Othering Political Women: Online Misogyny, Racism and Ableism Towards Women in Public Life

Abstract

There has been much public debate about abuse aimed at women in public life on social media. Studies have made use of automated technologies to analyse the nature and extent of abuse received by prominent women revealing that women of colour are subjected to a disproportionate amount of misogynistic abuse and racial slurs. We analysed 12,436 tweets to examine the extent to which abusive and more everyday forms of sexism, misogyny, racism and ableism pervade Twitter interactions between politicians and citizens. The analysis identified four themes: gendered and racist abuse; silencing and dismissal; questioning intelligence and position; and `benevolent' othering. Since communicating with constituents is an essential part of any political representatives' role, it can be difficult to avoid receiving abuse online.