Politicians’ gendered participation in online political hostility

Violent rhetoric is increasingly widespread in political discussions, and often includes expressions of sexism. Political discussions on social media are particularly prone to include derogatory, hateful and hostile language (Bjarnegård and Zetterberg 2023; Håkansson 2021). Both women and men politicians encounter harassment online, but the attacks on women are less focused on politics and have a more personal, sexualized and hate-based content. While several studies conclude that politicians who are visible and active on social media experience more online harassment, little is known about politicians’ own involvement in online hostility and how this varies by gender. In addition to studying politicians as targets, it is important to acknowledge that some politicians themselves contribute to reproducing a violent rhetoric on social media. Our study examines which politicians are more prone to engage in online political hostility, and under what circumstances. Building on theories on gender and political violence, we propose that men politicians are more inclined to participate in online political hostility than women, and particularly in response to aggressive comments directed at them. We use a survey experiment to investigate the conditions under which elected representatives consider engaging in hostile communication on social media. We find that men are more likely than women to respond to online hostility in a hostile manner, but the degree of aggressiveness in other social media users’ posts does not affect the degree of aggressiveness in politicians’ responses. Our study highlights that women and men politicians are positioned differently in relation to the pressing problem of online hostility. Whereas women politicians are at the receiving end of hate-based attacks, men are more active contributors to a hostile discussion climate.