Gender Differences in Abuse: The Case of Dutch Politicians on Twitter
Isabelle van der Vegt
Online abuse and threats towards politicians have become a significant
concern in the Netherlands, like in many other countries across the world. This
paper analyses gender differences in abuse received by Dutch politicians on
Twitter, while taking into account the possible additional impact of ethnic
minority status. All tweets directed at party leaders throughout the entire
year of 2022 were collected. The effect of gender and ethnic minority status
were estimated for six different linguistic measures of abuse, namely,
toxicity, severe toxicity, identity attacks, profanity, insults, and threats.
Contrary to expectations, male politicians received higher levels of all forms
of abuse, with the exception of threats, for which no significant gender
difference was found. Significant interaction effects between gender and ethnic
minority status were found for a number of abuse measures. In the case of
severe toxicity, identity attacks, and profanity, female ethnic minority
politicians were more severely impacted than their ethnic majority female
colleagues, but not worse than male politicians. Finally, female ethnic
minority politicians received the highest levels of threats compared to all
groups. Given that online abuse and threats are reported to have a negative
effect on political participation and retention, these results are particularly
worrying.