Research by the UFF shows that 9% of mentions of them were violent
Brazilian parliamentarians are the target of violent insults, criticisms and invalidations on social networks. A study of more than 1,500 messages posted on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube between July and December 2021 shows that 9% of them contained some indication of discursive violence against these federal congressmen and senators.
The survey Map of gender-based political violence on digital platforms, carried out by the Laboratory for the fight against disinformation and incitement to hatred in network communication systems (DDoS Lab), of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), analyzed the mentions of 79 federal deputies and 12 female senators of the 56th legislature (from 2019 to 2023).
According to the study, insults are the form of attack most used by social network users against female parliamentarians. This type of discursive violence, which according to the study is revealed in slurs such as “dumb blonde” or “slut”, appeared in 41% of offensive messages.
Then comes invalidation (26.6% of infractions). This type of offense aims to nullify the validity or diminish the importance of what was expressed by the parliamentarian, manifesting itself in phrases such as “such a thing is mimimi”.
Pure and simple criticism, expressed in expressions such as “she is a terrible professional” or “I hate so-and-so”, accounted for 24.5% of the offenses.
Other types of discursive violence seen, in fewer mentions, were threats – “there is more to death” or “I’ll teach you a lesson” – and hate speech “I had to be black”.
“This does not mean that male MPs are not attacked. They certainly are, and could be even more so. But what we have to look at is the nature of this violence. Men are often attacked as political figures. So-and-so is called corrupt, so-and-so is classified as a bad manager. While with women politicians, what sticks? His body, his appearance, his family, his intellectual capacity, his legitimacy in that space,” explains Letícia Sabbatini, a researcher who participated in the study.
Social media
Twitter was the platform with the most messages classified as discursive violence. About 24% of the content analyzed on this social network was offensive to MPs. On Facebook, the percentage drops to 4.4% of violent mentions. However, it is on this network that engagement rates for content that incorporates attacks on female MPs increase the most.
In the other networks, mentions with discursive violence were presented in the following portions of the posts: Instagram (4.7%) and Youtube (2.9%).
As for the tone used in the offenses, the study revealed that satirical rhetoric – found in expressions such as “macho woman!” and “pee standing up” – was the top one, appearing in 30.9% of offensive content.
“What is it? It’s the use of humor to disguise a disagreement, to indicate that it’s just a joke, that it doesn’t need to be imagined, that it has nothing to do with violence. It’s still violence, but it is a type of violence that is much more difficult for us to delimit”, explains Letícia Sabbatini.
Disqualifying rhetoric – expressions such as “he took the couch test” or “he entered university only for the quotas” – appeared in 22.3% of the offences.
Other rhetorical types found were the cynical rhetoric (“feminism is immoral” or “you feminists are all like that”), the competitor (“you are wrong” or “that’s not how it’s done”), the provocative (“I want see doing it”) and the violent (“then you get beaten, you don’t know why”), among others.
Among the violent mentions, it was observed that 8.6% used misogynistic language, i.e. to inferiorize, degrade or dehumanize the woman; 2.9% were racist and 1.4% related to LGTBQIA+phobia.
Female MPs from the left-wing ideological camp faced twice as many attacks as those from the right-wing spectrum. The major victims, in proportional terms (number of crimes compared to the total number of mentions) are the deputies Talíria Petrone (PSOL-RJ) – attacked in 50% of the mentions addressed to her -; Professor Dayane Pimentel (União-BA) and Jandira Feghali (PCdoB-RJ) – took offense in 33.3% of messages addressed to them.
In absolute terms (total number of violent mentions), however, the most attacked deputy was the conservative Carla Zambelli (PL-SP). Among the political parties, the most targeted targets were PCdoB, PSOL and PMB. “The political motivation was the most present among the attacks we mapped,” says the researcher.
Source: Terra
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