing legislation.
16. While legal reforms have failed at the federal level in Mexico, they have broadly
succeeded at the subnational level: as of October 2017, 28 of the 32 states (including Mexico
Notes 269
City) had approved legislation on violence against women in politics. As a group, these
reforms are highly heterogeneous, appearing in state constitutions, laws on violence against
women, electoral laws, laws on political parties, and/or penal codes (Hevia Rocha 2017).
17. See http://www.diputados.bo/leyes/ley-n%C2%B0-243.
18. See https://oig.cepal.org/sites/default/files/2016_bol_ds2935.pdf.
19. See https://www.oep.org.bo/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/reglamento_renuncias_
denuncias_acoso_politico_2017.pdf.
20. See http://escuela.fgr.gob.sv/wp-content/uploads/Leyes/Leyes-2/ARCHIVO-
CORTE-SUP-LIEV-8B435.PDF.
21. See http://www.ficame.org/gaceta%2027403%20Ley%2082%20femicidio.pdf.
22. See http://www.bacn.gov.py/leyes-paraguayas/8356/ley-n-5777-de-proteccion-integral-a-
las-mujeres-contra-toda-forma-de-violencia.
23. See https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Tunisia_2014.pdf.
25. Interviews in Tunis, July 10 and 12, 2018.
26. Interview in Tunis, July 12, 2018, and interview via Skype, July 13, 2018.
27. See https://directinfo.webmanagercenter.com/2014/10/02/video-ce-nest-quune-femme-
repond-bce/.
29. Interviews in Tunis, July 10 and 12, 2018.
30. See http://www.legislation.tn/sites/default/files/news/tf2017581.pdf.
31. See https://www.te.gob.mx/protocolo_mujeres/media/files/7db6bf44797e749.pdf.
32. See https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/275255/Protocolo_para_la_
Atencio_n_de_la_Violencia_Politica_23NOV17.pdf.
33. See https://observatorio.inmujeres.gob.mx/mvc/view/public/index.html?l=e4da3b7
fbbce2345d7772b0674a318d5.
34. See https://www.inecnigeria.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Code_of_Conduct_
For_Political_Parties_Preamble.pdf.
35. See https://www.legislationline.org/download/id/7655/file/Bosnia_Herzegovina_
election_law_2001_am2016_en.pdf.
36. Presentation by Irena Hadžiabdić at the UN Women Expert Group Meeting on
Data and Violence against Women in Politics in New York, December 5, 2019.
37. See https://www.change.org/p/theresa-may-mp-lifetime-ban-from-standing-for-elected-
office-for-those-who-threaten-rape-or-violence.
38. For the text of the letter and list of signatories, see https://www.fawcettsociety.
org.uk/news/fawcett-calls-on-government-to-impose-a-lifetime-ban-on-candidates-who-
promote-violence-through-open-letter.
39. See https://think10.demcloud.org/.
40. See https://web.archive.org/web/20180519222737/http://fidakenya.org/news/
launch-o f-t he-f ida-kenya-s ms-h otline-s ema-u sikike-t o-r eport-c ases-o f-v iolence-
against-women-during-the-electioneering-period/.
42. See https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/free-saudi-women-who-fought-right-drive.
43. See https://www.libdems.org.uk/doc-code-of-conduct.
44. See https://www.conservatives.com/codeofconduct.
45. See https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2018-RULE-BOOK.pdf.
270 Notes
Chapter 18
1. Studies not covered in this chapter are discussed at length in other parts of this book.
2. Interview via phone, July 3, 2018.
3. See https://www.acleddata.com/curated-data-files/.
4. Interview via phone, March 28, 2019. See also http://www.voteswithoutviolence.
org/methodology.
5. See http://www.voteswithoutviolence.org/.
6. Similar studies of female politicians have been conducted in Colombia (Restrepo
Sanín 2016) and Argentina (Martelotte 2018), combining large-scale surveys with follow-
up interviews.
8. Remarks by Purna Sen (UN Women) at NDI’s #NotTheCost launch, New York,
March 17, 2016.
9. Similar efforts were undertaken in Peru by three civil society organizations—
Centro Flora Tristán, Diakonia Perú, and Calandria—who worked together to produce a
