Short Abstract

While the study of violence in elections in Africa is common, less has been done to study gendered electoral violence. It is often difficult to distinguish gendered electoral violence from other forms of violence. The panel explores motives, forms and impacts in case studies and new approaches.

Long Abstract

While the study of violence in elections in Africa is common, less has been done to study gendered electoral violence. It is more common for women to be exposed to psychological, sexual and semiotic including digital violence – but other forms of violence also exist. The main aim of GEV is to deter women from entering and staying in politics. In a number of African contexts, it is often difficult to distinguish gendered electoral violence from other forms of violence in countries where organised violence is already pervasive, where coercion is common, violent actors have easy access to weapons and gender-based violence is rife. Bardell, Bjarnegard and Piscopo (2020) make the helpful distinction among gendered motives, gendered forms and gendered impacts of violence. Gender motives are linked to the use of violence to preserve men’s hegemonic control of the political system (a backlash against women’s entry into politics). Gendered forms reveal how men and women perpetrate and experience violence, whether gender was the motive or not. Gendered scripts are used to attack women, for example, to intimidate the opposition and to communicate to women that they do not belong in politics. Gendered impacts are linked to how violence is understood, regardless of its motivations and forms and how it influences men and women differently. Women active in politics is not a homogenous group therefore the panel welcomes contributions reflecting on intersectional perspectives such as age, ethnicity, marital status, race, sexualities et cetera. Papers can be conceptual, theoretical or empirical.

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