The Gendered Nature of Violence in State House Races

• In Event: Election Violence

Abstract

Women politicians face unique challenges as they try to win office, not least of which is the potential for greater hostility from the electorate. There is growing evidence world-wide that women candidates face enhanced levels of violence. One reason women candidates may face more violence is that they violate traditional norms which hold that women’s sphere is private and men’s is public. Research in social psychology find that women politicians who more greatly violate gender norms receive more negative evaluations than others. Another reason is the status quo disruption thesis which holds that as relatively new comers to politics women are seen as threats to current power centers. There is evidence across the globe that some violence against women politicians is designed to prevent women as a group from holding office.

Very little of this research has examined US elections, and in this paper we add to that literature by examining violence against US state house candidates in 2020. This will be the first known paper to do so.

This research is important to the theme of pluralism. It takes a problem, violence against women in politics, that has been addressed by comparative political scientists and applies it to the US. In addition, if women face more violence the voice of women will be quieted. Politicians who fear violence may self-censor to minimize the attack, they may be distracted from their work and some women may be dissuaded from holding office.

We define violence broadly to include psychological as well as physical violence as both types of violence have been found to affect ambition, work performance, and mental and physical health.

To measure levels of violence, we conducted a survey. Although surveys do not produce perfect measures, they are believed to produce more valid measures of violence than newspaper accounts or official complaints as these forms tend to miss much violence; particularly psychological violence.

The survey was sent via email and mail to 2208 candidates in 18 states (AK, AR, CO, DE, GA, IA, IL, KY, ME, MN, MT, NM, NV, OK, OR, PA, RI and WI) following the 2020 election. These states were selected to insure a balance of legislative professionalism, region, political culture and party control. About 620 surveys have been returned (28% response rate). The main bias in those responding is that incumbents were less likely to respond.

From these data we hope to address the following research questions:
1) Are women more likely to experience violence than men?
2) Are women more likely to experience certain types of violence, e.g. physical or psychological?
3) Is the content of the violence experienced by women different than the violence experienced by men? For example, is the violence sexual in nature, or does it play to gender stereotypes?
4) Are there intersectional differences in the violence? In particular, do party, race, age or power intersect with gender to affect the levels or content of violence?

To measure frequency of violence, candidates were asked the frequency they experienced:
Harassment (exposure to insistent and uninvited behavior, attention, or verbal contact)
Awareness of content in social media about you that was untrue and offensive
Awareness of content in the traditional media about you that was untrue and offensive
Awareness of content from a public event that was about you that was untrue and offensive
You received threat(s) of death, rape, beating, or similar act
Your family received threat(s) of death, rape, beating, or similar act
Experienced violence against your property
Experienced being kicked, pushed, punched, having something thrown at you, or similar event
Experienced personal violence that either resulted in injury or was likely to have resulted injury such as being shot at

To measure the content of the violence, respondents were asked to indicate the frequency they experienced violence that:
Mentioned your ideology
Indicated that people like you don’t belong in government
Indicated you are not smart
Indicated you are not tough
Indicated you lack compassion
Depicted you in a sexual way
Were called names such as “bitch”, “whore” “a dick”
Mentioned your appearance
Mentioned your race
Mentioned your sex or gender
Made inappropriate sexual comments about you or advances toward you
Were touched inappropriately in a sexual way

Initial results suggest while the content of the violence experienced by men and women differ, women do not experience significantly more violence (total, psychology or physical). There is also little evidence that gender intersects with race, party, power or age to affect levels of violence but somewhat more with content.

Authors

• Rebekah Herrick, Oklahoma State University

• Sue Thomas