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Abstract
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"Where is Nancy?" yelled a man as he broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home in October 2022 and assaulted her husband with a hammer. The words echoed those chanted by a mob of insurrectionists as they stormed the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021 (Rodriguez and Gerson Reference Rodriguez and Gerson2022). While many members of Congress--men and women--have faced moments of political violence, the violence experienced by women leaders is often drenched in misogyny. The disrespectful use of Pelosi's first name, the entitled invasion of her personal space, and the public display of gendered images and language (including a handwritten note from an insurrectionist on Speaker Pelosi's desk that read, "Nancy, Bigo was here you b***h"; see Krook Reference Krook2021) send a message that women are not welcome in positions of political power (Krook Reference Krook2020b, Reference Krook2022; Krook and Restrepo Sanín Reference Krook and Sanín2016).
Violence against women in politics (VAWIP) is also intersectional in nature (Kuperberg Reference Kuperberg2018, Reference Kuperberg2021), and congresswomen of color have been targeted in unique ways--especially as their presence has increased in recent years. Representative Pramila Jayapal, Congressional Progressive Caucus chair and the first South Asian American woman elected to the House of Representatives, shared on Twitter several threatening voicemails she had received. Among the voicemails was a call to "go back to where you f***ing came from. Ain't none of you's are f***ing goddamned citizens."Footnote 1 In 2019, President Donald Trump used similar language, telling four congresswomen of color--Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley--to "go back and fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came" (Allyn Reference Allyn2019). The insinuation that women of color are not citizens and therefore do not belong in the halls of Congress is steeped in a history of racism and sexism that permeates the institution to this day (Dittmar Reference Dittmar2023; Hawkesworth Reference Hawkesworth2003).
I was an American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellow during the 116th Congress, following the historic 2018 midterm elections in which record numbers of women of color were elected. As a fellow, I had the immense privilege to work in the office of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress. I was part of the legislative team, and while I was not responsible for answering phone calls, the open layout of the office made me acutely aware of the types of messages our staff were receiving. Nearly every day, our office was flooded with calls and voicemails like those shared by Congresswoman Jayapal. Beyond these types of messages, Congresswoman Tlaib and her family were also subjected to online harassment, attacks by other elected officials, and credible death threats. The violence was not only gendered in nature, but also explicitly Islamophobic.Footnote 2
In this essay, I discuss violence against women in politics from the perspective of an APSA Congressional Fellow. While I am a gender politics scholar, my research has not specifically focused on VAWIP. My contribution to this symposium is therefore rooted in my firsthand experiences in the U.S. Congress. First, I describe how I, as a fellow, attempted to bridge congressional policy making and political science research on VAWIP. Our office worked to bring light to the issue through floor speeches and the introduction of a House resolution. I end with some of the continued challenges I see in studying and addressing VAWIP as well as recommendations for how political scientists can continue to engage in this important work.
Language: en |