Like most households, mine has a morning routine. As we wait for our baby to wake, my partner makes me a coffee and I open an app designed to shield me from the worst of the internet. It has become as routine as checking my emails.
Social Protect automatically filters and deletes sexist, abusive and threatening comments directed at me across social media platforms. Some days, it removes thousands of comments before I even see them.
But I still check it. I scroll through what has been caught to identify anything that needs to be escalated to police or security. A good day is when there is only sexist abuse. A bad day is when there are death threats, wishes of sexual violence or detailed fantasies about harming me.
Since becoming a mother six months ago, there are also often messages targeting my family. It is a confronting daily ritual, but one that has become necessary to protect myself and the people I love.
Sadly, this type of abuse isn’t unique to me. As the “ditch the witch” billboards targeting the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, show, it is a daily reality for women in politics across the country – regardless of their party.
Lately, there’s been a growing normalisation of misogyny as a legitimate expression of political dissatisfaction. That’s why when I saw the billboards targeting Allan, I wasn’t just angry for her. I was angry for every woman and girl across the country.
I have been one of Jacinta Allan’s most vocal critics. She has made decisions that have angered me politically and personally. I have questioned her leadership and fiercely opposed much of what she has said and done as premier. But calling a woman a witch is not political criticism, and reducing women leaders to sexist slurs does not hold them to account.
I remember as a 20-year-old watching our first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, be subjected to this kind of abuse. We claim to have made progress for women in public life, but when this slogan re-emerged over the weekend, it was met with some of the same responses as the attacks on Gillard.
But one thing has changed since those dark days over a decade ago – more women have entered parliament, and they refuse to accept the expectation that abuse is “just part of the job”. In Victoria, the parliament now has more women than men. The government has a gender equal cabinet, and both the premier and the leader of the opposition are women. No matter the outcome of the November election, Victoria will probably have a female premier – and we can’t let this behaviour become normalised once again.
The cost of enduring daily abuse is difficult to quantify, but I know from personal experience that it is significant. For me, it affects sleep, relationships, mental health and personal safety. It changes how you move through the world, how you do your job as a politician and it forces you to think about security in situations where others do not.
And while some take the simplistic view that this is an individualised attack, the broader consequences affect us all. Research has consistently shown that gendered abuse discourages women from political candidacy, leadership positions or participating in public life. Young women watching from the sidelines see what happens to those who step forward, and many decide it simply isn’t worth it.
That should alarm anyone who values democracy and a diversity of views and voices in our halls of power. Because when women are driven out of political participation, we are poorer for it as a society.
But it doesn’t start and end with politics. This year, at least 29 women have lost their lives to gendered violence in Australia. This violence begins with attitudes and words. It begins with language that dehumanises women and creates contempt. It begins when sexism is treated as acceptable so long as the target is considered unpopular.
It’s further reinforced through justification, acceptance and silence. Every time sexist abuse is excused as political commentary, especially on a national scale, we contribute to a culture that diminishes the humanity of women and girls.
We shouldn’t have to relate to women for their safety to be valued. But if men want to make our society safer for their daughters, their mothers, their sisters or their partners, they must reject misogyny even when it is directed at politicians they oppose. For other politicians, it also means condemning it when it happens to women on the other side of the political aisle.
Because the moment we decide misogyny is acceptable when aimed at the “right” woman, we create a culture that threatens every woman. And ultimately, all of us pay the price.
Georgie Purcell is a Victorian upper house MP for the Animal Justice party.
