Sign In
New Zealand
Media release
From:
‘[Threats of] rape get thrown about all the time’: abuse of NZ female MPs commonplace, researchers find
Female Members of Parliament in New Zealand are being assaulted with weapons, threatened with rape and subjected to death threats in the course of their work, a study led by the University of Otago, Wellington – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, Pōneke has found.
Eleven MPs from different political parties who were serving in Parliament in 2023 talked to researchers from the University’s Department of Psychological Medicine about their experiences of harassment, misogyny, racism and online trolling. All had experienced gender-based harassment, and several had received death threats.
The research was led by psychiatry registrars Dr Rhiannon Watson and Dr Lucy Hammans, and is published in Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online. It builds on a previous survey conducted by the University of both male and female parliamentarians published last year.
Dr Watson says threats of physical and sexual violence had become commonplace for female parliamentarians, with MPs reporting being threatened in person, over the phone, and online on social media and in emails.
One MP described receiving ‘deeply, deeply vile stuff’, including a threat to cut her throat.
Another told researchers ‘[threats of] rape just get thrown about all the time’.
Two participants described being assaulted with weapons, while another reported having a fake gun (which she believed was real) aimed at her at close range.
Dr Hammans says misogyny was ubiquitous in the harassment of female MPs, which also targeted their staff, and their families, and was further complicated by racism for some. Levels of harassment rose when women attained more senior roles, and when they were in Government rather than opposition roles.
One MP commented: ‘There is no doubt in my mind that it is absolutely aimed at impeding us from doing our jobs and from being MPs .. it is absolutely aimed at driving us out.’
Many reported comments on their appearance, challenges to their competence because they were female, and being called ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’.
One MP told researchers, ‘… it’s relentless – there’s not a break from it. There’s not a single post that I’ve [posted] that doesn’t have misogynistic comments or racist comments on it … and then you add to that, death threats … no one, no one prepares you for that’.
The senior author on the research paper, Professor Susanna Every-Palmer from the University’s Department of Psychological Medicine, says the psychosocial impact of harassment on female parliamentarians is considerable, and at worst is associated with flashbacks and thoughts of suicide.
MPs told researchers their concerns were not taken seriously by authorities even when they felt at risk of serious harm.
One said, ‘I think some of us probably are in serious danger … and the feeling we get is that we have to fight tooth and nail for any sort of protection.’
Several said that when they reported the abuse, they felt their concerns were minimised and that the response focused only on the risk of violence, rather than being sensitive to the wider emotional and psychological harms caused by the abuse.
One parliamentarian reported her concerns to the parliamentary Security Group and was later informed they had concluded there was no threat to the MP. She told researchers: ‘I’m sobbing in a heap on my sofa and I’m unable to work. And [they are] telling me there’s no harm … the harm has happened’.
Female MPs noticed a dramatic reduction in the severity and volume of harassment when women in senior leadership roles were replaced by male colleagues, such as following the resignation of former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, highlighting the risk of harm to female representation in Parliament.
One MP recalled, ‘The minute the Prime Minister stepped down, there was a whole lowering of the temperature, vitriol and nastiness …’
Among the long-serving MPs, two said the abuse had contributed to their decision to retire, while others thought they would have reconsidered taking up the role if they had known then what they knew now.
Professor Every-Palmer says gender-based harassment is having a profound impact on female parliamentarians, challenging representation in politics and the fabric of democracy.
She believes a multi-faceted response is needed, and that New Zealand should take on board recommendations from the Jo Cox Foundation in the UK, set up after the British politician’s murder in 2016.
This would include establishing a central body to monitor and coordinate the response to abuse, as well as developing guidelines on abuse for police and parliamentarians.
She says the New Zealand legislation on online violence, the Harmful Digital Communications Act, needs to be updated, as it specifies individual comments must cause serious emotional distress and requires the police to demonstrate the abuser has the intent to cause harm.
“This ignores the cumulative harm to women MPs from the large volume of abuse they are being subjected to.”
New legislation requiring social media providers to address and prevent online abuse, backed up by a robust enforcement regime, is also needed, she says.
The research paper, ‘Misogyny, racism, and threats to our families: a qualitative study of harassment of female politicians’ is published in Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online.
Expert Reaction
These comments have been collated by the Science Media Centre to provide a variety of expert perspectives on this issue. Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. Views expressed are the personal opinions of the experts named. They do not represent the views of the SMC or any other organisation unless specifically stated.
Associate Professor Lara Greaves (Ngāpuhi, Pākehā, Tararā), political scientist, Victoria University of Wellington, comments:
This is an important study with some sobering insights. While we know politicians have always been harassed by the public, this work shows just how horrifying the political environment can be in the current day, not only for politicians but their whānau, children, and staffers. These accounts are much worse than I expected, and it made for shocking reading. Women MPs put in a large amount of emotional effort and strategic thinking to maintain their own safety.
"There were two other points of interest. First, that anecdotally, these threats have decreased with the change of government, showing the contributions context and environment make to threatening behaviour. Second, that women MPs are still experiencing considerable sexism, both from the public, but also from their colleagues.
"It is now clear we are at the point where public harassment will stop great candidates from putting themselves forward. Ultimately, this means less representation for some groups, and we should all be considering how we can make our democracy better here. It is great that this work has created a clear record of how bad public harassment can be. The next steps for our society, institutions, parliament, and political parties is the figure out how to best fix this.
Dr Sarah Bickerton, lecturer, Public Policy Institute, University of Auckland, comments:
These findings are no surprise unfortunately, for we are seeing this occurring around the world. It is also no surprise unfortunately that such harassment occurs along lines of race and gender, because they are structural lines of oppression. Women, non-binary, and/or people with non-white ethnic backgrounds are perceived as incorrectly existing in spaces that are coded by our society as white and male (not to mention, similarly along other structural lines in our society; sexual and gender minorities, disabled folks, etc). In at least part, these attacks aren’t about the individual women MPs, but what they represent: challenges to traditional gendered and raced norms and history. Women by existing in political spaces are threatening the norms of power. You will see that in how much of the attacks, in addition to being violent threats, involve reasserting traditional gender norms; they’ll focus on what are considered appropriate gender presentation styles for women, or reasserting traditional (domestic) roles for women.
"We don’t think about attacks like these being akin to hate crimes, terrorism, hate speech, etc because those are seen as being massive things. But make no mistake that these are about silencing women, non-binary, and non-white people from our public spheres. And as such groups take more and more of their rightful space in our public realms, the challenges are getting more and more. Unfortunately, despite these attacks occurring along structural lines, the problem is individualised, and the solutions similarly. This is seen as something for these individual politicians to manage, not to mention that even mentioning the harassment existing is perceived as an admission of weakness and confirmation that they aren’t strong enough to be in parliament.
"Note this isn’t about saying that men and white people don’t experience harassment, but rather that for women, non-binary, and non-white people the attacks are over the population, worse. We also see that particularly in how men have their gender questioned or challenged when that harassment occurs. We need to stop individualising this problem and relying on individuals to manage it and protect themselves, or else we will continue to see what happened to Jacinda Ardern.