report on political harassment against women, focused on gathering information on and
systematizing the experiences of women involved in the National Network of Female Local
and Regional Authorities (Quintanilla Zapata 2012).
10. To avoid implementing gender quota requirements, some parties simply feminized
some of the male names on their electoral lists—a trend widespread enough to lead to the
coining of a new term, “transvestite candidates.”
11. See http://www.diputados.bo/leyes/ley-n%C2%B0-243.
12. See http://im-defensoras.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Informe-ejecutivo-2015-
2016-english.pdf.
13. See https://decoders.amnesty.org/projects/troll-patrol/findings.
14. Personal communication with Rebekah Herrick, December 10, 2019.
Chapter 19
1. See summary press release at https://rm.coe.int/16807215ba.
2. See summary statistics at https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-
committees/women-and-equalities/ComRes-WEC-MPs-Tables-Oct19.pdf.
3. Interview in Melbourne, August 9, 2018.
Chapter 20
1. Tweet by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, May 28, 2019, https://twitter.com/AOC/sta-
tus/1133383123503321090.
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INDEX
For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear
on only one of those pages.
Abbott, Diane, 28, 57, 70, 93–94, 108, 112, 147 Black, Mhairi, 148
Achakzai, Sitara, 130–31, 254–55 Bohara, Laxmi, 129
Afghanistan, 70, 71, 111, 130–31, 137, 254–55 Boldrini, Laura, 26, 101, 112, 194
Ahmed-Sheikh, Tasmina, 70–71 Bolivia, 14–15, 20–21, 59–60, 62, 122–23,
Akiwowo, Seyi, 147–48 180, 236–37
Albright, Madeleine, 252 Law 243, 14–15, 65–66, 123, 184, 221–22
Alversjö, Jenny, 58, 141 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 224–25
Amaudruz, Céline, 173 Brazil, 94–95, 128–29, 158, 199
Amnesty International, 37–38, 70, 84, 96, 133–34, Butler, Dawn, 193–94
147, 228, 241, 249
anti-abortion violence, 79, 96, 145, 182–83, 253 Cameron, Lisa, 254
Argentina, 96, 209 Canada, 33–34, 55–56, 81, 132, 148–49, 150,
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data 162–63, 167–68, 171–72, 174, 179, 191–92,
Project (ACLED), 69, 232–33 210–11, 219, 235, 240–41, 256
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law, and Caulfield, Maria, 250
Development (APWLD), 37–38, 237, 243 Center for Women’s Global Leadership
Asiyo, Phoebe, 175 (CWGL), 37–38, 50
Association for Women’s Rights in Development Chair Collaboratrice, 27–28, 164–65, 166, 247–48
(AWID), 39, 180 Champion, Sarah, 166
Association of Locally Elected Women of Chile, 172–73, 240
Bolivia (ACOBOL), 14–15, 62, 68, 180, China, 132–33, 199
236–37, 243–44, 253, 254 Clinton, Hillary, 5–6, 29, 96, 105–6, 113, 132,
Association for Women’s Rights in Development 133, 145–46, 152, 202, 205, 211, 257
(AWID), 39 Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL),
Astor, Nancy, 54, 98 28–29, 62, 80, 147
Attard, Isabelle, 26–27, 159 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 42, 43–44,
Australia, 25–26, 173, 180–81, 197, 199, 201–2, 85, 151, 161, 249
207, 255 Commonwealth Women
Aziz, Fatima, 111 Parliamentarians, 22–23
Consensus of Quito, 14, 22–23
Backlash, 58–60 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Bailey, Bex, 33, 155–56 Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),
Bangladesh, 179 15, 46–48, 64, 66, 122
barriers to recognition Copps, Sheila, 7–8
cognitive gap, 4–5 Costa Rica, 182
political gap, 5–6 Côte d’Ivoire, 157, 161, 179
receptivity gap, 6–7 Cox, Dame Laura, 32–33, 170
resources gap, 7–8 Cox, Jo, 3, 28–29, 48, 80, 112, 135, 137–38, 140–
Bassma, 175 41, 250, 256, 257
Baupin, Denis, 26–27, 159, 164 Criado-Perez, Caroline, 102
Begum, Shad, 129–30 Croatia, 203
Berger, Luciana, 254 Cruz, Eufrosina, 206
Bhutto, Benazir, 91–92, 128 cultural violence, 99–101
309
310 Index
data collection, 232–41 Gouda, Salwa Husseini, 156

