How has literature broadened our understanding of violence against women in politics? Kuteleva (2026) tracks how research has expanded from physical violence to encompass symbolic harm and everyday phychological abuse.
Kuteleva (2026) highlights that literatue on violence againsts women in politics (VAWIP) has provided vital insights into how gender drives political exclusion. Foundational research by Krook and Restrepo Sanín (2016; 2020) first framed VAWIP as a type of hate crime and systemic backlash against women involving in political roles. Krook (2022) later built upon this foundation to address symbolic and semiotic damage, broadening the scope beyond physical agression to show representational tactics are used to delegitimize female politicians. Furthermore, an edited collection by Bjarnegård and Zetterberg (2023) pushes the concept even wider, demonstrating that gender-based political violence unfolds across a wide spectrum of contexts along a continuum connecting psychological and physical harm, rather that being restricted to formal election cycles or legislative halls.
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Kuteleva, A. (2026). Compliant Women, Constitutive Violence: Rethinking the VAWIP Counterfactual. Politics & Gender, 22(3), 873–878. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X26101020