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Kimberly Simmons is a part-time associate professor at the University of Southern Maine. This column reflects her views and expertise and does not speak on behalf of the university. She is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members’ columns appear in the BDN every other week.
With the end of women’s history month, Maine has much to celebrate in the political realm. Our governor, half our congressional delegation, 43.5 percent of our state Legislature, most legislative leaders and most members of the governor’s cabinet identify as women. This is reflected in policy, with the historic passage of paid family and medical leave, protections for reproductive justice, and investments in childcare, violence prevention and other feminist priorities, as specified by the Maine Women’s Lobby.
Although Maine ranks above average compared to other states, women’s political participation increased nationally as well after the 2016 results. Infuriatingly, these gains were accompanied by a rise in political threats and violence, with threats to public officials increasing 178 percent during Donald Trump’s presidency, and intensifying in this election year. Just last week Trump targeted both President Joe Biden and the daughter of a federal judge.
While all elected leaders face risks, women are disproportionately targeted, and specifically attacked as women, experiencing sexually violent threats four times as often as their male peers. Women of color are specifically and more frequently targeted by what scholar Moya Bailey terms misogynoir: harassment that is both racially and sexually violent.
Women elected officials across the globe disproportionately receive alarming threats against themselves and their families, fueled by misogyny and most often perpetrated by younger white men. This takes many forms, including hateful message campaigns, online harassment, workplace sexual harassment, doxing, stalking, swatting, to physical attacks, the terrorism of Jan. 6, 2021, and death threats.
Maine has not been spared. City councils including Hallowell, Rockland, Portland, and Brunswick and Bangor reported anti-semtic, racist and gender based hate speech, significantly interrupting their work. Last May, White Nationalists sent mailers to Maine Democratic county committees. Bomb threats at our State House have closed it down repeatedly, and individuals have been threatened at home and at work. For all the public stories, there are so many more we don’t know about, as visibility can be more dangerous for individuals and processing fear and trauma can be a very private experience.
Gender specific abuse degrades, demoralizes and shames women, causing fear, stress and undermining their credibility as leaders. Accessing additional security can be expensive and difficult to navigate. Those experiencing harassment spend considerable resources refuting smear campaigns. They sit through meetings afraid of what might be said or might happen next. They walk to their cars at night, uncertain if they are being followed. At the individual level, gender-based violence undermines the health, mental health, and opportunities of targeted leaders.
At the public level, violence drives women out of leadership and distorts democracy, granting outsized power to a small minority of bullies. Harassment and abuse keeps officials from fully doing their jobs, and especially from engaging with their constituents. Expert Mona Lena Krook notes, “violence restricts the scope of political debate, disrupts political work and deters women from entering public service … sexist attacks against female politicians question women’s rights, as women, to participate in the political process at all.”
We can creatively refuse to tolerate political violence. NotTheCost: Stopping Violence Against Women in Politics calls for three main areas of action: raise awareness and our capacity for everyday interventions; create reporting mechanisms and formal responses; create support for those who are targeted. Advocates for the Equal Rights Amendment note that constitutional recognition would compel the state to do more to address political violence against marginalized leaders. Locally, we can talk to our own representatives about their safety and urge support for targeted colleagues. We can attend municipal meetings and intervene when threats are made, we can become trained peacekeepers. We can donate money to the campaigns of targeted officials, and send counterbalancing messages. We can collectively refuse to bend to the will of bullies.