comparing women and men, 106–8, 242–43 Grabar-Kitarović, Kolinda, 203
incorporating intersectionality, 107–8 Greece, 195
problem of under-reporting, 105–6 Greene, Lauren, 160
Davis, Wendy, 111, 221 Guatemala, 182
De Lima, Leila, 203, 212–13 Gutiérrez, Doris, 195–96
Debost, Elen, 26–27, 159
Denmark, 193 Hanson-Young, Sarah, 25–26, 207
Dinamarca, Rossana, 141–42 Harassment of black elected officials,
Dobson-Hughes, Laura, 161 93, 177–78
domination techniques, 102–3 Hashtag activism, 218
Duflot, Cécile, 159 hate crimes, 109–12
Durda, Renata, 181, 184 Hathloul, Loujain, 134, 228
Haug, Frigga, 196
Eagle, Angela, 179 Hill, Katie, 194, 204
Economic Commission for Latin America and Honduras, 157, 195–96, 238
the Caribbean (ECLAC), 14 Hortman, Melissa, 197
Egypt, 24–25, 146, 156–57, 175–76, 253 human rights defenders, 36–41, 82–84
El Salvador, 182, 222, 238 Human Rights Watch (HRW), 84
electoral gender-based violence, 16–17, 135–36
electoral violence, 77–79 Ibrahim, Anwar, 92–93, 106
gender and, 18, 20, 21–22 Iceland, 35
Etemadzadeh, Ava, 159–60 iKNOW Politics, 17–18
European Parliament (EP), 34–35 Illinois Anti-Harassment, Equality, and Access
(AHEA) Panel, 168–69
Fake news, 58, 77, 87–88, 146, 200–1 Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM),
Fathy, Amal, 146 20–21, 48–49, 66
Fawcett Society, 225, 251 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention,
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 111, 113 Punishment, and Eradication of
Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), 16–17, Violence against Women (Belém do Pará
48–49, 227 Convention), 20–21
Fernández, Maya, 172–73 Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), 17–19, 30,
Ferrier, Michelle, 151–52 48–49, 62, 66, 70, 106, 127–28, 139–40,
Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC), 138 154–55, 178, 221, 229–30, 233–34, 244,
Forst, Michel, 41 249, 256–57
France, 26–28, 68, 159, 163–65, 166, 170–71, Committee on the Human Rights of
194–95, 207–8, 211–12, 247–48 Parliamentarians, 79
Franco, Marielle, 128–29 International Campaign on Women Human
Free speech objections, 109 Rights Defenders, 37–39
Freeman, Hadley, 145 International Federation of Journalists (IFJ),
Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 22–23 43–44, 85, 150–51
Front Line, 37–39, 84 International Foundation for Electoral
Systems (IFES), 20, 48–49, 62–63, 66, 106,
Gallagher, Katy, 180–81, 197, 201–2 232, 240
Garrud, Edith, 136–37 International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
gaslighting, 6–7, 100, 147–48 Commission (IGLHRC), 37–38
Gedi, Fatuma, 131 International Institute for Democracy
gender card, 7 and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), 15,
gender ideology, 53, 94, 183 22–23, 48–49
Germany, 141, 196, 235 International Labour Organization (ILO),
Giffords, Gabrielle, 80 49–51, 66
Gillard, Julia, 3–4, 7, 25, 96, 199, 257 International News Safety Institute (INSI),
Gillibrand, Kirsten, 119, 161–62 41–43, 85
Global Journalist Security (GJS), 174–75 International Press Institute (IPI),
