Online abuse to keep women from going into politics

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 16/07/2025

Online abuse directed at women in politics is viewed as more severe than those aimed at men. Attacks on women are more likely to be motivated by misogyny and a desire to exclude women from public office, compared to abuse directed at men, according to a new study by professor Anne Rasmussen, King’s College London, and Dr Gregory Eady, University of Copenhagen, and published in the the American Political Science Review, 

“In contrast, attacks on women are less likely than those on men to be seen as driven by other factors, such as policy disagreements”, professor Rasmussen writes on King’s College website.

The research team says it found that women are faced with a double burden from toxic behaviours. Not only may women politicians be exposed to higher rates of hostile behaviours, they must also deal with what the attacks mean about their place as women in politics.

“Hostile political behaviour toward politicians is an important societal concern, due to its broad effects on the quality of political discourse, but more critically because it can undermine the quality of representation”, the researchers write. 

“Politically toxic behaviour is especially problematic if its harm is more severe for politicians who are currently underrepresented in politics, such as women.” 

“While the European Parliament stands for gender equality, there are still fewer women than men in politics and public life at local, national and European level”, the European Parliament says in a fact sheet.

The number of women being head of ministries is declining. UN Women stresses online and offline violence against women in politics as one explanation. “The decline in representation is unfolding against a backdrop of global backlash against women’s rights, compounded by widespread violence targeting women in politics both online and offline.” 

Only 27 countries are led by a woman head of state or government – up from 21 countries five years ago, while 103 countries have never had a woman in the highest executive office. 

“Women hold just 22.9% of positions of cabinet members heading ministries globally – down from 23.3% in 2024, marking the first recorded decline in the number of women cabinet ministers.”

The number of parity cabinets – those with at least 50% women – has dropped from 15 last year to 9. 

At the same time, the number of countries with no women in ministerial roles has increased from seven to nine in the past year. 

Europe and Northern America (31.4%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (30.4%) lead the global share of women cabinet ministers. Central and Southern Asia has 9%.
The percentage of female MEPs has increased compared to the early days of European integration. Only 31 women were members from 1952 until the first elections in 1979. In the first directly-elected European Parliament representation of women stood at 15.9%.

The share of women elected as MEPs at the European elections a year ago was 38.5%, a decrease compared to 39.8% just before the elections. In June 2025, the percentage of women in the European Parliament was 38.7%.

The representation of women in the European Parliament is above the world average for national parliaments and also above the EU average for national parliaments, the fact sheet says.

Since January 2022, the European Parliament has a female President: Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola who was re-elected for another two and a half years in July 2024.

In the 2024-2029 parliamentary term, seven of the 14 vice-presidents are women, more than in the previous term when there were six.

Metsola recently outlined plans to strengthen maternity rules for MEPs. The planned measures would allow MEPs who are on maternity leave to delegate their vote to another MEP.