Dropping Out of Politics? The Effects of Sexism and Gender-Based Violence on Political Ambition and Recruitment

Current empirical work focused on the UK suggests that experiences of violence among political elites is more widespread than previously thought and that women and ethnic minorities are particularly targeted– as both candidates and MPs. There is growing anecdotal evidence suggesting that a widespread culture of sexism in politics is to blame, raising fear among pundits and practitioners that gendered abuse and violence may become an additional constraining factor on the desire and ability of women to stand for office and pursue a political career. Yet, there is currently a research lacuna about how experiences of sexism and gender-based violence affect women’s rate of candidacy and whose ambition is most affected, even as it is known that the violence they face intersects with other forms of discrimination. Such intersectional violence risks fundamentally skewing who stands for public office, who desists from seeking a political career and why they do so. Does experiences of sexism and gender-based violence affect women' decision to drop out of politics? And how about BME/LGBT/disabled candidates? Are any specific type of women staying active on politics despite risking violence? This article investigates the gendered consequences of political violence on representation and political ambition at its expressive stage - once the initial decision to stand for office has been made (Lowless, 2012). It aims to look at what happens to candidates and MPs as they move along (or not, as the case may be) their political careers, making the decision to stay in politics or withdraw. This article uses original evidence from the Representative Audit of Britain survey of men and women candidates standing in the 2017 and 2019 General Elections. While empirically focused on the UK, the article presents a contribution to the comparative study of violence against women in politics (VAW-P) and gendered political violence (GPV) by looking at VAW-P as a supply-side factor in political recruitment. The empirical contributions of this article redirect academics, practitioners, and the wider public debate to consider the barriers to women’s descriptive representation and inform the development of new policy instruments to address the intimidation and harassment of political elites at different stages of political recruitment.