Głogowska-Balcerzak, Anna, 181 44–45, 85, 86
Index 311
International Women’s Media Foundation #MeToo movement, 24, 30–34, 49, 56, 119, 154,
(IWMF), 42–43, 44, 174–75 155–56, 159, 163, 166, 168–70, 171, 172–73,
intersectionality, 69–71, 107–8, 168, 188, 193, 174, 217–18
200, 221–22, 243 #MeTooEP, 34–35, 166, 170, 218
age and gender, 108, 139–40, 143, 148, 155, Mexico, 82, 185–86, 206, 219–20, 223–24,
167–68, 193, 203, 204, 207, 235, 255 238–39, 244–45
race and gender, 108, 193–94, 197, microaggressions, 103, 112–13, 120–21,
200, 206–7 189–90, 249
sexuality and gender, 148, 179, 204–5 Mijatović, Dunja, 43, 249
Iraq, 178, 203–4 Milk, Harvey, 106
Irwin, Janis, 256 Mina’s List, 137
Israel, 192 Misogyny, 101–2
Italy, 26, 82, 112, 194, 200, 206–7 Morris, Kiah, 246–47
Iwu, Adama, 31, 165 Muli Grignon, Koki, 145
Muslim Women’s Network UK, 28
Jansen, Sandra, 148–49, 219
Japan, 160–61, 197–98, 234 National Democratic Institute (NDI), 6, 15,
Jassim, Intidhar Ahmed, 203–4 17–18, 21–22, 48–49, 62–63, 66, 68, 70,
Jenkin, Anne, 148 106, 140, 157, 163, 179, 186, 218, 219–20,
Jilani, Hilal, 36–38, 83 226–27, 234, 236, 239, 253
Joya, Malalai, 195–96 negative campaigning, 76
Nepal, 129
Kathmandu Declaration, 15 Netherlands Institute for Multi-Party
Kenya, 16–17, 92–93, 131–32, 135–36, 175, 227, Democracy, 22–23
239, 252 Nigeria, 193, 224
Commission of Inquiry on Post-Election Norway, 201
Violence, 16–17 Notley, Rachel, 132
Kornak, Natasha, 162–63 #NotTheCost campaign, 22, 48, 140, 218
Kyenge, Cécile, 26, 112, 200, 206–7
Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria, 95–96, 149, 256
La Barbe, 211–12 Okumu, Mary, 175
LabourToo, 33, 166–67 Omar, Ilhan, 95–96, 197
Lahmer, Annie, 26–27, 159 online violence, 86, 87–88, 120, 121, 150, 189,
laws to combat violence against women in 190, 252
politics, 14–15, 65–66, 123, 184, 221–25 online violence against women in politics, 48, 51,
Leadsom, Andrea, 32–33 55–58, 66, 71, 96, 111–12, 140–42, 147–48,
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender 150–52, 180–81, 200–1, 238–41, 253
(LGBT) activists, 38, 41, 70, 128, 144–45, Operation Anti Sexual Harassment
183, 184, 185, 200–1 (OpAntiSH), 175–76
Li Maizi, 132–33 Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Liberia, 224 Europe (OSCE), 43, 45
Lindh, Anna, 79–80 Organization of American States (OAS), 20–21
Logan, Lara, 42–43 Oxfam, 15
Mahoka, Sarah, 179 Pakistan, 67–68, 91–92, 129–31, 192, 206, 239–40
Man Who Has It All, 212 Palin, Sarah, 202
Mason, Melanie, 165 Panama, 222
May, Elizabeth, 76 Pantsuit Nation, 29, 152
May, Theresa, 28–29, 62, 80, 225 Paraguay, 222
Mazzone, Lisa, 173 ParityBot, 150
McCaskill, Claire, 162–63 ParlAmericas, 21
McKenna, Catherine, 179, 210–11 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Mesoamerican Women Human Rights Europe, 19, 30
Defenders Initiative (IM-Defensoras), 152– Parliamentary Liaison and Investigation Team
53, 238, 244–45 (PLaIT), 28–29, 137–38
312 Index
Party of European Socialists, 30 Shiomura, Ayaka, 197–98, 234

