Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

Politics is still a largely male-dominated arena. The reasons behind this are complex, but one stands out.

Violence against female politicians is a seriously discouraging factor. Let's dig into this and see what the EU is doing about it. Stay with us.

Anna Lind, Isabel Kurasco, Joe Cox.

These female politicians were murdered while doing their jobs in EU countries.

And while extreme forms of violence against politicians, male or female, are very rare in the EU compared to other parts

of the world. There is an underlying truth that needs to be dealt with. Female politicians

are exposed to two severe and intersecting forms of violence, political violence, but also

gender-based violence. Now, while the increasing polarization of liberal societies has been accompanied

by rising violence against politicians, this is only half the story. When political violence

targets women because they are women, when it takes sexist and sexualized forms, and when

it seeks to discourage women from getting involved in politics, there is a clear gender

dimension, which means it needs to be understood and addressed through a gender lens.

It can take many different forms, from physical attacks to psychological and symbolic abuse,

including sexual and sexist comments, online hate speech and sexual harassment. But the impacts are

always serious. All these forms of violence discourage women from participating in politics,

which in turn perpetuates the current gender imbalance and under-representation of women

at all levels of political decision-making, which is a serious problem for any democracy

that aspires to be inclusive. Now, you must be wondering how big is the problem? Well, according to a study

conducted for the Council of Europe in 2018, 85% of female parliamentarians interviewed in 45 European

countries admitted to having suffered

psychological violence in the course of their term of office, and 47% had received threats

...