Violence Against Women Political Activists

Abstract

In the last decade, research on violence against women in politics (VAWIP) has increased significantly. First identified by women activists in the Global South, VAWIP refers to behaviors that specifically target women as women by pressuring them to leave politics (Krook and Sanín 2016). Activists in Bolivia and later in other regions of the Global South first called attention to VAWIP in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when countries around the world began adopting gender quotas to increase the presence of women in government (Krook 2019). Most scholarship in this area has focused on violence targeting women candidates and elected officials (Collignon and Rüdig 2020; Dalton 2021; Håkansson 2021; Herrick et al. 2021; Raney and Collier 2024; Schneider and Carroll 2020). Attention to women in formal politics is warranted given their important representational role. Women’s presence in politics is a necessary first step to achieve political change and advance women’s interests (Beckwith 2011).