Survey shows sharp gender gap in political harassment

Female mayors experience political violence at a much higher rate than their male counterparts, according to the results of a new study conducted by the Mayors Innovation Project.

The findings come as America faces an increase in political violence — including the assassination of Charlie Kirk last month and the killing of Minnesota State Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman.

“I don't know if America is ready to talk about the steps that are … giving greater permission and room for violence,” said former Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, who helped develop and facilitate the survey and conducted interviews with some of the other current and former elected officials who were polled.

According to the poll, female mayoral candidates reported experiencing harassment in greater numbers both while campaigning and while in office. Eighty-four percent of female candidates were harassed while campaigning, compared to 64 percent of male candidates. And once in office, 25 percent of female mayors experienced harassment at least three times per month, while 10 percent of male mayors reported the same level and frequency of harassment. Nearly twice as many female mayors also reported threats to their family as male mayors.

The survey was conducted in February of about 235 mayors, who answered the survey online. Respondents were about 60 percent male and 60 percent were full-time mayors (versus part-time). Of the respondents, 43 percent represented cities of less than 30,000 people and 42 percent represented cities with a population of 30,000 to 100,000. Only 15 percent represented cities over 100,000. The survey was funded by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and conducted in collaboration with RepresentWomen and the Center for American Women in Politics.

Former Kankakee, Illinois, Mayor Chasity Wells-Armstrong also helped develop and conduct the survey. She herself was the target of harassment as mayor, and told POLITICO in an interview that she did not want to run for a second term in part because of the threats she experienced.

While in office, Wells-Armstrong said someone shot a bullet through her garage door. Another constituent posted a photo of a mailer she sent out with the caption “this is good for target practice.” And one man left a voicemail saying that she should be thrown off the third floor.

The poll found that this type of harassment came at a cost to the mayor and to the city, in terms of additional security and also the time taken to deal with harassment or threats that could have been spent dealing with city concerns.

After the poll, the Innovation Project also conducted in-depth interviews with 49 female mayors. One of them said a local school had to add extra security after a potential threat was made to a mayor’s grandchild, and another said they spent half of their $10,000 salary putting up security cameras.

By far, the most common experience reported by mayors was degrading comments on social media, said Katya Spear, co-author of the report and managing director of the Mayors Innovation Project.

“It was so pervasive that we basically stopped reporting on it,” Spear explained.

Americans are taking threats of violence more seriously in the wake of the Kirk and Hortman assassinations. Some states have toughened penalties for politically motivated violence. Others are now removing the home addresses of politicians from public documents and websites.

Wells-Armstrong said that deeming crimes motivated by politics as hate crimes would be a big step, and also suggests publishing a list of people who commit political violence — similar to the sex offender database.

“If you hit people where they're going to be fined or lose their jobs or those types of things, I believe that that can be a big deterrent,” she explained.

Cities can also support increases in safety and security, the study’s authors suggest. Both Wells-Armstrong and Hodges said they were told they were overreacting when asking for additional security or for law enforcement to check on a threat — like the bullet holes in Wells-Armstrong’s garage door. Having an infrastructure that takes harassment and threats against all mayors seriously — including women — could prevent actual acts of violence and help mayors feel supported enough to continue doing their job well.

“In light of the many instances of physical and psychological threats, harassment, and actions documented here and in other research (and the media) recently, it’s critical to build public and media support for reasonable requests for safety-related staffing and infrastructure in a way that does not hinder the democratic process,” the report reads.