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Prof. Janina Steinert speaks at event on online misogyny at the European Parliament

Event Report |


Women who are politically active in social media are frequently faced with online hate speech. The extent and causes of this form of misogyny as well as possible countermeasures were addressed in a discussion event in Brussels on March 21. Prof. Dr. Janina Steinert presented a survey conducted among Members of the European Parliament. 

The survey documented that male and female politicians receive online hate to the same extent but that online hate is highly gendered. Female politicans are more likely to receive sexualised forms of violence as well as patronising and infantilising comments. The psychological costs of online hate are also higher for female politicians as they report feeling intimidated, stressed and ashamed after receiving an attack. Lastly, online hate has a stronger silencing effect on female politicians: they are more likely to change the tone and content of their political messages, reduce the frequency of public appearances or withdraw from social media altogether. Online hate is therefore a major threat to women's representation in politics and to democracy more fundamentally.

The event was hosted by the professorships for Global Health (Prof. Janina Steinert & Luise Koch) and for  Computational Social Science und Big Data (Prof. Jürgen Pfeffer) and by the S&D and Green / EFA groups in the European Parliament.