Overwhelmed by threats—and fearing for her personal safety Satya Rhodes-Conway the current mayor of Madison, Wisconsin in the US, announced on October 23 that she was dropping her bid for reelection. "The price of being in public office has gotten too high,” she said.
Globally, women in public life face alarming levels of political violence, including tech-facilitated sexual and gender-based violence, with little protection or recourse. While research finds chillingly high rates of violence against both women and men in politics, women are at greater risk and face more sexualized and gendered violence.
After Australian MP Helen Haines was deliberately hit by a car, doctors had to amputate both of her legs. In South Africa, a bloody campaign season included the killing of party activist Jeanette Magugu and a brutal home invasion against mayoral candidate Nhongo Solo. In Brazil, Ana Elisa Santos Silva and other candidates for public office filed police complaints about death and sexual violence threats on the campaign trail; a city councilor, Iara Pimentel, closed her X account due to threats and was hospitalized after a brick hit her at a rally. Bernadette Greene-Placentia, a US congressional candidate in Arizona, reported that she was attacked while repairing campaign posters and raped.
While attackers’ motives are often unclear, the result is the same--women and girls who speak up for their communities increasingly experience gendered violence and threats. After a 15-year-old made a video crudely lambasting India’s Prime Minister, she was inundated with rape and death threats. An Iraqi women’s rights leader who challenged an abusive amendment to Iraq’s personal status law was shot dead outside her home.
Technological developments also fuel gendered abuses. Of 720 European Parliament members, 46 women and four men had been depicted in or seen their online presence linked to deep fake sexualized images, according to a 2026 study. In the Asia-Pacific region, 18 percent of participating women parliamentarians faced doxing, according to a study.
These crimes are taking place amid a global backlash against women’s rights, with political power for women declining in many countries. After years of progress, the percentage of women national cabinet members globally declined to 22 percent in 2026, from 23 percent in 2024.
Experts increasingly warn that political violence deters women from running for office. With growing evidence that women’s leadership brings economic and social benefits, we all lose when women are pushed out of politics.
