‘Know your place’ : Studying racism and misogyny in the political career of New Zealand’s first refugee woman Member of Parliament

When elected to New Zealand Parliament in 2017 at the age of 36, Golriz Ghahraman was hailed for being the first woman of Iranian descent and refugee background to do so. A human rights lawyer by training, the Green Party MP was a vocal champion of social justice and environmental issues. However, almost immediately after her election, a systematic campaign of accusations and threats against her from the opposition and public began on an unprecedented scale. From 2019 onwards, she was assigned a security detail given the seriousness and scale of death threats she was receiving, the first time such security has been provided to an MP. During her term, she was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In 2024, she was charged, and subsequently convicted, of multiple counts of shoplifting in high-end stores, effectively ending her political career. Political commentary and colleagues in Parliament attribute her acts of misappropriation to the relentless onslaught of misogynistic threats of physical and sexual violence that she experienced. Misogyny in politics has been rising in New Zealand (Corlette, 2022; Watson et al. 2025) with particular emphasis on racism accompanied by gender harassment. In this presentation, we explore Dovi’s (2025) concept of political misogyny through an intersectional lens; through a close analysis of the experiences of a single, woman politician of colour, we aim to map the contours of public hate and harassment aimed at women in politics in its form and impact. This presentation draws on interviews with Golriz Ghahraman, analysis of Twitter sentiments, and collation of media and secondary official reports. References: Corlette, E. (2022) Here be the trolls: New Zealand’s female politicians battling rising tide of misogyny, The Guardian, 8 April. Dovi, S. On Political Misogyny. American Political Science Review. 2025;119(2):1054-1067. doi:10.1017/S0003055424000777 Watson, R., Hammans, L. , Hansby, O., Barry-Walsh, J. & Every-Palmer, S. (2025) Misogyny, racism, and threats to our families: a qualitative study of harassment of female politicians, Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 20:4, 979-1007