Pelletier, Monique, 7–8 Šimonović, Dubravka, 48–49
Pelosi, Nancy, 200, 202 slurs, 189
Peru, 182 Solberg, Erna, 4–5, 201
Philippines, 203, 212–13 Soubry, Anna, 249
Phillips, Jess, 28, 53, 70, 76, 111–12, 140–41, South Africa, 240
147–48, 149–50, 250–51, 257 South Asia Partnership (SAP) International,
Poland, 181, 183–84 15–16, 19–20, 48–49, 66, 179, 236
political assassinations, 81–82 Spain, 195
political harassment and violence against Speier, Jackie, 32, 171
women, 14–15, 20–21, 237 Stambouli, Afroditi, 195
political polarization, 57, 77 Steinem, Gloria, 105
political violence, 77–79 Structural violence, 97–99
politics as usual, 76–77 Sturgeon, Nicola, 205
politics as war, 75–77 suffrage campaigns, 52–53, 136–37, 254
Ponte, Jeanne, 34 Summers, Anne, 25
pornography, 189, 202–3 Sweden, 79–80, 141–42
post-feminism, 5 Switzerland, 173–74
Pressley, Ayanna, 95–96 symbolic annihilation, 190–98
Primarolo, Dawn, 149–50
public/private divide, 98, 100 Tahrir Bodyguards, 175
public harassment, 98–99, 136 Tahrir Square, 24–25, 42, 156–57, 175–76
Tanzania, 143, 157–58, 179
Quispe, Juana, 122–23 Tanzania Media Women’s Association
(TAMWA), 143, 157
Roberts, Liz Saville, 32 Tanzania Women Cross-Party Platform (TWCP),
role incongruity, 198 143, 157, 234–35
Rosário, Maria do, 158 Terah, Flora, 16, 131–32, 135–36, 252
Rossignol, Laurence, 170–71 Thunberg, Greta, 96
Rousseau, Sandrine, 26–27, 159 Tlaib, Rashida, 95–96
Rousseff, Dilma, 94–95, 145–46, 199 TrollBusters, 44, 151–52
Russia, 35 Trump, Donald, 29, 30–31, 59, 95–96, 132,
200, 211
safety planning, 226–27 Tsai Ing-wen, 199
safety work, 225, 252–53 Tunisia, 14, 65–66, 163, 222–23
Sakhina, 179
Saudi Arabia, 133–34, 228 United Kingdom, 28–29, 32–33, 62, 70, 80, 81,
Schmidt-Nielsen, Johanne, 193 108, 111, 112, 136–38, 140–41, 146–47, 148,
Schulze, Katharina, 141 149–50, 169–70, 179, 193–94, 225, 240, 250,
Sekaggya, Margaret, 40 251, 254, 255
self-care, 152–53 Conservative Party, 111, 228–29
semiotics, 188 Labour Party, 28, 155–56, 159–60, 166–67,
sexism 179, 229
calling out, 6 Liberal Democrats, 32, 228
defining, 5, 98 United Nations (UN), 19–20, 49, 64, 85–86, 122,
sexist grammar, 194–95 144–45, 231, 248, 251, 253
sexist humor, 189 Commission on the Status of Women
sexual harassment, 119, 120 (CSW), 18, 20, 37, 40, 44–45, 144, 145
and partisanship, 162 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
in parliaments, 18, 26–28, 32–35, 51, 54–55, against Women, 16, 64, 66, 67, 69–70
160, 161–62, 169–70, 171–72, 173–74, Declaration on Human Rights Defenders,
235, 251 36, 41, 83, 184
in state legislatures, 31, 162–63, Human Rights Council, 48, 51, 82–83
165–66, 168–69 Secretary-General, 19–20, 42, 44, 130
Index 313
Special Rapporteur on Human Rights violence against human rights defenders, 82–84
Defenders, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, violence against journalists, 84–88
83, 182–83 violence against politicians, 79–82
Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and violence against women in elections, 20, 51, 62–63,
Protection of the Right to Freedom of 227, 233
Opinion and Expression, 42 violence against women in political parties, 68
Special Rapporteur on Violence against violence as the cost of doing politics, 75, 218,
Women, 22, 38, 48–49 256, 257
United Nations Development Fund for Women violence in politics, 64–65, 91–93
(UNIFEM), 15, 16–18 distinction from violence against women in
United Nations Development Program (UNDP), politics, 64–65, 91, 242–43, 244–46
17–18, 20, 48–49 overlaps with violence against women in
United Nations Educational, Scientific and politics, 65, 95–97
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 41, 42, Voatz, 137
43–45, 84–86, 208–9
UN Habitat, 22–23 Warren, Elizabeth, 192, 196
UN Women, 6, 14–15, 17, 19–20, 21, 22–23, Wattera, Grace, 161
48–49, 62–63, 70, 234 We Said Enough, 31, 165–66
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 14, Weaver, Kim, 6–7
15, 16–17 Westminster Foundation for Democracy,
United States, 29–30, 53, 77, 80, 87, 93, 95–96, 22–23, 218
111, 119, 132, 136, 143–44, 149, 151, 162, Women Human Rights Defenders, 36–41, 69
165–66, 168–69, 171, 177–78, 182–83, 192, Women Human Rights Defenders International
197, 200–1, 210, 211, 221, 235–36, 240–41, Coalition (WHRDIC), 39–40,
248–50, 253, 254 227–28, 237–38
Congress, 32, 81, 160, 161, 171, 173, 194, women journalists, 41–45
196, 197–98 Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML),
Congressional Accountability Act, 32, 37–38, 39–40
55, 171 Women’s Media Center (WMC), 30, 220–21
Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 41 women’s rights as human rights, 37, 251
Urgent Action Fund (UAF), 38–39, 185 Wyllys, Jean, 128–29
violence Young Women’s Leadership Network

