Gender-based Violence Online and Offline: Intersecting Threats in the Political Sphere

Abstract

Gender-based violence in politics is increasingly shaped by the interplay of threats online and offline, as well as by blurring boundaries between incivility and violence. Attacks on women, diverse and non-hegemonic genders function as both symbolic and material strategies of exclusion. The panel examines how gendered violence operates not as a singular or isolated phenomenon, but as a multidimensional, intersecting force that permeates political institutions, public discourse, and everyday political life. Rather than treating online violence as a distinct category, the panel questions the role of this form of violence within a broader ecosystem of gendered hostility, where digital harassment, offline threats and attacks, institutional neglect, and ideological contestation converge to undermine democratic participation. Gender diversity is not merely a matter of identity, but a political challenge to dominant power structures. As such, the concept of gender itself is contested, becoming a target for inter-personal violence across multiple domains: online, where coordinated campaigns of harassment, doxxing, misgendering, and disinformation seek to erase and delegitimize; in public spaces, where physical threats and attacks intensify for women and gender-diverse individuals; and within political institutions like the parliament, where structural barriers and lack of political agency render affected persons invisible and unsupported. Combining empirical as well as theoretical and conceptual perspectives, the panel papers explore how these forms of violence are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing. Online abuse often spills into offline spaces, while institutional inaction enables digital hostility to persist unchecked. At the same time, far-right, anti-feminist, and populist movements instrumentalize the rhetoric of “gender ideology” to frame gender diversity as a threat to democracy, normalizing violence as a political tactic. From an intersectional and comparative perspective, the panel highlights how gender, sexuality, migration status, class, disability, and age shape experiences of gender-based violence. The panel also interrogates the role of political institutions— parliaments at different levels of political representation, parties, and staff networks—as contexts of the reproduction of violence as well as for the resistance against it. Within these political contexts, protection mechanisms often fail to account for the complexity of gendered and diverse identities. The panel challenges the notion that violence against women and gender-diverse individuals is an exception, arguing instead that it is a systemic feature of the gendered political game (Bourdieu 1997). By centering the interconnectedness of online and offline violence, institutional dynamics, and ideological struggle, the panel offers a critical framework for understanding how democratic erosion is deeply gendered—and how resistance should be equally multifaceted, inclusive, and transformative

Title	Details
Regulating Online Harms and Effects on Women's Political Participation	View Paper Details
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How are Women MPs in Germany, Spain, and the UK Affected by Online Abuse?	View Paper Details
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Algorithmic Justice and Gender-Based Violence: Fairness, Alignment, and Public Perception	View Paper Details