Women in politics and the public eye are facing intolerable abuse – and it can only serve to put others off, reports Emma Bean

The price to pay for being in the public sphere seems to be a barrage of attacks from all sides. Intimidation and tweets threatening attacks on you and your family now seem to be the norm, and it is ever more true if you deviate from a straight white cis-male norm. Its extent, reported by activists, journalists and politicians alike, is staggering.

Some suggest that perhaps the level of anger is not so different to what has always been there, it is just rather easier to fire off an abusive email than it was to go to the faff of posting a threat. But what does seem to be unusual about this point in time is the polarisation of our political debate.

We have had two constitutional referendums which have pitted sides against one another, leaving fertile ground for mainstream discussion to become toxic.

The Scottish independence referendum of 2014 and the Brexit vote last year forced people into corners and split families and friends over questions that have soured debate. While the Scottish National party might claim that their ‘civic nationalism’ is a different beast to the separatist nationalism that has plagued human history, politics north of the border has got angrier in recent years after people were pitted into either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ camps. While we hope – and the 2017 election might suggest – that we have passed ‘peak SNP’, the vandalism of an member of parliament’s car last month with the nationalist party’s name seems proof that the nastiness is not gone yet. A quick look at the replies under tweets from prominent Scottish Labour politicians shows there is little joyous about nationalism. This approach sadly seems to have become a blueprint for some online campaigners, even among elements of our own party.

Brexit had a similar effect, with the abuse campaigner Gina Miller faces leaving her scared to leave her house, just for pushing for parliament’s sovereignty in the courts, exposed a real nastiness, not just online but also in some aspects of the print press.

Yvette Cooper made abuse a focus of her speech to the Fabian summer conference, criticising it where it came from all sides. The response was depressingly predictable, proving the rule that all comments in response to a stand against abuse prove the point of the initial article or speech itself. It culminated with one ‘alt-left’ blog thinking it appropriate to publish a sly snap of her sat in first class on a train. As we all know, sitting in first class makes a person incapable of speaking on issues of social justice. This sort of stalker-esque behaviour is one that is all too familiar in patterns of gender-based intimidation – and it had a clear motive. To shame her for publicly existing. And to get her to shut up.

They may as well have told her to get back in the kitchen.

Stella Creasy’s triumph on reproductive rights – combined with her repeated successes from the backbenches – have made her another easy target for anger from those who would rather women were quiet. She had to have a police escort from a public meeting in a recent campaign trip to Northern Ireland and, in the not-too-distant past, to one of her own party meetings. She is undoubtedly one of Labour’s most effective politicians, and she is met with this sort of anger.

Jess Phillips’ book, Everywoman: One Woman’s Truth About Speaking The Truth, is great by most measures, and her chapter on internet trolls is no exception. She simply sums up the situation by saying: ‘The crux of why these people hate me is because I have a voice, and people listen to it. A woman with power is intolerable to them.’

Diane Abbott has spoken powerfully about the dual abuses she faces, as not just a prominent woman but a black one too. The racial slurs, the rape threats and the death threats are all in a day’s work for the shadow home secretary. Her being a prominent target of Tory attack lines in the election campaign seems hard to completely detach from her identity, and must force us to ask some difficult questions.

The scourge of abuse in politics could stop us ever forming a truly representative parliamentary party. alented people must be put off by the levels of vitriol, and it is a perfectly rational response.

The abuse also seems to form part of a spectrum – Labour Women’s Network chair Olivia Bailey writing soon after Jo Cox’s murder identified it – saying that the minority who use violence to intimidate women, seeking even to murder, exist on a continuum just as much as those who tell women to ‘calm down, dear’ or focus unduly on appearances. It is all a part of the systematic oppression of women in our patriarchal society. From the ‘mansplaining’ to the violent threats – all are designed to encourage women to speak that bit less, to think that bit less, to take up as little space as possible in the public domain with their pesky thoughts and ‘feminazi’ opinions.

You cannot detach the reselection debate from this analysis – where women are much easier targets for abuse, one manifestation of anger, they also seem much easier targets for deselection threats. Just by existing as a woman your head is above that parapet – and it takes little else to provoke some.

Deselection is an issue that should never even be entertained unless it can be done with ‘neutral’ measures. For instance, were we to expect minimum contact rates – perhaps on a sliding scale depending on how rural a person’s seat was with exceptions for illness and disability. Pursuing an ideologically ‘pure’ parliamentary party is not a reasonable goal – we always have been and should always be a broad church. Indeed, not just for this reason is it necessary – we cannot seem a government in waiting if we prioritise an internal war above winning over those voters needed to form a government.

You are an easier and more noticeable target as a woman. This is as true for abuse as it is for a campaign against someone as a candidate. There is a reason few women are chosen in open selections, and why we have never had a female leader.

We cannot have a representative parliamentary or local government party if abuse continues as it has with the rise of social media. It will put good people off going into politics. That must concern us all, and make us even more determined to fight it.

–––––––––––

Emma Bean is staff writer at LabourList

Photo