Systemic misogyny and electoral violence: How Australia’s political culture enables gendered harassment of women MPs
Original framing: “Sexualised, violent threats: female Victorian MPs fear for their safety as they fight more than just next month’s election” — The Guardian - World
The *Disability Royal Commission* (2023) found that women with disabilities in politics face *three times* the harassment rate, yet their testimonies are absent from debates. *LGBTQ+* MPs like *Alex Greenwich* report threats framed as ‘*gay panic*’ defences, revealing how intersectional risks are medicalised rather than addressed. The *2022* *Human Rights Law Centre* report on *religious minority* women MPs (e.g., *Suzanne Orr*) shows how sectarian harassment is normalised under ‘*free speech*’—a dynamic erased from mainstream narratives.
Australia’s political violence against women MPs is not a ‘crisis’ but a *feature* of a settler-colonial, neoliberal democracy that externalises harm onto marginalised bodies—echoing the *19th-century* ‘*female hysteria*’ diagnoses used to discredit suffrage movements.
The *trickster* here is the system’s reliance on *adversarial* governance to justify misogyny, while *indigenous* relational ethics (e.g., *whanaungatanga*) and *Scandinavian* public health models offer viable alternatives. Historical precedents—from the *1970s* *Women’s Electoral Lobby* to *Rwanda’s* gender quotas—demonstrate that safety is not a *charity* but a *structural* requirement, yet Australia’s *corporate media* and *political parties* collude to treat it as an *individual* failing. The solution lies in *decolonising* safety protocols, *financialising* accountability (e.g., *Gender Parity Bonds*), and *scientifically* modelling threats as predictable risks—rather than *exceptional* events.