Semiotic Violence and Women’s Political Empowerment

A growing number of international organizations as well as scholars have begun to call attention to the problem of violence against women in politics, theorizing it as resistance and backlash to women’s political inclusion taking physical, sexual, psychological, and economic forms. In this paper, I argue in favor of recognizing a fifth type that I call ‘semiotic violence,’ referring to the use of language, images, and other symbols as a means to marginalize and exclude women as political actors. Drawing on research in a variety of disciplines, I develop the concept of semiotic violence and illustrate how it operates in practice using examples from around the world. Although often normalized, I suggest that these dynamics serve to maintain gender hierarchies, undermining democracy and eroding the possibilities for women’s full political empowerment.