comprehensive conceptions, 117–18 (YWLN), 167–68
continuum of, 118–21 Yousafzai, Malala, 129–30
definitions of, 115–18
minimalistic conceptions, 116 Zimbabwe, 92, 179, 240

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Part I: An Emerging Concept

3. Parallel and Related Trends 24

7. Debates and Controversies 61

Part II: A Theoretical Framework

10. A Bias Event Approach 104

11. A Continuum of Violence 115

Part III: A Typology of Violence

13. Psychological Violence 139

14. Sexual Violence 154

15. Economic Violence 177

16. Semiotic Violence 187

Part IV: A Call to Action

18. Data Collection and Documentation Challenges 231

19. Political and Social Implications 247

20. Concluding Thoughts 256

This book is about feminist collaborations contributing to the global emer-

My practitioner colleagues inspire me every time we meet, and I feel privi-

Rutgers University (2015–​2020), and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017–​

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED)

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)

A “Problem with No Name”

In October 2016, former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard spoke at an

Understanding how and why violence against women in politics emerged as

judged . . . so you become thick-​skinned” (“Norway PM” 2015). The reasons

Political reasons provide a different set of motivations for women to remain

concerned about “very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats.”2

A final barrier to naming this problem stems from a deficit of resources. In

Aims of this Book

Chapter 10 discusses how to identify empirical cases. Addressing method-

Global debates on violence against women in politics cannot be traced back to

Inductive Origins across the Global South

BOLIVIA: POLITICAL HARASSMENT AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

SOUTH ASIA: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN POLITICS

In South Asia, discussions of “violence against women in politics” began in

KENYA: ELECTORAL GENDER-​BASED VIOLENCE

The concept of “electoral gender-​based violence,” finally, surfaced in Kenya in

Transnational Networks and the Forging of a Global Concept

by members of the iKNOW Politics community—​as well as through global

Although the topic surfaced in work that various international practitioners

INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR ELECTORAL SYSTEMS

Inspired by conversations at UNDP, in 2011 the International Foundation for

ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES

During this same period, the Inter-​American Commission of Women (CIM)

requests about political harassment and violence from female politicians

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTE

A variety of other international practitioners have also generated knowledge

Colombia, Kenya, and Tunisia, which included a prominent focus on violence

Parallel and Related Trends

Inductive development of the concept of violence against women in poli-

Individual and Collective Testimonies

EGYPT AND TUNISIA

tackling violence against women (27). Refusing to apologize, he then went on

Rutgers University (2015–2020), and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017–

judged . . . so you become thick-skinned” (“Norway PM” 2015). The reasons

KENYA: ELECTORAL GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

The concept of “electoral gender-based violence,” finally, surfaced in Kenya in

by members of the iKNOW Politics community—as well as through global

During this same period, the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM)

The collaborative and multi-streamed construction of the concept of violence

with “politics” referring to any gender-based violence that prevents women

Scottish-Asian community. I am a Muslim. And I’m a woman. So it’s every-

intra-systemic, operating within the existing system to take over power, or