Violence Against Women Political Activists

In the last decade, research on violence against women in politics (VAWIP) has increased significantly. First identified by women activists in the Global South, VAWIP refers to behaviors that specifically target women as women by pressuring them to leave politics (Krook and Sanín 2016). Most scholarship in this area has focused on violence targeting women candidates and elected officials (Collignon and Rüdig 2020; Dalton 2021; Håkansson 2021; Herrick et al. 2021; Raney and Collier 2024; Schneider and Carroll 2020). Attention to women in formal politics is warranted given their important representational role. Women's presence in politics is a necessary first step to achieve political change and advance women's interests (Beckwith 2011). Yet existing scholarship emphasizing women operating within formal political institutions does not capture the full range of political activities in which women may engage. Despite growing scholarly attention to violence against women activists (Alam 2021; Neumann 2024; Zulver 2022; Zulver and Stallone 2025), work in this area has treated such violence primarily as a part of broader patterns of political repression, rather than as a form of gendered violence against women actors. While VAWIP-A and VAWIP share important features, they also involve distinctive mechanisms, targets, and motivations. Bringing these bodies of scholarship into conversation can offer a more nuanced analysis of how gendered violence operates across both formal and informal political arenas. The essays in this Critical Perspectives Symposium bridge this gap.