Diverse Political Women in Canada and Online Attacks: Experiences, Perspectives, and Insights

Multiple academic disciplines agree upon the importance of women having diverse representation in politics because their unique perspectives are strongly thought to have positive implications on policies that affect the health and well-being of all people (Clayton & Zetterberg, 2018). Yet, abuse or harassment levied at these women both online and offline likely diminishes their voices or desires to remain politically engaged. Using hermeneutic phenomenology and intersectional feminism, I explored the experiences of a diverse group of political women in Canada with online attacks to gain their insights on potential implications and strategies for change. The findings analyze the participants’ complex relationships with social media, the unique challenges of each platform, the interlock of online and offline harassment, the women’s resiliencies and strategies to cope with online attacks, and their ideas for potential resolutions. The implications for critical social work practice are identified as: insight on the continued need to challenge Eurocentric heteropatriarchal colonial institutions, online and offline; the importance for Canadian social workers to (re)imagine their roles in online spaces; and, the need to develop methods with interdisciplinary teams to combat ideological radicalization on online echo chambers. Regarding future research, there exists much potential. One focus I recommend is that an interdisciplinary team of people, representing various socio-political positionalities, study how to perform community building projects on online echo chambers.